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New Wood Floor
Over the winter, I plan to rip-out the original salon carpeting as well as the kitchen tile and install engineered hardwood flooring (real hardwood bonded to premium Baltic Birch cabinet plywood substrate). The thinner flooring requires the full glue-down method. Curious if there is an expert out there on this in terms of materials and methods giving this is a living, flexing floor vs. typical home installation.
Thanks
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11 Replies
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We did ours through the whole bus in 2009. The original berber carpet was a mess when we bought the bus so we planned, schemed and saved for about a year. I asked questions of everybody that would listen. We went with the engineered hardwood and bought ours from Lumber Liquidators.
I talked to convertors, entertainer bus drivers and owners, flooring installers and contractors. I wanted to know their opinion on installation, wear and any thing else they wanted to tell me.
One person said to float it and one person said to nail it. Neither of these had any experience with putting it in a bus. I found almost 100% consensus to glue down the engineered hardwood with “Bostik’s Best” and after 4 years of rolling every week we have zero loose boards.
It was a big job. Every edge piece was ripped, cut or both. When we removed the carpet we found the center of the bus had been marked on the wood with a chalk line from front to back. It was hard to believe it was still a visible line after 14 years. We worked off that line toward the edges and five long days later we were finished.
We did go with the hand scraped distressed look. When it scratches or dents we use the stain pen on it and never see it again. My wife still loves it.
Davy
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I know a converter whose coaches are used for entertainers, and as such have to be durable and trouble free.
He glues his floors down and has never said he has an issue despite the facts they get a lot of traffic, spills and just plain abuse.
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I worked side-by-side with Ernie installing engineered hardwood in my bus – the entire bus. It took well over 150 man hours. I couldn’t agree more about choosing a wood that’s ‘character grade’. You want something that has enough built-in hand scrapes, flaws, or character that dropping a utensil won’t be noticed or can easily be colored in. Gluing with Bostiks is what we did and it is a proven technique. My bus actually lost weight after installing the engineered wood floor. I used a product from Mirage. There products have a 4 mm hardwood wear layer on a high quality 7 ply substrate. The boards are 5″ wide and 0.5″ thick. I recommend it! NFI.
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Thanks for the info! When I did my house, I worked with a very small company who does true “radial cut” quartersawn flooring (my house is QS White Oak). My coach is solid Walnut, so I am thinking about quater sawn walnut, which is very unusual and cool looking.
I know the Go-Pedal lifts right off (I recently replaced the sensor) but am wondering how hard it is to work around the brake pedal?
Thanks
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I left the carpet under the two front seats and at the drivers feet. I drive with out shoes most of the time and like the carpet there. I purchased a piece of matching trim and run the wood up to it.
DKO
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I worked the wood right up to and slightly around the pedals – carpeted behind the pedals.
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nice job looks really nice. Good idea on the steering column.
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I have to agree with David, Ernie is a master craftsman and generous with his advice. Ernie did my 36′ WL front to back in engineered maple a few years ago and the results were amazing.
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Do you have an email for Ernie? I don’t have a Yahoo forum logon.
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