Fitting oak flooring under in situ skirting

[Markymark]

Hello

I am looking to lay 40m2 of engineered oak flooring on the ground floor of my house and I want to fit it under the skirtings. Although the skirtings are not special the rooms were plastered in the 1930's with the skirtings in situ so I expect it would cause a lot of damage if I tried to remove them first.

I am looking for advice on How to, Tips and Tricks and possibly what is the best power tool to trim the skirtings.

Thank You.

MarkyMark

 

[MattRoberts]

You want a multi tool. Use a piece of scrap floor and hold the tool blade flush against it to trim the skirting to exactly the right height

 

[Geoff_S]

You want a multi tool. Use a piece of scrap floor and hold the tool blade flush against it to trim the skirting to exactly the right height

And watch out for any mains cables

 

[Nelsun]

A multi tool, while capable, will require massive levels of patience to trim an entire rooms worth of skirting.

You'll likely have to remove at least one if not two sides of skirting to get the new boards down anyway, unless there's a clever trick to avoid that.

Leaving things well alone, laying the flooring in the current space and running a moulding over the gaps would be an easy way out... if not the prettiest :/

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[Doug71]

I have seen floor fitters use a plunge saw run on its side on the floor packed up to the required height for the long cuts then a multi master in the corners.

Doug

 

[porker]

I've done this once with a biscuit joiner some time ago. As stated you need to be sure there are no cables or nails in the way and if you touch the masonry it will take the edge off a TCT blade. Would use a multi-tool now I have one but it would be a bit slow. I don't like the look of beading to cover but that's personal preference.

 

[Markymark]

Thank you great advice. I have watched a video of someone using a multitool for the job and it did look great. I too have installed a lot of laminate flooring and I have in the past used beading painted the same colour as the skirting but I find it looks ameteur. I think Oak engineered floor would benefit from a professional looking job. Thanks for all your advice. Especially the bit about mains cables.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

http://www.brandontoolhire.co.uk/en/flo ... r-diy.html

 

[Nelsun]

If you do go with a multitool, a suggestion would be to use a big blade (for reference surface as much as speed) and to do a shallow first pass to get as clean a visible edge as possible. They do like to jump around if your attention wanders so at least with a shallow cut you're more likely to achieve that... and you can hack the hell out of the skirtings behind the nice crisp visible edge.

Phil's machine above looks more like the tool for the job though!

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[Bodgers]

Are you not going to lose a lot of height on your skirting boards if you do this?

I have fitted solid oak floors in a couple of houses now and the effort put into to removing the skirting boards is well worth it IMO.

You could always try removing a piece of skirting in a less obvious area to see how difficult it is to remove.

I've had issues with plaster crumbling as boards are removed in sections, but it isn't too difficult to to patch and reattach the boards.



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[Dibs-h]

The time it's going to take to trim all the skirting, you will be better off removing the skirting .

On a house of that age, there will be some nails going into wedges in the brickwork every so often, so not as difficult to take off as you might think.

Best try to take a small length off and see how it goes.

Dibs

 

[mbartlett99]

I've had the skirting built into the plaster before and getting it back on and fixing the plaster neatly was a proper pain. I'm, literally - once I've finished my tea, getting the multi tool out. Did think about the track saw but haven't got too much to do so won't bother this time. Never did like the moulding idea although it can look ok.

 

[mbartlett99]

Ok thats me done. Nice neat line, might even get away without a bead of caulk over the tiles.

Handy tip with making the shalllow cut first, thanks whoever that was.

 

[n0legs]

I've used one of these in the past:-
https://www.lordhire.co.uk/index.php?ro ... uct_id=160

The only difficulty is at internal corners, a chisel will sort that though.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Bit late, n0.

 

[n0legs]

Bit late, n0.

#-o :lol: