DIY Laminate Floor

[tflfb]

Anyone install a laminate floor planks, what brand, ease of installation, was it glued or snapped together.

Any comments.

Thanks.

Tom

[Larry Davick]

We just installed a click together floating cork floor. It is stunningly beautiful.

It took some time to get the hang of installing it, but we figured out that if you align the long edge and use a tapping block (a piece of scrap) to snap together the short edge it worked every time.

As with so many things in life, the devil is in the details. I spent 2 hours trying to figure out how to address two door openings. But once I placed the final piece and looked at what we now had for a floor I was elevated to another place!!!

[MAG]

Tom-

A few years ago I put in a Pergo floor. I bought the Pergo from Home Depot. It was the 8mm thick stuff, which comes with a pretty good warranty. Glued together, not snapped. I'm not partial to snap- together floors, probably due ugly seams showing in some earlier products.

It was my first time putting in a Pergo floor, and it went well. I'd say it's definitely in the DIY realm. Just get the video that walks you through it, plan the job well, and handle any problems with a wry smile.

I did make one major "mistake" in the planning phase that added a lot of time to the job. I wanted the floor to be the "Alpine Beech" pattern, with a border around it against the walls in one of the Pergo tile patterns that look like stone. Being a first timer, I didn't realize that surrounding the "inset" woodgrain pergo with a perimeter of the tiles meant I had to get the cuts EXACTLY right, down to a tiny fraction of a millimeter. If I had just put the tiles on two ends, rather than all around, it would have been no big deal, but the way I did it added at least an extra day to the job.

Good luck.

Marc

[Edwin Pawlowski]

I installed Mannington engineered wood over a concrete slab. Total was about 450 sq. feet and it took me a couple of days. This was a floor that is glued in the tongue and grooves. It has been down six months now and we really like it.

If you have some handyman skills around the house, you can do it. Thetoughest part is cutting around things if you have any irregularities in the room like the fireplace, wall recesses, etc. I miter saw is a bit help, but no other special tools are needed. The dealer will lend you an installation kit with a block to tap the floor into place for a perfect fit. Ed [e-mail]

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Forgot to mention. Knee pads are a very good investment. Ed

[Jon Endres, PE]

Installed Uniclic flooring in my office, snaps together, no glue. Installed Mannington floors in my house, glue together. The Uniclic stuff is OK, but it's a small room, and it seems to be holding up fine to daily office use. The Mannington stuff is complete shit, looks fake, sounds hollow, joints are opening up (and we used the expensive-as-hell glue that they sell for their floors, found out it was just plain old Elmer's white glue).

I will NEVER install laminate flooring again in any house I own. Hardwood floors would have been cheaper by the time I was done, and gaps in a T&G hardwood floor don't look nearly as bad.

[bambam]

We do an increasing number of laminate floors -- they're getting really popular, no longer a "cheap substitute for hardwood". A reasonably skilled DIYer should have no problem with the click-together brands.

Tools you'll need -- a flat bar for removing baseboards, a hand saw for cutting back door casings and jambs, a dozen or so quarter or half inch spacers to position the "gap" at the wall, a tapping block, a tool (can't think of what it's called) for pulling in the outside edges, a table saw with a good fence and a sixty tooth blade, and a jig saw.

One important thing is to make darned sure the surface you're flooring is FLAT. We've done homes where the subfloor from different rooms met with 1/4 inch difference. Where you have that situation, you can either feather it out .. or tear out the subfloor and fix it.

Ken

[Ron Kihara]

I installed a floor last year using Quick-Step Perspective, a snap together laminate. I've been pleased with the result, it cleans easily and is rock hard. I'm now laying laminate in the hallway and the spare bedroom.

It's best to order samples from a dealer so you can check the patterns and color, and also the durability of the flooring. I ordered samples of five brands and beat them with a ball peen hammer and attacked them with a carbide scribe before making my choice. Water and wear warranties should also be considered. Quick Step Perspective has a wear warranty, but no water, since it is beveled at the joint for appearance, which traps water. The non-grooved versions of Quick Step come with a

25-year water and wear warranty.

The snap together flooring is not as easy to install as advertising would imply. Snapping two planks together side-to-side is easy, but when you have to join a plank on both an edge and an end, it takes a bit of muscle (I only have experience with Quick Step). The condition of the underlying floor is also important. It must be flat, stiff, and reasonably level. I had to put down a 15/32" underlayment of plywood to make the floor sufficiently stiff.