Didnt people just nail down boards to make a hardwood floor years ago?

it seems like the flooring companies are making things a lot more diffficult (and expensive) than they need to be.Didnt people just nail down boards to make a hardwood floor years ago?
Yes you are right, it was board strips nailed down, but it wasn't a simple process, it was time consuming and the materials were very expensive.





An actual hardwood flooring consisting of small strips of hard wood laid over sub flooring and toe nailed on the ends so the nails won't show on the surface, and it allows for refinishing the floor. The cost in labor and materials is very expensive.





Today most ';wood'; floors actually are compressed paper strips with a photo of wood grain on one side of the strips. The same material that used to be used for cheap wall paneling. When a chair or table scratches today's floor, you have to replace it, you can't refinish it because there is only compressed paper under the photo finish.





There is a better grade of flooring that consist of a thin layer of real wood glued over the paper or other veneers, but it is not much more durable than the cheap stuff. If it is scratched, it still can't be resurfaced.Didnt people just nail down boards to make a hardwood floor years ago?
well before the great invention of compressed air and brad-nailers carpenters used to have to very carefully hand drive tiny finishing nails into the tongue of the hardwood making sure not to damage the new floor. this used to be a very time consuming process and it had to be done for window casing, baseboards, and crown moldings. Even though flooring companies have expensive compressors, nailers, saws and hoses, these tools cut job time down drastically. Flooring an entire house in the 60's 0r 70's may have took weeks. Now it is a matter of days and as time=money these tools pay for themselves and end up saving us money. Tounge and grove flooring is designed to hide the nails as it would be easy to nail right thru the face.
You completely miss the point.


Floors of course would once have been just bare earth.


Later, they layered the earth with straw.


Probably later would come boards of some sort (oak or whatever was handy locally) - as you say just nailed onto supports. In those days `fancy clean modern board flooring` would not have been possible. The planks would have been rough hewn....later would come linoleum. Later with `board` patterns on it. Tiles and brick also had their time.


Today`s boad flooring is the ultimate in flooring technology - but of course you have to pay for it. Actually, it is cheap for what you are getting.
Yes they did. Problem was, they were not always hardwoods. Any wood they could find, would work. They were looking for a walking surface, not an area that looked good. These floor boards often warped with time, temperature and humidity. Feel free to go to a lumber yard and buy any wood you wish to nail down. You can even use pallets torn apart.
Tongue and groove makes the floor lay together nicer. if you simply nail down boards they could crack, warp and the nails would probably come out from being walked on all day.
nobody is stopping you from surface nailing flat planks to your joists (or decking or whatever) to make a floor to walk on, but it will look like crap
they probably did, but nowadays it isn't efficient and most likely it wont look that good.
What a stupid question.