How to Install Teak Flooring

Teak can add to the look of a room.

Teak flooring creates a unique look reminiscent of the tropics. The wood has a distinct grain patterns and rich colors. It installs just like other hardwood floors, using tongue and groove milling on the sides of the boards to hold them together. As with hardwood flooring, teak flooring is best installed with a pneumatic floor stapler, which you can rent at any home-improvement store. As with hardwood, you'll face-nail the first and last courses.

Things You'll Need

• Flooring paper underlayment
• Razor knife
• Staple gun
• Teak flooring (tongue and groove planks)
• Trim nailer
• Miter saw
• Pneumatic floor stapler
• Table saw

Instructions

1. Roll out flooring paper underlayment over the floor in rows, stapling it down with a standard stapler. Start at one wall and working your way across in courses, overlapping the sides of the courses by about an inch. Use a razor knife to cut the end of each strip to fit.

2. Lay the first row of teak flooring along your starting wall, with the grooved edge of the boards sitting one-half inch the wall. This space will allow the wood to expand if necessary, and will be hidden by the floor trim. Set the boards end to end, connecting the ends by their tongue and groove fittings.

3. Use a trim nailer to shoot nails through the face of the first row of teak boards, putting two nails per foot. Cut the final board with your miter saw.

4. Install the next three rows of flooring in the same fashion, top-nailing them and connecting the long edges by their tongue and groove fittings.

5. Use your pneumatic floor stapler to install the boards after the first three or four courses. (Note: The floor stapler is designed to sit on top of installed boards as it shoots through the new boards, so you have to lay several courses of flooring by hand before you can use the floor stapler.) Sit the floor stapler on the installed planks with the nose of the stapler sitting over the edge of the new planks, and shoot the flooring staples down through the sides.

6. Continue installing the teak boards in courses, one by one, with the floor stapler. Stagger the lengths of the boards, so they don't line up from course to course. Continue for as long as you can, until the far wall prevents you from properly positioning the floor stapler.

7. Nail in the final few courses with your nailgun, as you did at the beginning.

8. Use a tablesaw to length-cut the last course of teak flooring, leaving a half inch gap by the wall. The floor is now ready for floor trim.

Tips & Warnings

• Wear goggles when cutting the floor boards.

References

• BrazialianHardwood: Installing Teak Flooring.