For floors of kitchens, offices or other places where much wear will come, and where the expense of oak or other fine woods is not desirable, floors of rift Georgia pine may well be used. Birch and maple also make a good floor and have good wearing qualities. For parlors, halls, and for parquetry flooring, oak is used to a great extent, either by itself or in connection with other fancy woods. All hardwood flooring should be quarter-sawed. The usual thickness of flooring stock is ,~-inch, but for stores, factories, or public buildings, 11-inch or 14-inch stock should be used.
Stock. Spruce and pine floorings are carried in two grades— first and second quality. First quality is free from knots, while second quality will have small and tight knots.
Hard pine flooring is rated as rift, or "quarter-sawed," first and second clear, and star. Only rift hard pine should be used for a good floor, as "slash" boards will split and sliver. Oak flooring should always be quarter-sawed, and this as well as all hard woods should be used in narrow widths, .2A inches being as wide as should be used for first-class work. First-class flooring is usually grooved on the under side to lie close to the under floor and should be matched and blind-nailed for good work. For offices or factories, square edged boards will wear better and admit of renewal more easily than matched flooring. Floors laid diagonally or across the under floor ing will lie smoother and remain closer, than if laid the same way as the under floor. If the added stiffness is desired for mill floors, and it is not convenient to lay the floor diagonally, a degree of stiff ness may be gained by laying the floor square and nailing it in diag onal rows.
Paper and Deafening. .Between the upper and under floors, paper should be laid, and a deafening of plaster, quilt or mineral wood may be used. For mill or factory floors, two or three thick nesses of paper should be used, mopped with tar or asphalt.
Tiling and Mosaic. Where tiling or mosaic is used for the upper floor in wooden construction, special preparation will be needed to obtain a thick bed of concrete or bricks under the tiles. To do this the rough floor must be let down between the timbers, and sup ported by strips nailed to the sides of the floor beams, as shown in Fig. 184. A bed of at least 4 inches should be provided, and the beams should be cut off to a bevel on top as shown. Even then there is a tendency for the tiles or mosaic to develop a crack over the beams, and so metal ing is often used to prevent the concrete bed from cracking. This
preparation is necessary for old floors which are to be tiled, or where the tile floor covers only a portion of a new floor, but when the whole of a new floor is to be covered with tiles, and there is nothing to prevent, it will be better to set the floor timbers enough below the finished level to obtain the same result. (Fig. 185.) Narrow boards should be used laid ;-inch open to allow for swelling.
To prevent the moisture in the concrete from being absorbed too quickly by the boarding, and to guard against dripping, two thicknesses of tarred paper may be spread over the whole surface before the bed is laid, and the use of corrugated metal lathing is sometimes advisable. The preparation,of wooden walls for tiling is more simple. IIere it is only necessary to provide a firm and continuous sheet of plaster upon which the tiles are bedded. This may be done by cutting in between the studs, horizontal pieces two inches by the width of the studding and about a foot apart, upon which metal lathing is nailed; and a rough bed of cement mortar is spread upon this, allowing room for the proper bedding of the tiles. (Fig. 1S5.) flair should he used in the cement mortar on wire lathing.
Tiling. Tiles of various patterns and materials are used to a large extent for floors and walls of bathrooms, corridors and counting rooms. For fireplaces, and walls and floors of bathrooms, where the tiles are not subjected to hard wear, a plain glazed tile makes a clean and satisfactory job, but where much wear will come, the hard, vitreous, unglazed tiles will make a better wearing surface.
The foundation for tiles should be prepared from the best Port land cement, and should be perfectly level, and allowed to thoroughly harden before the tiles are laid. The foundation for both floor and wall tiles should be thoroughly brushed, to remove all dust and other foreign substance, and then well wet before applying the cement bedding. Portland cement should be used for setting floor or wall tiles, and for grouting the floors; and the best Iieene's cement for filling the joints in wall tiling. Clean sharp sand well screened should be used in equal parts with the cement for floors, and with two parts sand to one of cement for walls. The tiles must be thor oughly soaked in water before setting.