Laminate flooring is a perfect alternative to natural flooring materials. It’s easy to install, durable, and less expensive. These floorings fit any room, including those with high traffic and humidity. It’s because the latest innovations brought a moisture-resistant finish that changed them. According to Martin Helda, the lock and click fitting methods have made the installation process easy. The process doesn’t need any expert skills to do it.
Here are the five steps to use when installing this flooring.
Prepare the floor
Get rid of any other flooring like carpets. Scrape off all the adhesive used to stick them. If the concrete becomes uneven, use any self-leveling compound. Follow the manual instruction by the manufacturer. Remove the skirting or molding boards for easy fixing laminates by the edges. Refit them later on the new floor. Clean the floor to gauge the amount of flooring you will need. Measure the width and length of the room’s longest points and get the area in square meters.
The flooring should be more by 10% to cover for wastage.
Install DPM and underlay
Does your laminate have the pre-attached underlay? If not, install them to even the subfloor. The DPM (damp proof membrane) is vital to inhibit moisture in the subfloor. The moisture will not sip via the laminates. Choose the underlays depending on the floor condition, heat insulation, and sound level needed. The underlay must meet and not overlap in the installation process. Tape down all the edges/seams together to block out moisture.
Lay the flooring
Let the flooring acclimatize by placing unopened packs on the floor horizontally. They should be in the room to place the flooring for over 48 hours. Start laying lengthwise from the corner of the longest wall. The tongue should face the wall. The gap between the planks should be between 10 to 12 mm. the wall spacers should be 15 inches from each other. Deal with the first raw first by interlocking tongue and plank groove to ensure it’s straight.
At times you will have to cut the last pieces for the flooring to fit in your room. You can place any cut piece facing down next to the immediate previous one. Maintain expansion spaces with walls. Across it, mark a line to show where a previous plank ended. Fix the piece to finalize the row. Anytime you need to cut a plank, measure it to ensure the length to cut.
Adjust door frames
Use the plank to mark, guide, and cut the underneath of door frames using a saw. If it’s hard to lift the plank while interlocking the groove and tongue, remove the tongue using a chisel. Now opt for an excellent adhesive to hold planks in place.
Add trims and remove spacers
After laying the flooring well, remove spacers. Fix skirting to cover expansion gaps. Don’t fill expansion gaps using any material unless the manufacturer recommends it. It will permit contraction and expansion.
Fill the furniture bottoms with felt pads to save the floor potential scratches. You can also remove doors and trim the bottom for easy closing and opening.
