Greetings -

Floor product - Shaw 3/8 thick hickory t&g engineered floor; aquabar barrier; angled staples
Room size 12 x 22; OSB subfloor; 27 year old house; previous flooring was carpeting

I am an experienced diyer. I have installed vinyl and tile but this is first hardwood install.
We installed about 1/4 of the flooring and developed bad gap that was widening. Then discovered the starting row was off and removed most of the floor by cutting the staples with a oscillating multi-tool (Bosch). We are fixing the starting row and because of the painful experience are obsessing over the straightness. We are checking the straightness with a 6' level and string line.

Questions -
How straight is straight enough? 1/64th, 1/32nd? Zero error(is that possible?)
How close can we really expect a wood product to be? When to discard a piece?
Any issues to watch regarding reusing all of the removed flooring (besides the obvious)?
What should we watch for so we can proceed with confidence and end up with great job?
TIA

I just installed 1,000 sqft of a floating Shaw hickory like you describe and the milling was perfect. Was it a HDF core with hickory on top and bottom? Starting off is the key to a straight install.

See if this looks the same.
http://www.floorbiz.com/BizForum/MSGVie ... sp?ID=1423

Floormeintucson - Thanks for the reply!

Our product is the regular ply with hickory surface veneer. Not HDF. It looks like the pictures of the flooring you laid. You look to be very meticulous and I have no doubt is shows in the final results. We are stapling the floor without glue. I originally used a string line and laser (and eyeball) to place the starting row. I am a newbie with hardwood floor install and missed some of the clues that later led to a expanding gap that caused me to pretty much start over.

I don't want that to happen again!! I am fairly picky and want a floor I can be proud of. Now we are, maybe, obsessing over getting the start right. We started by laying out the row with a string line and then running a 6' level (new trick read on the web) along the edge. Some error were revealed and we adjusted the row. Most of the edge we wouldn't have been able to get a hair in the gap but sometimes a little gap would be shown. We would adjust and then previous boards would show tiny gaps.

Is this tightness necessary or are we looking too close by overcompensating because of our initial problems?

I didn't discover the straightedge check until later so I didn't know to measure the error in the problem area that developed. I don't want to chase my tail if it isn't necessary but I certainly don't want to have problems appear later in the install.

My question is: How close is close enough? The Shaw product does to seem to be very well milled. How do I know if we are running into problems? And, of course, how do we make adjustments if problems arise?

TIA

obsessing is good. You can drive a screw driver in the subfloor and pull it tight while your nailing or even use a ratchet strap. There's also floor jacks. http://www.tools4flooring.com/hardwood- ... tools.html