Leveling the floor with OSB sheets. How to make a floor from OSB: features, installation technology, recommendations and reviews

Installation of OSB is used on wooden floor during repairs flooring from tongue and groove, to reinforce the subfloor or to provide a continuous layer when laying small-format cladding (for example, tiles, PVC tiles, parquet).

Although the quality of oriented strand board is superior chipboard characteristics, this construction material is not suitable as a finishing floor covering:


Therefore, OSB is used more often as a subfloor:


In this case, you need to know how to properly attach OSB sheets to floorboards/joists and use offset seams in adjacent rows.

There are oriented particle boards several types:

  • OSB-2 – only for dry rooms;
  • OSB-3 – can be used in rooms with high humidity;
  • OSB-4 – for load-bearing structures.

Important! Since the subfloor has low maintainability, it is prohibited to use OSB-2 in it. The slabs are additionally treated with an antiseptic and waterproofing material.

The main characteristics of oriented strand boards are:

  • density – 630 kg/m³;
  • thermal conductivity – 0.13 W/m*K;
  • linear expansion – 0.15% at a humidity of 70%;
  • straightness – 0.6 mm/m;
  • the perpendicularity of the opposite sides of the sheet is within 3 mm;
  • thickness deviation – 0.3 – 0.8 mm (ground, untreated, respectively).

Advice! Manufacturers produce slabs different sizes, which must be taken into account when purchasing in order to reduce cutting waste for specific dimensions and room configurations.

Installation technology

To lay it down correctly sheet material over an existing plank floor, the following conditions must be met:


Important! When laying parquet, PVC tiles, other small format claddings, the screw heads must be puttied.

Depending on the type of finishing floor covering, OSB boards are oriented towards wooden floor not the same:

  • for small format decorative materials It should be ensured that the seams of tiles and PVC tiles do not coincide with the joints of OSB boards;
  • when choosing laminate, tongue and groove, decking or parquet board It is better to lay the rows of OSB across the direction of the long facings of the finishing layer or at an angle of 45 degrees for a diagonal layout (relevant in rooms with defects in the geometry of the walls).

Advice! On OSB it is allowed to apply a screed made of DSP or self-leveling floor. However, the surface of the oriented strand board must be pre-treated with a waterproofing material to avoid leaks into the lower floor and swelling of the structural material itself.

Finish flooring repair

The main problem with plank flooring is a floorboard or several boards, which develop a transverse “hump” during periodic changes in humidity or during drying. This leads to an increase in the repair budget:


In other words, OSB with a thickness of 22 mm or more should be used. This problem can be solved by preliminary grinding or scraping of the base:

  • a grinder or sander will smooth out the “waves”;
  • the contact area of ​​the subfloor layers will sharply increase;
  • You can get by with oriented strand boards of smaller thickness.

However, this is not always possible when the existing floor covering is thin.

OSB subfloor top layer

  • provide a level base for the floor covering;
  • increase spatial rigidity and strength of the base;
  • reduce labor and material consumption of work.

Unlike floorboards, self-tapping screws are screwed into OSB boards strictly vertically. When the hardware is tilted, a change in geometry and warping of the material over time may occur.

The main problems arise when opposite walls diverge (trapezoid instead rectangular shape premises). In this case, it is necessary to mark the existing wooden floor in order to trim only the slabs of the first row:


Thus, structural OSB material Suitable both for creating the top layer of a subfloor and for repairing a finished floor covering made of tongue-and-groove boards if dismantling this cladding for some reason is not practical in the room. When choosing an oriented strand board, the labor intensity of the work is reduced, House master makes do with the existing arsenal of tools.

Advice! If you need repairmen, there is a very convenient service for selecting them. Just submit in the form below detailed description work that needs to be done and offers will be sent to your email with prices ranging from construction crews and companies. You can see reviews about each of them and photographs with examples of work. It's FREE and there's no obligation.

New materials are constantly appearing on the market with which you can level a concrete base. These include oriented strand board (OSB). It has become a complete replacement for plywood or chipboard. OSB boards They also have excellent thermal insulation qualities, which puts them in a leading position. At the same time, you need to know how to properly level the floor with help and what the subtleties are in the work.

Types of slabs

OSB boards are presented in the form of layers of glued wood chips, which is also very highly compressed. Usually everything is done in three layers. Chips are placed perpendicularly inside, and along outer layers– along the entire slab. The following main ones are distinguished types of OSB slabs:

As for the thickness of the slab itself, much depends on the purpose of use. If you need to get rid of minor defects in the floor surface, then 10 mm will be enough, but for significant potholes - 10-15 mm. An even greater thickness will be required to install a floor on joists. In this case, you need to choose a layer of 20-25 mm.

Application area

When laying OSB on the floor is used, you should understand for what purpose this is all being done. There are main areas where it is used this material:

At the same time, it is worth paying attention to the fact that there are enough, thanks to which it is possible to fully carry out installation on various bases.

Advantages

Any room can be brought to perfect condition if you use an OSB board. In some cases, you don’t even have to do any subsequent finishing of the subfloor. There are other compelling arguments in favor of choosing this material:

Right choice

With a huge range of products on the market, it can be very difficult to choose a specific option for the job. To ensure that the installation of smallpox on the floor is successful High Quality, you should follow certain tips regarding selection.

When working, it is best to avoid using a jigsaw for cutting for the reason that side surface very rarely remains level.

Laying on a concrete base

If it is necessary to level the floor with an OSB slab, you should carefully prepare the base for work. Fill all possible cracks and potholes, get rid of defects as much as possible. There should be no garbage. After all, the mounting adhesive must have excellent adhesion to the base. It would be a good idea to cover the concrete floor with a primer to create a dense film on the surface. During operation, this will relieve the screed from dust.

The next steps are to lay out the sheets over the entire surface of the room. Along walls and other structures, slabs should be cut to size. The reverse side of the slabs is covered parquet glue based on rubber. To ensure that the glue is applied across the entire width of the material, a notched trowel is used. After this, the sheets are glued to the concrete floor.

To ensure the reliability of the entire structure, the OSB board is fixed with driven dowels. To ensure that everything here is strong, the fasteners are located at a distance of 20-30 cm from each other. The exception here is dry room, when dowels will be sufficient only in the corners of each of the slabs.

Between the plates there should be a width of about 3 mm. There is also a seam between the wall, but slightly larger - 12 mm. These gaps will help compensate for the expansion of the slabs under the influence of temperature changes and changes in humidity. No swelling will occur during use.

The final stage is to clean the surface from dust and debris. Seams along the walls in the room are sealed polyurethane foam. The entire “cake” will dry in about 3-4 hours. More accurate data is shown in the instructions from the manufacturer. If there is excess foam, it should be cut off with a sharp knife. In the future, you can carry out finishing and flooring work.

Installation on joists

You will not need to use leveling screeds to create a flat surface in the room if you purchase OSB boards. Time is saved due to the fact that you do not need to prepare a solution for leveling the floor yourself. This reduces the overall repair costs to some extent.

In this case you will have to do . In addition, materials can be placed into the created structure to improve it. protective functions from moisture, unnecessary sound and noise, as well as improve thermal insulation qualities. In addition, the floor is leveled quickly and in the shortest possible time.

Attaching the joists to concrete base performed using anchors or dowels. Depending on the thickness of the purchased OSB boards The distance between the logs will be determined. The thicker, the wider the distance. With a step of 40 cm, there should be a slab with a thickness of about 15-18 mm. If the distance between the logs is more than 60 cm, then the material itself must have a thickness of at least 22 mm. This is provided by the OSB floor leveling technology.

After installing such a design, there will be a space inside that can be filled various materials. It's mostly isolation. For the first cold floors, it is perfect in the form of mineral wool or polystyrene foam, and in the presence of damp basement – vapor barrier films or membranes.

The placement of the slabs should be across the joists. We must not forget about expansion joints, which should be determined in the middle of the joists. Gaps are set not only between various slabs, but also along the wall in the room. The sheets used can be attached to the joists using nails or self-tapping screws. True, it is best to choose spiral or ring nails. Along the perimeter of the sheets, a fastening pitch of 15 mm should be maintained, and on intermediate supports - 30 mm. When using nails, measure the distance from the edge of the slab to approximately 10 mm. As for the size of the fastener, the length should be approximately 2.5 times greater than the thickness of the OSB sheet used. In this case, leveling the concrete floor with your own hands will be at the highest level.

OSB processing for finishing

When you have received an answer on how to level an OSB floor, you can think about finishing. Processing must take place in strict accordance with . The simplest option is to coat the existing sheets with varnish, place skirting boards around the perimeter along the walls and rejoice natural look material. But still, in most cases, when they think about how to level a concrete floor with their own hands, they subsequently lay the floor covering. The specific treatment depends on the type of coating, as well as the desired result.

  1. Ceramic tiles on the floor. The base structure should not move or move. This applies to a greater extent to the floor on the joists. The surface should be sanded wire brush or sandpaper. The work uses only special glue that can connect wood and. Only in this case will you get excellent leveling followed by tiling.
  2. Clean finish. As mentioned earlier, the surface is not covered with anything. But at the same time, you should think about carefully protecting the slabs from external influence. To do this, varnish is applied to the top in several layers or other special means. They will create a barrier against wear and destruction. Special components in the covering elements prevent the appearance of various insects and especially the bark beetle.
  3. The materials are durable and tough. It can also be used to cover the OSB leveling layer. In addition, the laminate has special fastenings that allow you to forget about many other requirements for the subfloor. The result should be a flat surface. The interior will not only be beautiful, but also durable.
  4. Linoleum. There is an alternative to this floor covering - carpet. For their flooring there is very important requirement– the base of the floor must be perfectly level. Otherwise, over time you may encounter serious defects. Except performance characteristics altitude changes will be reduced to nothing appearance and attractiveness. Stepping on such a surface, you will be able to feel every defect (cracks, crevices, gaps, bulges, screws, etc.). One level will allow you to get the scraping process, which will need to be done before laying the floor covering.

Using OSB boards for the base floor in any room allows you to get a flat surface on which you can subsequently lay almost any type of floor covering. Compliance with technology will lead to a positive result. The main thing is to choose wisely specific type plates to work with and follow the instructions.

Our home is our fortress, warmth and comfort. We are most likely uncomfortable if the floor in the apartment is uneven. This issue can be easily resolved with the help of OSB floor slabs, laying them on a concrete or wooden floor. And who doesn’t know the meaning of OSB, now I’ll tell you everything in detail in this article.

What is OSB?

The meaning of OSB is Oriented Strand Material.

Today, it is a fairly common option for floor coverings.

Plywood is made from solid layers of wood and has a smooth surface, and particle board (OSB) is an analogue of large compressed fractions of thin planks. If the destruction and delamination of materials is considered to be durability and strength, then undoubtedly both materials deserve to be called durable, but due to the fact that plywood consists of a solid sheet panel, it is several times stronger in bending than an OSB board.

It is necessary to note the main advantages of particle boards: due to its high density of glued materials, it has a single frame, therefore it is very popular in use.

To conceive, fix and lay a floor with your own hands, no special specialized education is required; it is enough to have the desire and a few construction tools. And starting from draft, having a simple skill to work and keeping at hand building level, hacksaw and hammer, you can easily move towards the designated target.

Laying OSB on a concrete base

It is important to understand that with concrete base you will have to work more consciously, because it requires more attention than to a wooden floor.

For example, let's take a concrete area that was poured poorly and unevenly; it has waves and roughness.

To level such a floor, you will need to work hard, but you can really do everything yourself with your own hands.


Laying OSB on a wooden floor

Continuing the theme of the base before laying OSB boards, let's talk about wood flooring.

It's important to fix wood covering, if it fails due to roughness, simply grind it with a plane.


Before installing the particle board, you should also ensure a clean surface and remove all metal fasteners, if any.

Having completed the leveling, you should proceed to next stage. The OSB layer, for ease of installation, can be divided into several parts.

We lay the sheets step by step on the prepared flat surface, strengthening them with self-tapping screws at intervals of 20-30 cm. We also fill the seams between the sheets with polyurethane foam.

And now the OSB floor is laid; finally, it is necessary to sand the boundaries between the sheets.

From the author: Hello, dear reader. Are you replacing floors? Then you are exactly at the right place! But the meaning of the expression “change floors” implies not only replacing the floor covering. If you are 100% sure that your floor is perfectly flat, then, of course, you can limit yourself to just laying linoleum. But in my practice, this only happened in 1 case out of 10. Today we will look at the question of how to properly lay OSB on the floor under linoleum to protect you from disappointment during repairs.

If you buy new, beautiful linoleum and lay it on an uneven surface, your joy from the purchase will not last very long. No matter how expensive and high-quality the material is, on a floor with defects it is destined to last half its intended service life, so soon you will have to change it again.

Types and properties of OSB

The full “name” of OSB is oriented strand board. You may also come across the name OSB or OSB, but the essence remains the same. Due to its qualities, this material is widely used in the construction of structures of any type, from shopping pavilions to country cottages and residential buildings.

Oriented strand boards (known abbreviations: OSB, OSB) are a popular construction and finishing material, consisting of several layers of pressed wood shavings impregnated with polymer resin. The orientation of the chips in the layers is different, which gives the sheets additional strength and reliability of fixation of fasteners. One of the most important areas using OSB is flooring. The plates are perfect for the device solid foundation under such finishing coatings as parquet, laminate, carpet, linoleum and tiles.

  • directly onto the concrete surface;
  • on top of an old wooden floor;
  • installation on logs.

Flooring on joists is the most in the best possible way installation of OSB floors due to the ease of work and high technology of the process. With this method, to obtain a perfectly flat surface, there is no need to level the base cement screed, and the empty space can be filled with insulation, noise and waterproofing. In order to lay slabs with high quality, it is not necessary to be a skilled craftsman or have expensive tools. Installation is completely done by hand.

Flooring technology

The most common method of laying OSB on joists is to install a floor on the existing reinforced concrete floor of the apartment. The supporting structure is a wooden beam with a thickness of 6 to 15 cm and a height of 10 to 25 cm. Its dimensions depend on how the slabs are planned to be laid and joined in the future. Fastening to the base is carried out using dowels.

With a lag pitch of 0.5 m, OSB sheets up to 18 mm thick are used for flooring, and with a lag pitch of 0.6 m - 20 mm or more. When arranging floors on the ground floor, especially when the apartment is located above the basement, between reinforced concrete floor and joists, it is necessary to provide a layer of waterproofing, and the space between wooden beams fill mineral wool. This solution will prevent the possibility of dampness entering the room and increase the energy efficiency of building structures.

Installation of OSB is carried out with the long side perpendicular to the logs. Docking is carried out in the center of the support beam. The width of the gap between the sheets should be 3 mm, and the distance from the edge of the flooring to the wall should be 12 mm. Self-tapping screws or ordinary nails can be used as fastening elements for OSB. Fastening is carried out in increments of 150 mm, maintaining a distance of at least 10 mm to the end of the slab to avoid the formation of chips. The length of the screw or nail should exceed the thickness of the OSB by 2-3 times.

Rough coating

The installation of a durable subfloor is the most important stage interior work around the house. Its installation can be done with your own hands using a pile, column or tape types foundations. The logs are installed in increments of 50-60 cm, the same as when laying over the existing floor. Distinctive feature arrangement of the subfloor - the need for careful protection of the support beams from dampness and moisture.

For this everything wooden structures and lower OSB side applied bitumen mastic or special protective polymer compounds. To prevent damage to the flooring from moisture released from the air inside the room, you should lay vapor barrier material. The space between the joists is insulated. Mounted OSB is the basis for the finishing coating.

Finishing

OSB slabs on joists can be used as a subfloor roll coverings, laminate, tile or parquet. In some cases, sheets can simply be painted or varnished. Each option has its own areas of application. Features of the materials are as follows:

1. Linoleum. This type requires careful preparation of the surface on which it is laid. All irregularities must be eliminated; There should be no level differences in the places where the plates join. Installation gaps must be filled with sealant and cleaned. Any defects in OSB can cause mechanical damage to linoleum. Its area of ​​use is kitchens, bathrooms, hallways.

2. Carpet, due to the presence of a soft top layer, is less dependent on the surface of the subfloor. Before laying roll material, it is enough to make sure that the OSB does not have obvious defects. Carpet is used as a finishing floor covering in residential premises, hallways, offices, and work rooms.

3. Laminate, due to its structural details, can be laid on an unprepared surface. Minor unevenness and differences in levels are corrected by the presence of a substrate. Laminate is different high strength and is placed in rooms with high traffic: offices, reception areas, corridors. Suitable for use in bedrooms and common rooms.

4. Tiles (both ceramic and polymer) require rigidity and immobility of the subfloor: OSB should not bend under load, as this will cause irreversible deformation and damage finishing. For this purpose, the logs are placed in increments of no more than 40 cm, and the thickness of the flooring sheets is taken to be at least 18 mm. Fixation with fasteners is carried out every 100 mm. Installation of tiles on OSB is carried out using special glue on polymer based, working with wood and ceramics. The material is used for flooring in bathrooms, showers, and kitchens.

5. Paints and varnishes are used if the owner is satisfied with the OSB floor as a finishing coating. The flooring, which has the texture of wood shavings, after opening with two or three layers of varnish, looks attractive and unusual. This solution is good for rooms country house, country house building, as well as a city private cottage. This is the most budget-friendly and easiest way to do the finishing yourself.

When choosing floor slabs, you should take into account the environmental performance of the material. Some of its types can emit toxic substances and require very careful finishing. Sheets that are planned to be laid in residential premises must comply with the environmental European standard E1. The most suitable grade in terms of strength characteristics and moisture resistance is OSB-3. This floor is not afraid of cleaning with water and can withstand the load from furniture and people.

When laying out the logs yourself, you need to take into account standard dimensions slabs to optimize and reduce waste, common sizes are 1.22 x 2.44 m. Used for cutting Circular Saw or a jigsaw, and to attach the flooring to the joists - a screwdriver or drill.

You can ensure reliable joining of the slabs to each other using tongue-and-groove OSB, connected using a tongue-and-groove pattern. Gaps of 2-3 mm are left between individual sheets of material, since when the humidity in the room fluctuates, their geometric dimensions may change slightly. After graduation installation work the seams must be filled with sealant.