Do I Use A Cleat Or Do I Use A Staple? - Ask The Wood Flooring Guy

Q: I am installing some Pre-Finished Brazilian Cherry 3 flooring. I have been finding all kinds of back and forth on the web over what type of fasteners to utilize. Do I use a Cleat or do I use a Staple? Also, What type of Pneumatic Nailer have you found to be the best from your experience only.

A: I have never owned a staple nailer, and have only used cleats, though cleats are more expensive. I can tell you what I have heard. Staples can be a real pain to deal with if you have a mis fire or hit a sub floor nail and the staple doesn’t go in all the way. More tongue splitting with staples, which is something to think about when installing very hard, brittle woods like Jatoba. I own a manual Powernail nailer that is basically retired on my shelf, having surrendered to the pneumatic version of the Stanley Bostitch. There probably isn’t much to choose between various nailers. They all do the job. I have had the Stanley rebuilt once. I was surprised that I had to do this after a limited number of installations. I was told by the person who did the re build that Powernail is better built but also costs more to repair. It is a trade off, as usual. You need to take each one for a test drive to see which you feel more comfortable with.

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