Installing Hardwood under Cabinet Toe Kicks, Advice Please.

[Ben Martin]

I started installing my new hardwood floors tonight, it went pretty well, except we were having problems with 15% or so of the staples not penetrating the flooring and just smooshing up, they were sort of easily removed by using a pair of needle nose. The flooring is very very dense, it is strand bamboo, made by Teragren. Very good stuff. Anyways, I got to looking at where we are going to be installing it next and realized that I am going to have to find a way to install the flooring under the toe-kicks of the cabinets (it is a combined family room/kitchen). Does anybody have experience with how to do this? My flooring can be nailed, stapled, or glued down, so I can always glue it. But do I need the fancy specialized flooring glue? Or would liquid nails do the trick? I am only going to be needing to find a way to install a strip that is at most 3 3/4" wide and then my stapler should be able handle it. Thanks for any advice/help in advance.

[matt norton]

Hey Ben, what we do is if possible is start at the toe kick and work away from it so you can nail it in place, but it sounds as if this is not your case. One way to do this is to rip off the tongue if you cant slip it into the groove and use a very good quality construction adhesive or in some cases we use a marine adhesive buy 3M called 5200, it is very strong, a few finish nails shot in as far under as possible,and you are there! Remember to leave about a 1/4 inch between the floor and cabinets. Hope this helps,Matt

["Jason Belous"]

when installing a floor with existing cabinets usualy you are going to need to install a shoe moulding or round nose. this will hide gaps and help secure after glued. and yes rip the tongue and if need be pin nail and cover with shoe.

[Ben Martin]

Thanks guys. I ended up getting it done today. We had started the flooring up against the far wall, so starting it at the toe kicks wasn't possible. The piece that we ended up butting to the toe kicks was only about an 1 1/4" so we just put a bead of adhesive on it. The piece that butted to it was faced nailed.

Too bad I am still having the problems with the stapler though. That strand bamboo is just soo dense.

[John Durscher]

Ben,

For your stapler problems you might check your output pressure on you compressor. One time when I was doing flooring I turned the output pressure down (I forget why) and neglected to turn it back up. The stupid staples wouldn't go in right - it took me a while to figure that one out! Another mistake I made was to forget to oil the flooring stapler.

Good luck with the project!

John