I finally have my project underway. Lot's of challenges as I got into this, but those will be summarized in another post when I am finished.

I am installing Thomasville engineered flooring over 3/4" plywood subflooring. I am using a flooring stapler purchased from Harbor Freight (so far, so good) with 1 1/2" staples. As I look back at the sections that have been installed, I occasionally see small bumps in the flooring. My guess is that these are from staples that did not fully seat and are applying upward pressure on the grooves of the adjacent boards. I will increase the air pressure slightly going forward, but is there a way to safely knock these back down using a tapping block or similar, or do I risk damaging the flooring? Is this something that I should just live with?

You have the wrong stapler for the job.

It is the staples causing the pimples. Try taking a scrap piece of flooring, and placing on the pimple, and smack it with your hammer. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Floorguy - why do you feel that I have the srong stapler for the job? Isn't this just a matter of the staples not being driven in quite far enough? Shouldn't increasing the PSI drive them in a little farther? The stapler manufacturer recommends using a PSI of 70-90 lbs. I am on the low end of that range.

Some staples are too big (meaning too thick. 15 gauge is too big for engineered mostly) for engineered floors. And can cause those bumps in the surface as the staple lifts the layers of plywood. Doesn't happen with solids. What is the gauge of the wire of the staples you are using?

They are 15 1/2 gauge.

The flooring Mfg suggests 1 1/2 inch staples, but does not indicate gauge.

What size / guage staples do you recommend?

what is the THICKNESS of your flooring?

1/2" engineered

You need a stapler that shoots a thinner gauge staple.

High Pro AS-4090

shoots 1"-1½"

http://www.highprotools.com/products/as4090.html







Spotnails and a few others have the right gun, that shoots longer, thinner staples

Thanks for the responses. I have a call into the Thomasville tech team regarding proper stapling of this product. I'm glad that I noticed this early in the process. I will stop at Harbor Freight tonight to see if they have thinner gauge staples (higher number is thinner - right?) that can be used in their stapler.

You cannot use the thinner gauge (higher #) staples in the same stapler that used the 15 gauge staples. It doesn't work that way. They are not interchangeable. Each stapler uses only ONE gauge of staple but the staples come in different lengths. The reason the bumps appeared was the 15 gauge is generally too thick for a 1/2" multi-ply engineered wood floor and lifted some of the plys, causing the bumps. I've seen it many times in the past when installers tried using those big staples OR the stapler was not adjusted properly.

I will bump up the air pressure (I have it set at the low end of the recommended range) to see if that seats the staples a little bit better without going through the tongues.

I am still waiting on technical people from Thomasville to call me back to discuss.

OK, let us know what they say???


We have been there, and are talking from many years of experience. It is the engineered construction, that doesn't like the thicker gauge fastener.

Floorguy - you had recommended a couple of staplers above. In your experience, what length, gauge and crown staples do you feel work best in 1/2" engineered flooring?

Again, I am using 1 1/2", 15 gauge, (1/2" crown?) staples

18 or 19 gauge 1¼" If it were 5/8" thick boards, I'd recommend the 1½" 18 gauge.

I ordered the Bostitch 18 gauge 1 1/2 inch stapler (sx150-bhf-2) today. I probably won't have it until Thursday, though. I guess that I will hand-nail a few boards today so that I feel like I am making progress. I'll update again once I try the new stapler.