Looking for advise on laying laminate floor

[edwardr]

Hi,

I picked up some 12mm laminate flooring a couple of weeks ago when wickes has a sale on. Bit of a bargain, and I'm going to lay it in the living room this weekend.
We're planning on selling soon, so it's just to spruce up the room and replace the knackered carpet. Hence the choice of materials (and choice of labor :wink: )

I'm not expecting a super-duper floor that will last for decades. I will lay the floor in the direction of the light entering the room.

                                               ┌───┐                                      
                                               │ N │                                      
                                               └───┘                                      
                        ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐        
                      ┌─┤                                                       ┌┴┐       
                      │D│                                                       │D│       
                      │o│                                                       │o│       
                      │o│                                                       │o│       
                      │r│                                                       │r│       
                      └─┤                                                       └┬┘       
                        │                                                        │        
           ┌────────────┘                                                        │        
           │                                                                     │        
           │                                                                     │        
           │                                                                     │        
           │                                                                     │        
┌───┐      │                           Direction of light                        │   ┌───┐
│ W │    ┌─┴─┐                         ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━▶                          │ E │
└───┘    │ W │                                                                   │   └───┘
         │ i │                                                                   │        
         │ n │                                                                   │        
         │ d │                                                                   │        
         │ o │                                                                   │        
         │ w │                                                                   │        
         └─┬─┘                                                                   │        
           │                                                                     │        
           │                          ┌───────────────────────┐                  │        
           │                          │                       │                  │        
           │                          │                       │                  │        
           │                          │                       │                  │        
           │                          │                       │                  │        
           └──────────────────────────┘        ┌───┐          └──────────────────┘        
                                               │ S │                                      
                                               └───┘

First question is: based on this diagram, where should I start? Part of me is thinking I should start on the N side because I want to make sure I have a full-width row, i.e., a row I
haven't had to rip) on that wall, since it's what most people will see as they walk through the room. However, the S wall looks tricky too, since it has the brick fireplace.. The other
issue I guess is I need to make sure I have decent width rows on both the N and S walls, so I suppose I may end up having to rip both rows to make it even anyway, right?

Second question is: it's an old mid-terrace house. The walls may not be square. What should I do to get a good straight first row? Maybe a chalk line, placed 15mm away from the first wall?

Third question is: the sub-floor is concrete, and not particularly smooth concrete at that... The house is over 100 years old; I believe they tended to have floor joists, but somewhere along the way somebody decided to fill with concrete... I have to decide between the green 5mm high performance underlay and a DPM, or the all-in-one 3mm foil westco stuff which includes a DPM. I'm assuming given the sub-floor isn't perfect I should go with the green 5mm stuff?

Any help kindly appreciated!!

 

[Rorschach]

I would generally try and work away from the most difficult areas, in your case S, however with those two deep recesses you might find it hard to join the two columns if the walls are badly out of line, so I would probably start on the N side.

 

[novocaine]

draw a line about where your arrow is that's approximately parallel to both walls either side, you'll no dowt need to be out to one wall, so average it out to get it near enough.
measure your board width the divide the now half room measurement by that to get the number of boards, do the same for the other side, you want to end up with a scribed cut on either side thats around 1/2 a board, this will let you deal with out of square walls. move your line till you get that 1/2 board approximately, you don't want a sliver of cut against the wall, firstly it will look terrible, second it won't be secure and will damage easy, not to mention it's a pain in the neck to cut. you also don't wan't slim cuts at the chimney or around that corner near the door, so have a play with a few boards to get it as good as possible.
so now you've got your chalk line you can lay a strip of boards to it, making sure you don't have a tiny cut at one end, if it works out like that then trim the other end so you get half board ish at either end. now work with from one end of it (end without the window as it's a straight wall), overlapping boards like you would bricks (half board ish for laminate). as it's floating leave 15mm at either end. for me I'd work to the south first, with the overlap on bottom of the board, you can adjust your overlay to get more or less board either side of the chimney.
then go the other way, you'll find it's harder to fit if it's click type because the overlay is on top the board now, it shouldn't be to bad till you get to the wall. its easier if you walk in a triangle across this side of the room, i.e 2 boards up 1 board over, it will give you more room to wiggle the boards.

scribe your long edge to get a neat gap at the wall.
because it's a terrace you are sort of laying it sideways to the norm, it would normally face the fireplace, but this will make the room look very small.

underlay, 5mm vapour seal, think screwfix sell it in sheets, use aluminium tape to join the panels, don't lay the entire room, lay it as you go, you don't wan't to point load it if you can help it.

don't start 15mm from the wall, for the reason said above, fitting laminate is more like tiling than laying floorboards.

 

[NickWelford]

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I'm also about to lay a load of laminate flooring, but I'll have to live with it. I'm doing two large rooms, two small ones and a connecting L shaped hallway. This is very useful info, but I would go further.... Is it possible to seamlessly run throughout or better to join at doorways? Also, I appreciate the need for an expansion gap in a large room, but do I need such a large one in a small hallway?

 

[Rorschach]

I did a smallish porch and didn't leave any expansion gap it was cut to be a snug fit all around as edging was not possible. Despite severe temp and humidity changes of a porch, no problems at all. I would think a narrow hallway would be be fine with a small gap.

 

[Lons]

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I'm also about to lay a load of laminate flooring, but I'll have to live with it. I'm doing two large rooms, two small ones and a connecting L shaped hallway. This is very useful info, but I would go further.... Is it possible to seamlessly run throughout or better to join at doorways? Also, I appreciate the need for an expansion gap in a large room, but do I need such a large one in a small hallway?

Others may not agree but IMOH there's no problem running through one room to another Nick, I've done it many times with no issues and my current floor covers a very large area including a cloakroom, hallway, kitchen, breakfast room, largish office 2 utilities and a dining room. All laminate continuous through doorways with the exception of the lounge which is carpeted.
They are 1200 x 400 panels each simulating one tile. This is a "floating floor" which has been down around 5 years laid over a concrete floor and 8mm green board type underlay. I can't remember how many packs I bought but at a guess the area is at least 80 m2

I've never put an expansion gap across a doorway but there needs to be a minimum 10mm gap around all sides and I've always removed skirtings to achieve that as usually you get a gap under the plaster / plasterboards as well as the skirting thickness.

cheers
Bob

ps. If you haven't got one already, buy a multitool as it will pay for itself many times over cutting the architives etc around the doorways and a number of blades as laminate id bl**dy hard stuff.

 

[Eric The Viking]

I have little to add to novocaine's excellent instructions, as I've only done a few floors.

I'm not so keen on aluminium tape for that purpose, although I use it a lot for other things. Toolstation do wide heavy vinyl tape intended for joining sheet DPC it might be better (I have used both the sheet and roll underlay, and the roll stuff is loads easier for all sorts of reasons).

Don't forget the offset marking technique for doing the half-width pieces at the edges: Take a short offcut, whip the tongue off it with a tenon saw, so it's only as wide as the finished surface. Position the board you're trimming exactly on top of the last-but one board and tape it down with wide masking tape or the DPC vinyl tape (as long as you can't pull any finish off the board!). You need to do the end cut first, obviously. Your tongue-trimmed board then lets you mark up the taped down board for cutting.

Two other quick things:
I have one of these:

Mine came as part of a kit from Richard Burbige, with a plastic "knocking block" that fits the T+G shape so you can tap it up snug without damage. The metal tool lets you snug up the pieces very close to the walls (otherwise dead awkward). The wide bit goes on the flooring and the narrow bit is thicker (for clouting it), giving you enough distance to swing a hammer effectively. I've used the metal thing for all sorts of other jobs too.

If the tongues aren't coated, you might find it helpful to have some tea-lights handy, just to rub along them before you assemble. The wax provides a bit of lubrication, usually enough to stop anything splitting, especially near the edge where it's usually very awkward. I've had laminate both with and without the wax, and the wax version was much easier to use. If you do get stuck with a narrow piece (sometimes it's unaviodable), it's sometimes possible to pre-fit it to the adjacent row and put both down together, but the staggering of the cross-joints can make this awkward too - you can't win!

I hate the idea of a quadrant bead round the skirting, but can't easily remove the skirtings in our place. So I went for the cork strip option. It looks good and it hides a line of screws that hold the edges down.

It's not expansion/contraction that's been a problem, as the room temps are fairly constant, but the upper floors are all quite dished and without the screws, I found I 'arrived' at the edges of the room about half an inch up the skirting! I notched the edges of the boards with a bevel cutter in a small router (running on the top surface of the board, making a series of asymmetric "V" grooves in the edge about 6" apart). I could then just about catch up the board with a countersunk crosshead screw and hold it down (the screwdriver passes the edge and the outer part of the screwhead catches the "V"). The screwheads are hidden below the cork (you have to notch it slightly with a sharp knife), but you can get to them if you ever need to get to the floor underneath.

Hope that helps.