Great lay for £100! (Laminate Flooring)

Member Name: pipefish

Product:	Laminate Flooring
Date:	01/07/03 (7467 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to install, hard-wearing, very easy to clean

Disadvantages: some preparation and cutting required, may look cold in lounges, have to buy in packs

Fed up with the dark grey carpet in the hall I decided to switch it for FloormasterLoc 3600 birch laminate flooring in an attempt to make the house look a bit more modern. The floor has now been down for nearly a year and it is still clean and undamaged, even after a lot of throughfare taking heavy furniture into the house and building materials for the garden in wheelbarrows plus neighbours kids helping with the gardening (so lots of muddy footprints on it).
There are some slight marks (mostly from mud from the garden that was not cleaned for a long time) but there are no distortions or seams between the boards opening up. It is great for lazy people who can?t be bothered with vacuuming carpets every week, just sweep up the dirt or wipe away with damp cloth any marks.
Since the hallway is narrow the light floor and walls (magnolia) actually do seem to make it look more open and bigger so the TV shows houses have got it right! Putting up some pictures with frames matching the flooring makes it look better still.

A pack from B&Q gives you a set of long thin laminate strips covering about 1.7 square metres - I had to get 2 packs which left plenty for spares which is just as well as you will probably either break or incorrectly cut out at least 5 or 6 during the course of the laying.
The FloormasterLoc is designed for glueless assembly, it has tongue and groove edges on each piece so that the boards click together and can also slide past each other. You first lay a long strip of pieces, usually along the longest edge of the room and then clip on adjacent strips by holding them up, twisting them down to snap into place and sliding them along the grooves on the sides into the right place.
The trick to assembling them easily is to stand on the bit that you are fitting the adjacent strip on to - it will then slide along into place a lot more easily without needing to whack it hard with a mallet and damaging the edges. This tip is especially useful
when you are laying the piece at the end of a strip and have to hit the pull bar to tap it back into place.
Also plan out how you are going to lay it as any light sources at right angles to the boards will tend to highlight the seams so it should generally go with the longer boards running in the same direction as light from windows or doors to other rooms.

Preparation involves taking up the carpet, underlay and threshold strips and then thoroughly cleaning the floor. Assuming it is a ground floor and a concrete and tile floor it is then a good idea to fill in any cracks or pits with self-levelling compound mixed with PVA (easy to do, instructions on the tin) and then to seal the floor by brushing on a diluted layer of PVA adhesive. You then put down the underlay, which is about 5 to 10 quid for a 1m wide roll 3m long and tape it together so that it is not moved when you lay the floor. This helps absorb noise and makes the floor feel a lot softer underfoot and acts as a moisture barrier.
At this point prepare your new threshold strips but don?t set them in place until the floor is laid, when it is ready use carpet adhesive to glue them in place and hammer the tops of the strips down. Do not try what I did and waste time trying to hammer strips back straight into the concrete with masonry pins or nails ? the foundations are too hard and you will have no chance of doing this without smashing the strips, floors or dot punches and swearing a lot.

The laminate is then very easy to lay although as the first long strip you lay is along the longest edge of the room this usually means having to cut it to fit around doors. Conversely if your walls are not exactly square you will have to cut the last strip at an angle to ensure the 10mm gap is still there. It is best to cut out paper templates here to mark the underside of the laminate to cut. Oh and bring a workbench, saw and clamps into the room so that you don?t have to run to and from the garage
or upstairs all the time. Cutting the boards will generate a lot of dust so put down a dustsheet or tarpaulin under the bench. Make sure the kettle is nearby too!

Generally the floor is meant to float and have a 10mm gap between the walls to allow for expansion or contraction. If you buy a floor laying kit this supplies you with triangular wedges which you tape 2 together to act as 10mm spacers. The kit also includes a soft face to protect the boards while tapping them into place and a pull bar to tap boards towards you.

The gap around the edges is then covered over by beading or edging strips. This is just as well as I found the laminates tended to break out easily when awing and it was difficult to get a clean cut. I tried using a tenon saw instead of a jigsaw but it was just as bad. If you are cutting with a jigsaw then cut with the laminate side down as the blade cuts on the upstroke and will then tend to splinter the surface on the bottom on the laminate strip and not the top. Basically do not worry too much about getting a jagged cut on the boards as it will be covered up by the beading afterwards. Use a cutting blade with smaller teeth helps to minimise jagged cuts. Stagger the gaps between pieces or the seams will be more apparent and weaker ? the floor is then liable to be pulled apart as you lay more pieces and tap them into place and stress the other interlocking bits.

All in all it was pretty easy and quick to finish, although I did have to chuck several pieces at the start from cutting them wrongly and it was pretty much finished in one morning (with the previous day used to level the floor and seal it) for a 1.1 x 2.6m room.

B&Q also supply some plastic wood-effect beading, which glues onto the wall to cover the flooring gaps around the edges. I found that this does not look as good and would probably use proper wooden edging sections instead next time. I would also buy a mitre block or saw to cut the beading at 45 d
egrees accurately to fit it around door frames and angles etc. Otherwise you do not have a good surface cut to glue the beading pieces together and they tend to come apart easily.
Otherwise you can remove the skirting boards and re-fit them to cover the floating gap over the floor, however I thought that this sounded like too much work to do for the first attempt at laying the flooring.

I found that the laminate flooring looks much better - the hallway is a lot lighter now and much easier to clean. Spills are easy to wipe up, even from muddy boots left on in for over a week. Any dirt or dust can be brushed up or vacuumed quickly and a lot more easily than on a carpet. I haven?t had any trouble with slipping on the floor and falling AOT, it?s also useful it you want to practice moonwalking!
Although you can see the gaps if you look directly down at them they are not visible from the front door when you come into the house or the living room. If you have any particularly botched bits you can always cover them with a rug or mat with non-slip tape attached underneath it.

It worked out at 120 pounds in total for 2 packs of FloormasterLoc, beading, insulating underlay, self levelling compound, PVA adhesive, laminate flooring kit, jigsaw blades for cutting laminates, threshold strips, carpet adhesive and cartridge gun for it.
You will also need a workbench of some sort, clamps, a try square, tape measure and felt pen or pencil to mark the pieces and a tenon saw or jigsaw and a mallet. Use card or thin pieces of soft wood to prevent the laminate being marked by the faces of the clamps when securing it in place to cut it.

All in all I think it is very good for rooms with heavy through-fare and will certainly be looking at putting down more in the kitchen or bathroom in the future. The estate agents also reckon it adds a lot of value to houses although I think I would prefer carpet for the lounge, especially with lots of furniture with
castors and edges putting pressure on the floor.

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