Kitchen flooring prep for laying of vinyl

Hi,

We're in the process of having the kitchen done (total gutting job). After umming and ahhing a bit over the floor we've decided to just have vinyl put down.

In preparation for this, the floorboards obviously needed covering, to which end the builder has put down chipboard sheets, fixed with copious numbers of screws to keep it all flat.

A member of the family, however, has said that this isn't good enough and that we should have larger, more rigid boarding put down instead, either MDF sheets or apparently you can get some special boards for this purpose.

Is this the case? We're a bit stuck in the middle here as we don't know the first thing about this and we have the builder saying one thing and the family member saying another. The builder has obviously done this sort of thing before so I don't really want to go to him and tell him he doesn't know what he's talking about unless I'm 100% he's got it wrong. Obviously tearing up all the chipboard and putting down different boarding is going to be a pain in the neck, especially as the base units are now in and the boarding goes under the front legs of these, as well as completely under the integrated dishwasher.

Any advice would be appreciated. Will the chipboard do the job well enough or are we likely to have problems? It looks pretty flat to me although it's not mirror smooth. I don't want to lay out 500 quid for the vinyl flooring only to find it looks crap and we've then got an even bigger problem on our hands.

TIA.

Reply to
Toby Groves
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Provided there are no bad gaps or mis-matched levels at the chipboard joins, chipboard will be lovely (and a lot better than most people lay vinyl on).

If, of course, the member of the family wants to pay for the alternative, that'll probably be fine too.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

-- micky104

Reply to
micky104

I'd agree, but only providing there's no chance of it getting even slightly wet (eg water getting under the edges of the vinyl?) which will turn the chipboard to Weetabix (and 2-3 times its thickness). Personally I'd have used WBP plywood, which is a bit dearer than chipboard which may explain why your builder didn't choose it.

David

Reply to
Lobster

Absolutely - and smooth is more important than level, so it's always worth taking 10 mins to crawl around sweeping your hand over the nail heads and joins.

Reply to
Steve Walker

You can buy 'waterproof' chipboard for bathrooms & kitchens from Wickes - sort of funny greenish colour. I've had it in my conservatory for a few years with no adverse effects.

Dave

Reply to
david lang

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