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hardwood floor and door jambs

27K views 33 replies 17 participants last post by  cabinet runner 
#1 ·
so currently im trimming a house virtually by myself supposed to be one other guy with me all the time, also laying the hardwood. anyhow i have all the doors hung and cased, windows cased, almost all closets built just waiting for designs for the walk in closets + some baseboard down where there is tile

anyhow i started laying the hardwood, ive always undercut the jambs and every job ive ever been on the jambs are undercut for hardwood, tile gets cut to the jamb.. anyhow i went ahead and undercut the jambs, my contractor nearly freaks at me today and cant believe that i did this he wanted a 1/8-1/4 " notch taken out of the jambs to allow the hardwod to just tuck under them. i understand having the jambs fully sitting down on the floor to give more strength, so i tried to notch the jambs on 2 doors only to have the jambs shift or crack and the caulking break, even with a saw kerf and sharp chisel so i said the hell with it just undercut. anyhow how is it possible to lock hardwood with the tongue and groove + the endmatch at a doorway when you need space for the piece of hardwood to slide to lock it. some doorways are parrallel to the wood, some at 90 deg others are at 45 degrees,

what is the general opinion on this sorta thing, the house is behind scedule big time, should i take the time to fit the hardwood to the jamb or try to pick up the speed and get it done so the homeowner can have their new house before spring is in full bloom
 
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#3 ·
In my opinion the flooring should go under the jamb and trim (not with the jamb and trim just being notched) but fully under cut.Wood flooring expands and contracts with temp. and humidy changes and can push a jamb out of its place if it's installed in direct contact with the jamb.
As long as no more of the jamb is cut than needed (not 1/8" or 1/4" above the finished floor) .Thats the only way I've ever seen it done.:thumbsup:
 
#13 ·
he was saying that the notch is so that the hardwood looks like the jamb is undercut but by fitting the hardwood to the jamb it "locks" the jamb in place

my argument is that 1) if the door is shimmed and nailed correctly it shouldnt move

2) you need to be able to shift the piece of hardwood so that you can lock the tongue

3) wood expands and contracts, this wont shift the jamb if the wood is tight to it?

he was going on about how never undercut, they fit the tile to it, they dont have a tongue and groove to worry about they just drop it in place and make sure the grout line is even

this is the same contractor that doesnt believe in using shims when setting windows, using a fresh blade on a table saw when doing finish work " the garage is full of smoke when we rip something, and mdf walks up the blade and tilts on 2 or 3 degress because the blade is so bad. wont get rid of garbage, the living room has about 15 garbage bags and 3 piles of garbage in it, and i dont know whats what in the garage the garbage pile is slowly covering the plumbing fixtures
 
#14 ·
Kirk, don't know how to tell you to
deal with this guy.
just do what you know is right and
make him look better than he is.
It's obvious that he doesn't know
what he's talking about.
Yes, you undercut for the reasons
you stated (expansion.)
I do it for tile too, because that
grout joint is the first to fail.
Good luck with this guy, hope things
pick up enough that you can "fire"
him soon. :clap:
 
#19 ·
When floors are to go in after doors are hung (some builders insist on this), I find out the floor thickness and hang the doors up at finished floor height. The floor guy loves it--just slips his floor in... very little jamb cutting... and I don't have to recut doors so they will clear a rug.

Here are a few pics of how I do this (note if the floor is not level the floor guy gets to cut in the floor on the high side, as I hang the jamb legs level):
 

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#21 ·
Beats jamb cutting and if you have to cut jambs... you will likely have to pull and cut down some doors too.

For the house in these pics the floor was a 5/8" engineered walnut floor. So I made up a bunch of shim block stacks (1/2" mdo blocks with an extra ply shim to total 5/8"). For door openings with a high side, I used the "Peel-a-shim" stack instead of the ply block and just dial the height back down to get level.

Anyway, I run by all the openings and set out the shim blocks for the jamb legs to rest on when installing the doors. Doesn't take very long.

Pay me now or pay me later
 

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#23 ·
with the issue of call backs, this is part of the thing, im usually the guy getting sent to deal with the callbacks and fix things, the problems are with things which weve done things his way... when ive done things my way its done with walk away from it. come back when they want additional work done. im now ignoring his way for this reason , whats that old saying "do it right the first time" or something, not do it wrong the first time so we can bill the homeowner for comnin back time after time

also wanted to just trim the windows then come back after all the flooring was down and the painters were done all the walls before the doors were hung and cased, closets built, and baseboard, all this was doing was holding up everyone else .
 
#27 ·
ive used the bosch undercut saw in the past with a different contractor, he was awesome had like 3 of evertying on site for a house we completely remoddled. and there was only 2 of us

i just use a marples/Irwin japanese pull saw that has rip tooth configure on one side and a crosscut tooth on the other. it has a very thin kerf, good enough for me
 
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