About Flooring Joint Types

The joint on each side of a plank of flooring acts as the mechanism to link floors together. Created to make a snug fit between boards, the plank is milled on each side to create various joint types. As the flooring is laid and installed, the male portion of the joint on one side fits into the female or recessed joint on that of another board.

There are many types of joints available today. Depending on wood type and brand, some joint types require the use of an adhesive to ensure a perfect fit. Others are glueless, and provide quick and seamless fit between boards. Some manufacturers have proprietary locking systems; however, the basic principle remains the same for joints of the same type.

Traditional Tongue and Groove

This is the standard for most solid and engineered hardwood floors as well as solid bamboo floors. Typically when a board is nailed/stapled, it is nailed/stapled at a 45 degree angle into the top of the tongue to anchor the board. In this case the tongue and groove serve to both assist in aligning and anchoring the boards. This is also the case in a glue-down installation, although adhesive is not always required in the tongue and groove, ensure to check with your manufacturer's specifications.

In the case where a traditional tongue and groove floor is to be used in a floating installation, most commonly done with an engineered floor, adhesive is applied to the tongue and groove to anchor the floor together.

Click Together

Click-together is a type of interlocking system most commonly used by laminate manufacturers and some hardwood brands. This method makes installation easy; it can be fitted and taken apart a number of times without damaging the floor.

The long joint clicks together by inserting the tongue at a slant into the channel of the groove. Only minimal tapping is required. Click together floors also do not require the use of glue.

Snap Together

A snap-together joint is designed so that the tongue and groove line up horizontally and then tapped into place. This floor can be assembled only once. It can NEVER be taken apart without dire consequences.

Most snap together floors are poor imitations of click together floors. Problems found with inferior snap together floor systems include awkward, hard-to-handle locking mechanisms; poor design; irreversibility and irreparable core damage which render the component useless.

While snap together floors tend to be less expensive than click together, quality, ease and speed of installation evens out the difference.