Skirting board, set on floor or with a gap underneath?

[RockySpears]

  OK, sounds like a silly question, but the carpet fitter says leave a gap and he tucks the carpet under the board, over the grip rod, joiner say it is always set on the floorboards and scribed to the floor to keep the top level.

  Any one any opinion?  Having the whole house retimbered (doors, architrave, skirtin),

Thank you,

RS

[Fisheruk]

I would go for tight to the floor otherwise in an older property over time you will have dust staining around the edges as there is air migration though the outside walls and sub-floor areas.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Have seen both regarded as correct but the above is worthy of consideration.

[discobob]

how level are the floors

the gap level is quicker and easier for the carpet fitter and the joiner - but less money for the joiner (call me cynical 😎)

for me - with carpets - I would find the highest point and the lowest point and see what the difference is in height - if substantial then perhaps look at some self leveling - if not scribe to the floor to keep the straight lines of the skirting top. If leaving a gap (can be done for both methods) use some expanding foam tape pushed back under the skirting to stop draughts and dust as fisher says above.

[Scully]

I’ve painted countless skirtings, and can’t say I’ve ever encountered skirts above carpets! How do you lift a carpet if it’s under the skirts and pressed onto grippers? 
Would be a doddle for decorators cutting in mind you! 

[Mice!]

I like things to be level, but skirting boards just go on the floor, never thought of bothering to scribe them, unless the floor is miles out I suppose. 

[RockySpears]

  Our old house had a gap under all the skirting, but my wife did complain that the edges of carpets became permanently stained regardless of hoovering or cleaning.  The carpets came up easy enough and the gap did not extend above the carpet very much and was tight in places.  The gap was also great for cable routing for stereos etc.

  OK it looks like it is to the floor we go, the wife will be pleased.

Cheers all,

RS

[JohnfromUK]

My (old and uneven floored) house has the skirtings set level, and a small moulding pinned in place to cover the gap

[Bobba]

Our house is 1930’s. On the walls, I think they call it blue mortar bonding over bricks with polished lime mortar finish. There is a gap between the moulded skirting and the floorboards. Very minor movement etc over the years causes the blue mortar bonding behind the skirting boards to turn to dust which, with gravity, falls and the carpet butting to the skirting boards develops a black grey stain around the room. So, I have taken to silicon infilling between the skirting and floorboards to prevent this unsightly damage. It works.

So, by my experience, I would take steps to avoid unsightly carpet damage.

[enfieldspares]

My house was built in 1913. There is a tiny, parallel, 3/32" gap between the bottom of the skirting board and the flooring. So that's less than 1/8" but more than 1/16" gap.

Edited April 13, 2022 by enfieldspares

[Jim Neal]

If this is how he proposes to fit either a traditional woven carpet like an Axminster or Wilton, or otherwise what is mostly supplied nowadays known as "tufted" carpet, I'd politely recommend you use a different carpet fitter.

The only gap that is mandatory for carpet fitting is the gap between the gripper rod and skirting board, which should be set according to the thickness of the carpet so it is a snug fit once tucked in.

The spikes on the gripper rod are angled towards the wall (unless they're installed the wrong way round) which, after the carpet is stretched over them won't allow the carpet to pull itself back toward the middle of the room. A bit like putting your hand in a pike's mouth.

The carpet is stretched towards the wall over the gripper and then tucked in between gripper and skirting so the edge of the carpet is facing 90 degrees down towards the floor, allowing the spikes to dig in to the carpet backing, thus holding it securely in place.

Forget all I've said above if your new carpet is the real cheapo felt-backed stuff, or Flotex.  However you don't use gripper with Flotex, it's a glue-down product.  Also, usually with the felt-backed by the time you've paid for underlay, grippers and a fitter to install it you've multiplied the price of the carpet by about 10 so most people just fling them down direct to the subfloor with a bit of spray-tack round the edges.  In any case with felt-backed, the the gripper spikes usually work the holes loose because there's no substance to the material, making it fairly pointless to use gripper in the first place.  That's the only scenario I could imagine the fitter saying he wants a gap under the skirtings.

Regarding the grey/black lines around the edges, the technical name for this is "filtration soiling" but most people in my trade call them "draught marks".  With really bad cases you can sometimes see every location that the fitter's knee-kicker has punctured holes in the carpet around its edge, see the gaps in the underlay and even the gaps in the floorboards!

Air flow is the root cause - air is finding a way to get through the gap, usually up from underneath the floor, and then the carpet fibres filter out the tiny particles of dirt brought with it.  You'll notice it more in a house with suspended floors, particularly withan underfloor draught for the fireplace.  If you've got a hot water tank or boiler in a cupboard you'll normally see a thick grey line building up under the door because of all the air flow caused by the heat.  Sometimes it can happen where warm air hits a cold wall and falls down.

It's a particular type of soil situation because the tiny particles that are being clung on to by the carpet have the correct opposing electrical charge to make a very strong bond to the fibres.  The bad news is that once this staining gets into carpet fibres like wool or nylon it is almost impossible to remove fully, although you can alleviate it to some extent.  It'll come out of polypropylene a bit more readily but still not perfect.  Any carpet cleaner worth his salt will know that you use a fire restoration product on draught marks which is cationic in its nature (a very specific chemistry, not really used in most other cleaning products).

If your building is prone to depositing draught marks on your carpets then prevention is better than cure because there is no cure once they've got stained.  You can take a few measures against it prior to carpet fitting.  Tape up the edge of the floor with kraft paper tape or similar, trying to push it under the skirting a little bit if you can.  Get yourself some decorator's caulk and seal up the abutment between floor and skirting, being very generous and then wiping it smooth to the floor side of the gap so you seal over the tape you've put round the edges.  With suspended floors you should line the floor with lining paper, making sure all of the joints are taped up and also taped onto your tape you put round the edges.  Also make sure the fitter tapes up the joins in the underlay fully, leaving no gaps.

A bit of a faff but well worth it if the problem is severe.

Hope it goes well mate 👍

Edited April 13, 2022 by Jim Neal

[Walker570]

Try sorting that out when the house is over 400 years old. Three of our ground floors are either on or just an inch above the soil. Very little is level and the stairs are supported by two oak branches roughly trimmed and held at the top by two enormouse square nails driven in around 1630 and have not moved an inch. 

Too answer the question, I would go for flush to the floor and if the floor is not level then there are a wide selection of 'fillers' to close the gap.

[Scully]

7 hours ago, Jim Neal said:

If this is how he proposes to fit either a traditional woven carpet like an Axminster or Wilton, or otherwise what is mostly supplied nowadays known as "tufted" carpet, I'd politely recommend you use a different carpet fitter.

The only gap that is mandatory for carpet fitting is the gap between the gripper rod and skirting board, which should be set according to the thickness of the carpet so it is a snug fit once tucked in.

The spikes on the gripper rod are angled towards the wall (unless they're installed the wrong way round) which, after the carpet is stretched over them won't allow the carpet to pull itself back toward the middle of the room. A bit like putting your hand in a pike's mouth.

The carpet is stretched towards the wall over the gripper and then tucked in between gripper and skirting so the edge of the carpet is facing 90 degrees down towards the floor, allowing the spikes to dig in to the carpet backing, thus holding it securely in place.

Forget all I've said above if your new carpet is the real cheapo felt-backed stuff, or Flotex.  However you don't use gripper with Flotex, it's a glue-down product.  Also, usually with the felt-backed by the time you've paid for underlay, grippers and a fitter to install it you've multiplied the price of the carpet by about 10 so most people just fling them down direct to the subfloor with a bit of spray-tack round the edges.  In any case with felt-backed, the the gripper spikes usually work the holes loose because there's no substance to the material, making it fairly pointless to use gripper in the first place.  That's the only scenario I could imagine the fitter saying he wants a gap under the skirtings.

Regarding the grey/black lines around the edges, the technical name for this is "filtration soiling" but most people in my trade call them "draught marks".  With really bad cases you can sometimes see every location that the fitter's knee-kicker has punctured holes in the carpet around its edge, see the gaps in the underlay and even the gaps in the floorboards!

Air flow is the root cause - air is finding a way to get through the gap, usually up from underneath the floor, and then the carpet fibres filter out the tiny particles of dirt brought with it.  You'll notice it more in a house with suspended floors, particularly withan underfloor draught for the fireplace.  If you've got a hot water tank or boiler in a cupboard you'll normally see a thick grey line building up under the door because of all the air flow caused by the heat.  Sometimes it can happen where warm air hits a cold wall and falls down.

It's a particular type of soil situation because the tiny particles that are being clung on to by the carpet have the correct opposing electrical charge to make a very strong bond to the fibres.  The bad news is that once this staining gets into carpet fibres like wool or nylon it is almost impossible to remove fully, although you can alleviate it to some extent.  It'll come out of polypropylene a bit more readily but still not perfect.  Any carpet cleaner worth his salt will know that you use a fire restoration product on draught marks which is cationic in its nature (a very specific chemistry, not really used in most other cleaning products).

If your building is prone to depositing draught marks on your carpets then prevention is better than cure because there is no cure once they've got stained.  You can take a few measures against it prior to carpet fitting.  Tape up the edge of the floor with kraft paper tape or similar, trying to push it under the skirting a little bit if you can.  Get yourself some decorator's caulk and seal up the abutment between floor and skirting, being very generous and then wiping it smooth to the floor side of the gap so you seal over the tape you've put round the edges.  With suspended floors you should line the floor with lining paper, making sure all of the joints are taped up and also taped onto your tape you put round the edges.  Also make sure the fitter tapes up the joins in the underlay fully, leaving no gaps.

A bit of a faff but well worth it if the problem is severe.

Hope it goes well mate 👍

Was just about to say this myself! 🙂 This was the point I was alluding to regards grippers and carpets under skirts, but so much better put coming from someone who knows what they’re talking about. Q

On another note, whatever you do, DO NOT use silicone as a gap filler in any other places except the relevant ones with regards to plumbing. NEVER NEVER NEVER! NOOOOOOO! 

[Bobba]

49 minutes ago, Scully said:

On another note, whatever you do, DO NOT use silicone as a gap filler in any other places except the relevant ones with regards to plumbing. NEVER NEVER NEVER! NOOOOOOO! 

Having read this I checked in the garage. It seems my post was incorrect (apologies). I didn’t use silicon. I used decorators caulk. Would that be OK? 

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Caulk is at least breathable.

[Jaymo]

29 minutes ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Caulk is at least breathable.

And paintable….

[Scully]

54 minutes ago, Bobba said:

Having read this I checked in the garage. It seems my post was incorrect (apologies). I didn’t use silicon. I used decorators caulk. Would that be OK? 

Just the job! 👍

6 minutes ago, Jaymo said:

And paintable….

Exactly this! 

[sportsbob]

I understood that to prevent damp rising up the plaster it did not go all the way to the floor and the skirting board was to hide the gap, also there is a small gap bellow the skirting and the floor to prevent it wicking the damp into the plaster.

[Scully]

22 minutes ago, sportsbob said:

I understood that to prevent damp rising up the plaster it did not go all the way to the floor and the skirting board was to hide the gap, also there is a small gap bellow the skirting and the floor to prevent it wicking the damp into the plaster.

If you have an internally damp problem such as that then you have a problem which need rectifying prior to anything else. 
There should be a concrete slab on which the house is built and a DPC to take care of any damp ingress. 

[JohnfromUK]

10 minutes ago, sportsbob said:

I understood that to prevent damp rising up the plaster it did not go all the way to the floor and the skirting board was to hide the gap, also there is a small gap bellow the skirting and the floor to prevent it wicking the damp into the plaster.

I think that's right (in older houses anyway).  My house (picture above) the skirting is made in two parts.  The upper (curved moulded) part of the skirting screws to a wooden board that is the 'bottom rail' for the plaster and is flush with the surface of the plaster.  Below this and behind the vertical flat part of the skirting is a void about 1 1/2 inches deep between the skirting and the brickwork of the wall  The floorboards also stop about 3/4 inch short of the brickwork, so allowing air to circulate (there are cellars underneath).  Insulation (suspended woolly stuff between joists) below the floors in the cellars stops short of the edges to ensure air can reach this part.  It isn't perfect for insulation, but allowing free air circulation is more important for prevent potential for wood rot.

The small moulding where the skirting meets the floor in fact has a foam rubber seal between it and the boards preventing draughts and dust, so in effect the area behind the skirting is open to air from below.  The main reason for this moulding between the skirting and floor is due to the floor having in the past been both painted black and refinished at least twice in it's roughly 180 year life and so leaving a rather unsightly edge.

Just now, Scully said:

There should be a concrete slab on which the house is built and a DPC to take care of any damp ingress.

Not on an many older houses!  Mine does have much later injected damp courses as was done very frequently about 50 years ago, but nowadays the wisdom of this method is much questioned.

[Scully]

1 hour ago, JohnfromUK said:

I think that's right (in older houses anyway).  My house (picture above) the skirting is made in two parts.  The upper (curved moulded) part of the skirting screws to a wooden board that is the 'bottom rail' for the plaster and is flush with the surface of the plaster.  Below this and behind the vertical flat part of the skirting is a void about 1 1/2 inches deep between the skirting and the brickwork of the wall  The floorboards also stop about 3/4 inch short of the brickwork, so allowing air to circulate (there are cellars underneath).  Insulation (suspended woolly stuff between joists) below the floors in the cellars stops short of the edges to ensure air can reach this part.  It isn't perfect for insulation, but allowing free air circulation is more important for prevent potential for wood rot.

The small moulding where the skirting meets the floor in fact has a foam rubber seal between it and the boards preventing draughts and dust, so in effect the area behind the skirting is open to air from below.  The main reason for this moulding between the skirting and floor is due to the floor having in the past been both painted black and refinished at least twice in it's roughly 180 year life and so leaving a rather unsightly edge.

Not on an many older houses!  Mine does have much later injected damp courses as was done very frequently about 50 years ago, but nowadays the wisdom of this method is much questioned.

Yes. All modern houses are on a slab. Older houses may not have foundations so are prone to rising damp. Lime mortar can help in some cases, but thats just a starting point really. 

[sportsbob]

3 hours ago, Scully said:

If you have an internally damp problem such as that then you have a problem which need rectifying prior to anything else. 
There should be a concrete slab on which the house is built and a DPC to take care of any damp ingress. 

The method I have described was used to prevent damp and lots of houses are built that way as John pointed out

[Scully]

20 minutes ago, sportsbob said:

The method I have described was used to prevent damp and lots of houses are built that way as John pointed out

Understood. Many older houses have no foundations so are prone to damp, as is ours. 

[100milesaway]

When we moved into this bungalow, I realised that the inner walls were dot and dab and that most of the skirtings were high on the concrete floor. When ready to remove all the flooring we lifted all the carpets up to discover bug and spider heaven. I spent a full 2 weeks cauking every  crack including all around the doors, windows and skirtings. All around every wall it was like a woodlice motorway. Not seen any in 16 years so it was a good move, remember everything that is in your foundations or the wall cavities will be in your house and it's also very relevent today with the cost of heating areas just for the bugs to be cosy... from Auntie.

[RockySpears]

Thanks to all for this, especially Jim Neal for a comprehensive round up.  Who would have thought there was so much to skirting boards?  

I shall be caulking away too, any gaps left uncovered,

 

thank you PW,

 

RS