Firstly,call Free phone: 0800 915 8295, OR (023) 8073 6004 to book a specific and appropriate date and time, for your new floor to be fitted.
- The guide is a combination of 25 years worth of carpentry knowledge and 7 years experience in fitting just laminate floors. The aim is for you to benefit from the mistakes and the skills I’ve learnt over the past 25 years, in one easy step by step guide.
As long as these instructions are followed precisely, you can be assured of a quality finish, that I would be proud of myself.
Tools
Below is a list of tools that are necessary to complete your floor professionally. All these tools can be purchased from any good DIY store, or of course a specialized tool shop. The prices that given are very rough guide prices.
Tool that you can't do without
- Coping saw. Around £6.00
- Hammer
- Tapping block and pull bar. This can usually be purchased together in a laminate fitting kit, for around £8-10.
- Square
- Pencil
- Tape measure
- Dustpan & brush
- Saw Bench (purpose bought or hand made)
- 6mm wood chisel
- Hard point Hand saw (sharp)
- Mastic gun
- Coloured matched sealant (for toilets only)
- Any ‘no-nails’ type adhesive
- Hand or electric planer (you may not need this)
Tools that you can do without, but would make life easier
- Jigsaw (this would be instead of a coping saw.) Around £35.00
- Mitre saw, about £20.00
- Compressed air nail gun. Around £100
- Hoover
Preparation
Remove carpets, grippers, underlay and all existing floor coverings. Vinyl and thermoplastic tiles may be left down providing they are securely stuck to the sub-floor. This will help to act as insulation in the room.
Your laminate floor can be laid over the top of ceramic tiles, so long as they have a flat top surface.
If you have original floorboards you need to make sure these are properly fixed to the joists, any excessive ridges or cupped boards will need to be planed flat either by hand or electric planer. Just make sure all the nails or screws are below the surface, to prevent blade damage.
If you have squeaky floors this is a good opportunity to re-fix any squeaking floor boards, with extra nails or screws. Just be aware they have normally not been fixed properly because there will be heating pipes underneath these areas. BE CAREFUL.
If you have a concrete floor, any loose or flaky surfaces will need to be hoovered or swept to remove any grit.
Any deviations in flatness will need to be made flat, using a self leveling compound available from DIY stores. Although it says 'self leveling' on the packet, you will still need to spread to around with a trowel. This needs to be allowed to dry for a full 24 hours, before any laying can commence.
Next we need to mark the bottom of the doors. This then gives you a cutting line of where to cut your doors down, to enable them to close properly over the top of the laminate floor. Using an off cut of the laminate and a piece of underlay beneath it. Run your pencil, flat along the off cut, marking the door, as you go.
This needs to be done, on both sides of the door, when they are open and closed, to allow for any uneven floor surface. You then remove the door from the fame, and cut to the highest pencil line. Leave the doors off.
It is a good idea at this stage to remove any other doors that may be in your way. Put them in another room or outside if possible, to give you a clear working area.
Cutting the bottom of the door frames, and other obstacles.
Tools required;
- Sharp hard point handsaw
- 6mm wood chisel
- Hammer
- Bolster or cold chisel
Using the off cut of laminate, but this time without the underlay, place it flat on the floor, up against the bottom of the door frame. Placing the saw, flat to the off cut of laminate, start sawing into the frame and architrave, keeping a light fingertip pressure onto the blade of the saw pressing down on top of the off cut. The handle of the saw needs to remain flat to the floor and should be held using fingertips and thumbs only.
Don't try to bend the saw up to gain a full grip on the handle; you'll end up skimming your knuckles and distorting the line of the cut.
Cut through to the back of the door frame, and right through the architraves.
These can now be chiseled out and should come out in one whole section if you have sawn through far enough.
But in some cases the frame could be sunk into the sub-floor (concrete) this will either need to have a second cut flush with the sub-floor, which will damage the saw, or this can be dug out of the concrete using your cold chisel. Firstly knock a small hole into the concrete close to the frame, this will be enough room to start chiseling the bottom of the frame into small sections, remove them through the hole you have made. It will be useful to use a hover at this stage to help extract all pieces of the frame. The small hole you have made in the concrete will have no adverse effect on the finished floor.
This job needs to repeated on every door frame, and stair newel post and kitchen end panels, the base of the stairs, radiator covers (if they can’t be removed from the wall) and any other timber extrusions you might have in any of your rooms. The more things you can saw under, the more expansion you are allowing your floor, and the less trims you’ll need to fit afterwards, which will always give you a more professional finish
Once you’re happy that you’ve cut under everything you need to, and as far through as it is possible to go, it is now time to hover the entire area ready fro the underlay.
Fitting the Underlay.
The Combi underlay you have purchased is suitable for concrete or wood sub-floors, because it has a built in damp proof membrane, and a self adhesive polythene flap which connects one strip of underlay to the next, maintaining the waterproof barrier, because this is a lightweight underlay when it is rolled out across the floor, it will have a tendency to curl up at the edges and want to roll back. It is advisable to lay one row at a time as you are working across the floor. This need to be fitted in the same manner as you would a vinyl floor, tight to the edges of the room, cutting round any obstacles. Make sure you have left no ridges, or excess underlay.
Laying the floor.
The first task is to decide which direction the laminate boards will run. The general rule is to run the boards in the direction of the longest run in any room, which can sometimes mean different directions of the boards rather than ending up with them running along short length, giving an undesirable effect.
It is good practice to centralize the boards in the room to avoid uneven perimeter finish. This is especially the case if you have chosen laminate flooring with a “V” groove along the long side of the board.
Where to start laying.
The type of locking system you choose will have a bearing on where you start laying your flooring, but generally speaking, you should start in the most awkward place.
For example, if work is being done on an Entrance Hall, then start in the area with most door openings.
Firstly, click a whole row of boards together end to end, and line them up with your pre-determined room markings nearest the most awkward wall. The gap between the row of boards and the wall, and all the door frames must be accurately measured to allow an 8mm expansion gap and the board marked and cut to form a perfect fit.
This row now becomes your starting row, and can be clicked to the row you measured from, remembering to place your spacing blocks around all edges to prevent any movement as you are working across the room.
Start the next row with the off cut board, making sure that the ends of each board in adjoining rows are offset at least 300mm apart, and that the ends of the boards do not form a pattern in any way, otherwise when you stand back and look at the floor, any regularity will catch your eye, continuing across the floor.
When you reach the far side of the room, the last row can be measured and fitted just as you did the first row.
Although you started at the side of the room, with the most doorways and obstacles, you may well be faced with another doorway in the last row.
If you have chosen a click system that doesn’t enable you to tap the panels together, when they are both laying horizontally, you will find this last door impossible to fit under without modifying the click system.
The easiest option available to you is to remove the small profile on the longer side of the click system which will enable the two boards to fall into a position with no resistance however will require pva wood glue applied to the joint and then tape applied to the surface to hold the two boards together until the adhesive has set.
Door Trims
Door trims will either be wood matching, or metal either brass or silver finish. These will either have a plastic or metal track, which requires gluing or screwing to the sub-floor which in turn will accept the finished trim or alternatively a one piece trim which can have a secret fixing or a screw fixing through the top.
The best trim for a removable click system laminate, would be the plastic track system, then if you need to remove your floor the finished trim can just be popped off the track, without causing damage to the trim or the floor.
There are only two widths of door trims available, wood trim is 45mm wide, which is the thickness of the thickest internal door used in new homes and metal trims which are only 25mm wide. When fitting wood door trims, they must always be fitted directly underneath the door, flush with the edge of the doorframe so that when the door is closed there is no visible sign of a misplaced trim.
With metal door trims they should again sit under the door, but start at the door stop. The internal door may now be re-hung.
Following this, all that remains now is the Scotia, quadrant or skirting, depending on your choice of finish.
Skirting.
If your new skirting is to be painted we recommend the use of pre-primed MDF skirting, as this is knot free, flat and does not cup. It comes in lengths up to 5.5m. This skirting can be glued directly to your wall and requires minimal fixing which will reduce decorating preparation.
Usually one coat of good gloss is all that is necessary for a perfect finish.
All internal 90 degrees angles must be fitted by using an internal scribe method. The scribe is cut by sawing an internal 45 degree angle to one piece of skirting to one side of the joint and then again cutting with a coping saw the outline of the 45 degree angle.
This then slots over the skirting fixed to the other skirting.
External corners can be cut and glued together using special MDF glue and will ensure a perfect joint. If the wall is not quite square the top edge of the skirting can be filled using decorator’s caulk.
Skirting should be fixed to the wall using gap filling adhesive and a compressed air nail gun which leaves such a tiny hole the paint will virtually fit in.
Scotia and Quadrant
If you chose not to remove your skirting, the expansion gap left alongside the skirting needs to be covered with either Scotia (concave) bead or Quadrant (Convex) bead.
Unlike fitting skirting all the joints made with Quadrant or Scotia should be mitered internally and externally and then glued together using a fast setting mitre glue. This will ensure the joints stay together when they are pinned to the skirting, even if the skirting are not quite straight or square.
Where the skirting meets the architrave, the beading needs to be return mitered to form a professional finish. All that remains then, if necessary is to run a small bead of decorator’s caulk along the top of the Scotia or Quadrant.
And there you have it! A brand new floor, polished to perfection, and completed in the most detailed and best quality possible by the crew here at The Feature Flooring Company Ltd (see below)
