How to install laminated wood floor.?
Question:I'm about to install wood floor in the house. The base is concrete . I would need tips in how to install it, could be any recomendatios of videos or webb side or personal experience. If any, will be greatly appreciated.
Answers:
Concrete is ideal place to put laminate.Be sure to put down the underlayment (padding). Start in a corner with the least door openings.Install shims which will be in the kit you need to purchase seperatly.Put down the first run of flooring.When you get to the wall cut it off but leave enough room to put in a shim at the end of that run.Remember that the seams at the ends of each board should NOT be in line with each other.They have to be staggered.A board will need to be cut in half to achieve this.Once you have gone this far into the project it is basically like puting together a puzzle.A special tool and a block will also be nessesary.These tools are under 10 bucks
first and most important make sure that the laminate is listed to be used on concrete and its the floating type. once you get it home open the boxes and let it sit in the room for at least 48 hours before installing. use a good vaper barrier and padding is optional. to start with take a pice of the flooring and measure the thickness and under cut any door casing in the room. then put the v-p barrior down. now find the longest straightest wall in the room, place 1/4 " shims between the floorin and wall, startin at one wall and finish this row. if the last pice has to be cut then start the next row woth the falloff from that cut and contiue making sure to leave a 1/4" spaceat the ends next to the walls. when you reach the far side of the room be sure to leave the same space at that wall. if you did not remve the baseboard prior to begining just ad 1/4 round moldin nailed to the wall not the floor, if you removed the base board then just reaply it. caulk any gaps you have left and you are done. any question you can just click on my profile and email me, will be glad to answer them on this subject
It is easy,. my husband and I did it. Just follow the manufacturers instructions. However, pay attention. The plastic like barrier that goes between the sub floor (concrete) and laminent floor has a side that says "this side up"... Make sure that side is up. We didn't had had to "move" the floor and turn it so that side was up! That was the only problem we had and since the laminate floor "floats" it wasn't a big deal. I did like the "wood" laminate floor better than my mom's "tile" laminate floor. But they may have made those easier to install by now. (layed in 2001) You'll do fine.
During acclimatizing and before installation, don't forget to ALWAYS lay them flat to prevent sagging of the panels. A sag will give you difficulty in installation. Just my two cents, learned from previous experience.
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