SWMBO has talked me into laying wood laminate flooring in the bedroom. The room is 2.6m x 4m. In the instructions it says to leave a gap of 10 - 15mm all round to allow for expansion/spreading under load. It seems a bit much to me. Is this much spreading really likely to happen?
Yes, why do you think it states that. My mate has a wonder full laminate floor in his lounge that the middle rises about 6 inches odd in the summer as there is no expansion gap at one end and he has placed his heavy TV/HiFi unit on the other end of the room.
The instructions state so many mm gap per m (can't remember) and don't place very heavy items of furniture on it!!!! Great, only read about the heavy furniture after opening the packs.....
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On Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:55:41 +0100, shazzbat wrote (in article ):
Please don't do it. Go back to bare boards if you must - or carpet or.. anything.
Laminate flooring is just a get-rich quick scheme for spivvy retailers and contractors. Have you looked at the stuff?
It is mdf with a photograph of a piece of wood stuck to if.
It is laid on top of...basically carpet underlay. Doesn't that tell you something?
It has all the wearability and durability of.. a photograph
It goes very slippery at the slightest provocation. You can't put heavy things on it. It _looks_ like a photograph stuck to the floor.. with obvious repeating patterns.
It is fine for putting flooring down on an exhibition stand where you need a "nice" finish in a hurry that is not going to get lived on, but putting it in a house?
Think about it.
Good luck with SWMBO
Works very nicely in our Summer House covering the rather drab green floor that it came with.
Seconded! Also bedrooms produce an enormous amount of dust which will show on shiny laminate. Will need almost daily cleaning. Also initially cold on bare feet compared to carpet.
Bob
Thirdid(!) Laminate flooring is Tommy Walsh's (and other celeb builder/designers) idea of a good joke on the British public!
Slippy, moves/springs underfoot even with the expensive underlay they recommend, and it's noisy! you sneak into your bedroom in the dead of night while SWMBO is sleeping and drop your belt buckle on the floor and the whole neighbourhood will wake!
We have it in the kitchen - the dog hates it, but that's probably why I haven't taken it up! - we have an ice-skating dog!!! ha ha ha He has now learned to walk differently (oddly) in the kitchen, so funny! but amid the laughter comes tears because when he does walk across the kitchen floor it sounds like a meeting of the Fred Astair's Tap dancing appreciation society!
Tell SWMBO to have a carpet, straw, sand, earth anything but laminate flooring (it's the artex of the future!)
Ron
A lot easier to take up than Artex.
We have laminate in the hall, and my son has it in his lounge. It's survived 3+ years of student type life there. I suspect the quality of some is better than others.
Andy
Well we'll see. SWMBO has her heart set on it, it's bought now, and going down at the weekend. I appreciate all the comments, and I accept the necessity to have a gap at the edges, I just think the specified gap is a bit much.
Steve
The gap is less than the thickness of the skirting boards so lift the skirting, lay the laminate to the specification and put the skirting back to hide the gap.
Bob
Alan
>
Problem is if you don'leave a big enough gap the floor expands, hits the edge and rises up.
One other hint, my friend learnt this the hard way.
If you are doing any re-plumbing (ie moving radiator) and laminate flooring at same time, move radiator first and wait a couple of weeks before fitting the floor.
My friend moved his radiator and fitted floor in his lounge, all in a weekend, nice he thought. A week later he noticed slight pressure loss in sealed CH system, topped up. Week later pressure down again, boiler errors and cuts out.
He had limted access under the floor space, luckily still had access under house (by not fitting laminate in cupboard under stairs), most "man size" but shrinking to only 6"-1 foot gap under where his new radiator was located. Anyway by using lengths of 2x1 timber taped on video camera and inspection light managed to get to plumbing under the radiator and surprise surprise leaking push fit elbow (SpeedFit).
So up with a large section of the new laminate floor, up with floor boards to repair the joint. Fault was entirely his doing, in pushing the plastic pipe under the flloor boards, through supporting brick walls etc he had scored the end of the pipe (I always tape the ends of plastic pipe when ar*ing around because of this) and one tiny groove allowed water to slowly seep passed the push fit O ring. Easily fixed by chopping away 6" pipe and adding new section and leaving a week or two to verify.
Anyway he bought more of the same laminate, spent ages reparing the edge of exisiting laminate as slightly damaged during removal as it was glued and finds this batch is slightly different colour. Oh well, fit anyway and put a rug across it as this join is really obviously in middle of lounge......
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Very often the gap is dictated by the width of the beading for the edges. I doubt most beading would adequately cover a 15mm gap.
I know this is a bit late but I hope you have forewarned SWMBO of all the pit falls mentioned here or you know the consequences - it'll be your fault! You laid it wrong - I knew we should have got a man in! or Why didn't you buy the proper stuff? or even why didn't you tell me this was going to happen!
You really need a signed contract from SWMBO before committing yourself and a team of lawyers to draft it up, just remember the silence treatment is unbearable and divorce very costly!
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