Fixing Hardwood flooring

[bebb345]

House built early '70,s with elect. u/f heating (now redundant) what is best method of fitting HW floor. on a bitumised?solid floor is very brittle and will not accept nails.

[BenDToy]

Have you thought about using an engineered board. Just like laminate, but instead of a printed top layer, it would be real wood. Not cheap but very effective, and is laid as a "floating" floor. If this isn't an option, then solid hardwood flooring can be "glued" to the existing floor. Mine is. You need a fairly specialised adhesive but the end result is very good. Don't count on lifting it easily though. I understand you could also use screws to fit it, and then "plug" the holes. I think this would be very slow, and hard work, and in your case you would need to drill and insert rawlplug type things in every hole to hold the screws. Good luck with it.

[sddsddean]

What was the finished surface originally? I only ask this, as I used to live in a house with underfloor heating and the floor was hardwood blocks. They were stuck to the floor by the bitumen, but as BenD says, I am sure you could get a suitable adhesive. Time to visit the man in the brown coat at your local hardware shop.