The team has recently completed installation of the hardwood floor. The product is a 3" wide, random length tongue & groove board installed with a standard flooring stapler. There are two unique challenges to using a continuous hardwood floor in this house. First, the modules need to come apart and reassemble on the mall so nailing down all of the boards is not an option. To get around this issue, we created joint covers that are 4 boards wide glued together in to a solid unit. By ripping off the bottom grooves on the outermost edges we are able to set these boards in to place over the joints and create a virtually invisible joint line. By cutting 1/2" deep saw kerfs every 2" on the underside of the joint covers they become much more flexible. This will insure that the boards will lay flat and accommodate slight variations in alignment. A little carpet tape is all we should need to keep them in place. Second, the floor contains radiant tubes which would leak if they were punctured by fasteners. To solve this problem we selected a board width (3") which breaks down evenly within the spacing of the tubes (12"). By determining the maximum reach of the 2" flooring staples, we were able to start the boards in a position where they would not hit the tubes. We don't have any pictures of the completed installation because we had to cover the floor with paper and Masonite as we were working to prevent damage, but we'll be sure to put up photos of the finished interior when everything is complete.

Solar Decathlon Tip: If you're using a flooring stapler, make sure that the little screws that hold the protective rubber sole in place are fully tightened. If not, they will leave a large gash in the floor everywhere you drive a staple (very hard to see at daybreak when the sun isn't fully up) and you will have to remove several rows of boards. Ask us how we know...

The wood flooring over our radiant subfloor.