Southwind Traditions White Oak Installation

Floor Prep Was Crucial

The old floor was sheet vinyl in the immediate vicinity of the kitchen. The dining area was carpeted and the transition between the kitchen and dining area flooring was very inconvenient for the placement of the dining table set. 

Floor Prep Steps: 

✅  Remove existing sheet vinyl.

✅  Grind large hump/ crack under carpeted area.

✅  Apply floor Uzin 182 Fast Setting patch to low spots.

Once this work was done, we could continue with the installation of the Southwind Traditions flooring. Traditions is a floating floor and most subfloors require some form of prep prior to installation of a floating floor.

The Finished Traditions Installation

Once all the floor prep was done, we could proceed with the installation of the Traditions White Oak Natural XRP flooring by Southwind. Once the prep was done, it was a relatively straight forward process. However, here are some of the challenges we ran into:

Challenges in Installing Southwind Traditions: 

✅ The planks are narrow, at 3.25″ wide, they are less than half the width of most planks on the market, which are typically 7″ wide. This means every plank installed covers less square footage. 

✅ The narrow plank also means more cutting of individual planks around cabinets or at walls and doorways.

✅ The planks come in different lengths of 19.69″, 39.37″, and 60″. This requires the mindfulness to use the different sizes in an even manner. Using too many or too few of one length can lead to not having enough planks of a certain size to properly finish the flooring installation in an aesthetic manner. 

✅ Transitioning to the carpet, we used Z Bar. Z bar is only used by professional installers who are skilled at the installation of both hard surface and carpet. Most contractors and home owners don’t have the knowledge to install a floating floor with Z Bar transitions. Here is a good Youtube Video explaining how to install a Z Bar Transition to a floating floor. 

All in all, this product was really nice to work with. The client remarked how much more comfortable it was to walk on than her old sheet vinyl flooring and it was nice to have the same floor throughout her high traffic areas in the kitchen, dining, and hallway leading to her bedrooms. 

If you read this far and would like a quote on this or any other Southwind Product, let us know you read this and we’ll get you the best price we can! We do this to know it’s worthwhile to write these blog posts.