In doing a search I found little about glueing in the tounge and groove I think I saw Chuck mention where he does't glue in the feild. I thought I saw a installer useing glue on the joints a few years back. I'm useing V.G. Fir. The T&G does not seem to be a very tight fit either which wories me. The joist are 24 And subbfloor is 1x12 and not very evan thicknesswise. 70 year old house The rest of the house has survived fine but the kitchen was done with a lessor grade because they put vinal over it from the start .

If you are installing a SOLID wood floor, verticle grain doug fir, do NOT glue the T&G's. The T&G is for installing the flooring by blind nailing and to keep the surfaces of the flooring relatively even. I have installed lots of fir and I know what you mean by sloppy T&G's. Not much one can do about that except to return it and get a better milled product, if available. As to your subfloor, try to repair and flatten as well as possible and use 15# asphalt felt over it. Sometimes, one needs to remove badly broken and cracked subfloor boards and renail the existing. That doug fir was used for everything from subfloors to flooring to decks and trailer floors. Although somewhat attractive, not very hard, dents easily and as you're finding out, the milling can be sloppy. Your only other install alternative would be to glue and nail to the SUBFLOOR, not to itself. Good luck.

Thanks for the reply Gary I'm up north of you in Redding I don't know if you have heard of Mc Cloud it's an old Mill town by Mt Shasta The mill built a whole bunch of houses for the employies in the 30's. The mill is being dismantaled as we speak. When I tore off the four layers of old vinal they had used newspaper for a vapor bairrer and they were in pretty good shape they were from 1967 funny what a house was sellind for back then. Guess I'll try and shim with the felt as best I can I guess you dont want to glue so it can move? One other thing the t&g seems off center is that normal and if s does the thinner amount go to the bottom.

One more question guys and girls. The old floor was only blind nailed on the joists is that what I should do or can I nail between joists? Much thanks for any advice. Sure would be nice if the floor was smooth and or the T&G was tight.

You can always drum sand the subfloor. This was done occasionally when solid lumber subfloors were used. Use a rental and some very course sandpaper, like 20 grit. You can/should nail between the joists if you have something (a subfloor) to nail to. If the flooring has no relief kerfs cut on the backside, then install the flooring with the thicker surface above the tongue facing up and the thinner side down. As I said, you can glue to the SUBFLOOR but not in the T&G's. The glue one would use to glue to subflooring would be an adhesive that will flex as the flooring moves. If you glue the T&G's together and that floor moves, it will actually crack the boards as the glue is stronger than the weak points in the flooring. One only usually glues T&G's on engineered floating floors. Your's isn't that and doesn't perform the same way.

Gary Thank you so much for giveing so freely of your advice I see you get up real early to do that. I pretty much have to use felt because theres 3/4 inch gaps between the fir underlament They used nothing orig. and the rest of the floors look fine after 70 yrs. I feel better haveing a vapor/ wind barrier between. I'll go ahead and nail it off better cause they only put 2 nails in each 1x12 and shim with 15lb felt . I did a test piece useing my porter cable 18 ga. gun with 2 1/2 inch nails seems to work o/k not a real big floor. best regards Tom

You're welcome. BTW, the time set on this board is EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME, which is four hours ahead of us.