Diy: Installing Laminate Flooring – We spoke to a flooring expert to get some installation tips to help you avoid bumps, unevenness, gaps and cracks.
When you determine the size of the initial row, you also need to make sure that the walls are parallel. You can install laminate in a 6-inch room. narrower at one end than at the other. This means that you will have to rip off the sharply tapered last row and it will look ugly. If one side of the room will not be permanently covered with furniture, it is better to split the difference and reduce the first and last rows so that neither side is so noticeable.
Diy: Installing Laminate Flooring
All seams of the flooring must be taped. It’s tempting to use whatever tape you find on the pickup, but don’t. Some packing tapes and house wrapping tapes are too stiff and can make an annoying creaking sound when stepped on. Use whatever tape is recommended by the underlay manufacturer, or buy underlay with built-in seam tape.
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Our flooring specialist recommends laying the decking perpendicular to the way the boards will be laid. The decking is less likely to “bubble” as you lay the floor. He also suggests installing only a few rows of flooring at a time so it doesn’t get torn up by shoes.
Laminate flooring systems do not perform well on uneven surfaces. Before starting any flooring work, inspect the substrate. Creep along the straight edge to find more than 1/8 inch high or low area. Floor seams are the usual suspects.
A belt sander with a coarse-grit belt will knock out the seams fairly quickly, but you may need to rent a commercial floor sander to sand off the serious peaks.
After sinking into the floor, the laminate floor will become soft, spongy. Most dips can be taken care of with a trowel and vinyl floor patch. Buy a quick-drying variety if you want to start laying the floor the same day.
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“Avoid self-leveling floor compounds, especially in older homes,” says Jay, our flooring specialist. “It can take a full truckload of self-leveling compound to level uneven floors.” And oh yes, it’s time to screw the plywood to the joists wherever it squeaks.
Cutting laminate with a miter saw gets noisy and dusty pretty quickly, and walking back and forth to the miter saw isn’t very efficient. Instead, cut the boards quietly and cleanly with laminate shears where you intend to install them.
Installing flooring around a door is one of the most difficult problems you will face. Keep it simple by starting with the wall with the most doors. Of course, you’ll still have to cut the jambs and trim, but it’s a lot easier to start with a door than to end up with one.
It’s tempting to find the longest, straightest wall and start pounding the boards. The problem is that once you get to the opposite wall, you can tear off a thin row of flooring. It won’t look good and it’s difficult to install.
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Plan ahead by snapping a four- or five-piece section, place it against one wall, and make a pencil line on the outside of the attached piece, then push the section toward the opposite wall, lining it up with the pencil line. Go through the room like this to determine whether to start with a ripped row and how wide it should be. It’s not an exact science, but it’s a quick way to get a good idea of what the final line will be without doing a ton of math.
Occasionally you will need to tap the board into place or prop up an uncooperative board. Yes, you should use a tapping block, but to avoid damaging the brand new floor, insert a scrap of sacrifice and tap it to avoid damaging the edge of the new flooring.
If you actually read the instructions for most laminate floors, the pieces should be attached in sequence. Some flooring (usually the cheap stuff) is nearly impossible to install this way without damaging the boards. If you have trouble, gather the back ends of the entire row, then fasten as if it were one long piece.
If you are installing a floor that extends through the door, it is better to leave a gap (rather than overlap the floor) to get a transition strip between the rows. Place the gap just below the door so that the transition bar makes visual sense. A transition strip allows each room to be treated as a separate project. This gives more flexibility in design and layout.
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It is often inevitable to find yourself at the door. When this happens, it’s a little tricky because you have to slide the floor under both joists. Here’s how to deal with it with just a little finishing touches:
Plan the seam in the middle of the door. Cut and trim the first piece to fit, then slide it all the way under the frame. Cut the second piece so it’s just up to the door stop when it’s in place. Lift the floor so it is around the corner and under the cabinet, then lock.
Once the two pieces are connected, slide them far enough so that both jambs cover the ends of the floor.
Laminate floors expand and contract with changes in humidity and temperature. So before starting any laminate work, pay attention to the furniture in the room. Heavy furniture, such as a pool table or a fully loaded bookshelf, can put pressure on the laminate, causing it to expand or separate as it contracts. The trouble really starts when you have two heavy pieces of furniture right in front of each other that hold up the floor. You will have to lose one of the furniture or choose a different floor material to avoid problems. How much weight will the floor support? A good rule of thumb is that regular laminate flooring can still move properly under a full refrigerator
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The hard shell knee pads you wear for roofing and landscaping are not the ones you should wear on your knees when installing flooring. There is no doubt: the floor is hard for the knees, and the wrong knee pads will scratch the laminate. Floor installation requires pads that have fabric, foam or soft rubber on the business side. Gel-filled pads are the most comfortable because the gel helps distribute the weight.
We no longer support IE (Internet Explorer) as we strive to provide site functionality for browsers that support new web standards and security practices. I am so excited to finally share this amazing post with you today. Remember the huge, gigantic, life-sapping renovation project we did this summer?!? Do you at least remember that I’ve talked about it a few times but haven’t really shared much about it yet?
Well, that’s all about to change. And I’m starting this series off with a BANG. The biggest bang for your buck project you can do in a space is to completely renovate it and give it a brand new look.
After tackling it yourself, I have 10 great tips for DIY laminate flooring to help ensure that your first or next laminate installation goes as smoothly and beautifully as we wanted it to! I had the pleasure of working with The Home Depot Canada on this project and their DIY experts were amazing to work with. I couldn’t be happier with how this project turned out.
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So the first thing we did was shop upstairs. We settled on this beautiful, rich, warm and super affordable Kaindl laminate floor from The Home Depot Canada.
It’s called Amber Hickory and is 12mm thick with a V-groove to better reflect real hardwood floors.
I wish you could feel it on a computer screen – it has a great hand-scraped texture finish that I absolutely love. Laminate has really come a long way, my friends. And the value can’t be beat.
Hauling laminate home for almost the entire house is definitely a truck, but at The Home Depot they used a forklift to keep the whole pile neatly stacked in the back of our truck.
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This is what we looked like when we were loaded. We had an hour drive home and I was driving! But we did it safely. If you don’t have a truck to haul it home, The Home Depot also offers delivery options.
So the next job was to prepare our surface. This meant removing all the old carpet and underlayment and removing all traces of it.
Go over the floor and check for indented nails or dents. When installing laminate, you don’t want the height of the floor to be more than 1/8 inch. You can always install a leveling compound if needed, but luckily we didn’t have to do this extra step. If you think your floor isn’t level enough, then the experts