Where to start

[Johnmcg4]

Hello all
While I am not a professional contractor, I do like to DIY.
I’m going to start to lay 1/2” x 7” engineered flooring on the upper level of my home soon. I will be stapling it to the subfloor. I will be starting in the hallway, then moving into the bedrooms . My question is, is it best to start at the stair nose or in the middle of the floor or closer to the wall? The wood is tongue and groove.

Thank you in advance
John M

 

[highup]

Hard to tell without a layout or at least a photo or three.

 

[Johnmcg4]

Thanks for your reply
Not sure of what my photos should be of.
When starting fresh and having the top of a step involved.
Is it better to start there or it doesn’t matter

 

[highup]

The room shape, the direction that the planks are laid, and their orientation to the hallway need to be considered. A drawing helps to see what you are doing.
If the stairnose is grooved, it might be necessary to either insert the tongue of a plank into that nose. .....or fit the groove in a plank against the groove in the nose.
That said, and starting in the hallway is the top stair edge flawlessly parallel to the walls in the rooms you will be going into?
If you start at the stairnose, will you end up with the last row of planks in the bedrooms being only 3/4" wide? ...or having to put a 1/2 inch wide strip Ina bathroom doorway?
You need to pull a string from the far end of a bedroom, through the hall, then to the far end of the other bedroom. The string has to be parallel with the walls.
(This is why a drawing helps. I have no idea how the bedrooms relate to the hall, so I'm guessing)
You say the boards are 7 inches wide. From that string, you need to do some math to figure out where the planks will end along the long walls. measuring from your string both directions to opposite walls, will you end up with a skinny strip as the last piece?. Let's say from that string, you end up with planks 5" wide on both sides of the room. You'd be cutting about 2" off those planks. That would be ideal.
Ok, now measure from the string to where your stairnose will be. Does it work there too?
Just saying, you need to find where the planks end at all the walls before you start, not simply to make the stairnose work and everything else work out bad.
Also, when measuring for the layout. I will cut up one plank into 3 or 4 inch slices. Stack those slices tightly together, end to end as if you are laying the floor. If the planks are truly 7", then 10 planks will be exactly 70 inches.
If the planks are just 1/32" under that claimed 7" width, you will be off by 5/16" every 6 feet.
If the actual planks are 1/16" under 7", you will be off by 1 and 1/4 inches if the room is 12 feet wide.
Chop up a plank into 4" or so pieces and stack them together. Then duct tape them together. This is called a story board. Use this stack of planks as your tape measure. Start you story board exactly on your string. Find all starting and ending points first to best decide where to begin.

 

[Johnmcg4]

Thank you for the response
This is a drawing of the layout and the direction I would like the flooring to go also I identified the top step I was referring to
Thanks John

 

[highup]

That helps a lot.
....man, you must hate yourself. that's not an easy layout to figure a starting point. You need to spend a lot of time with a string to understand your starting and ending points...... Just the long walls (left to right), not the end cuts.
I'd pull a tight string left to right along your longest arrow. The area in the hall that includes the stair nose. Align the string so that it works perfectly with the stair nose.
......from that tight string, measure to each long wall and figure out what's the planks will end up.
If, starting at the nose works, then use that to figure the starting point.
That said, you have a lot of long walls and the last thing you want, it to avoid having any plank end up 1/2" or 3/8" short of touching the wall. It's hard to fit a 1/2" sliver of material onto a tongue and groove.
So make up a story board from lots of 4 inch strips cut from a single plank. Chop saws work great.
Start the story board exactly on your string and use it to help measure from the string, to each of your long walls, hallway, bedrooms, everything.
This knowledge will help decide the idea starting point. It's a lot of work, but it's the first thing I do to find a starting point.

 

[Johnmcg4]

Thank you again for your reply
You are right that it isn’t an easy layout
It’s why I go to the pros
Thanks John

 

[highup]

Pros? I don't do nail down.
It's strange how often that a simple room with only 3 start and stop points can be difficult to decide where to start the first row. Two walls line up with having to cut anything off the planks, but the third wall ends up needing to add on a skinny 3/4 inch strip.
So, you shift the rows to eliminate adding that 3/4 inch strip and it screws up the other two walls. It's a Murphy's law thing.
But it's well worth the time to check all the walls from your preferred starting row position to discover beforehand if that will work. Sometimes moving your starting row just one inch makes everything work out.

 

[Tom Picciani]

Pros? I don't do nail down.
It's strange how often that a simple room with only 3 start and stop points can be difficult to decide where to start the first row. Two walls line up with having to cut anything off the planks, but the third wall ends up needing to add on a skinny 3/4 inch strip.
So, you shift the rows to eliminate adding that 3/4 inch strip and it screws up the other two walls. It's a Murphy's law thing.
But it's well worth the time to check all the walls from your preferred starting row position to discover beforehand if that will work. Sometimes moving your starting row just one inch makes everything work out.

I had 8 borders to deal with on the upstairs floor. 2 room walls, 2 hallway walls, the stairs, the kitchen entry, and the sliding door was inside the room by 2 inches. Glad I went with 9 x72 planks!

 

[Tom Picciani]

Guss that’s 7. Unless you count the bedrooms and bath entries