I have purchased Bruce 3/4" solid oak flooring and I am looking for some guidance with respect to expansion space. This is standard tongue and groove flooring that will be nailed down. This is also an above grade installation, on a wooden subfloor, in the Saint Louis Missouri region.
Unfortunately, the manufacturers website does not have an installation guide for my product. (I submitted a question asking for one, but who knows if/when they will respond.) And the recommendations for their other products vary greatly, and are not very specific for the ones that appear to be similar. So am asking for some general "rule of thumb" guidance.
Going with the boards, I could have runs up to 48' long. There is one doorway where we could add a T-molding as we transition between rooms, but that only takes about 10' off the total length.
Across the board, my longest run is about 24', with ~half of it being in a hallway where board lengths will be shorter.
The packaging has one reference to standoff distance on the starting run, which indicates they want a 3/4" expansion gap at the walls.
My core question is whether I need to try to add some additional expansion gap, either at the wall or in the run, to account for the dimensions I am working with and local climate?