Cutting skirting board for laminate flooring

My son has just moved into his first (1930s) house and wants to lay laminate flooring in some rooms. He doesn't want to use a bead around the edge, prefering to lay the laminate under the skirting. Rather than try and remove the skirting (and probably wreck most of it in the process) he's wondering if there's some sort of power saw that can be used to just cut 10-15mm of the bottom - a bit like a circular saw, but without anything protruding far from the right hand edge. Obviously the depth would have to be carefully set to avoid any power cables behind the skirting, (which is why I think a jigsaw won't be suitable) and he may have to use a knife/chisel to get right into the corners. Any ideas on this please? David

Reply to
DavidM
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You can get saws for trimming the bottoms of doors in situ which would probably do - or even a biscuit jointer.

*However* it's all a waste of time 'cos it won't work without removing the skirting board!

You need wedges between the wall and flooring on the starting side - which can't subsequently be removed with the skirting in place. Likewise, you need to get *beyond* the last board to lever them all together - which again you can't do with the skirting in place.

Remove - and probably renew - the skirting board (it's not *that* expensive!) and make a proper job of it.

Reply to
Roger Mills

Laminate flooring looks nice, but as far as I am concerned, it makes a room echo like mad and is not really a pleasant experience for the neighbours either. My neighbour has laminate flooring and we can ear everytime someone walks into her lounge

Carpets are much better

Reply to
the_constructor

Bite the bullet - remove the skirting and chuck it ... then fit new skirting, if you choose something deeper it will make for easier fitting - spanning the wall skim joint if there is one.

You might find it worthwhile to refit with good thick beads of mastik adhesive .. I used Pink Grip on my skirtings - seems to have much better first 'grab' than Gripfill, and is much stronger than the diy stuff ... no-more nails etc. But make sure you get rid of all loose dust - and wipe back of boards with meths first to remove any resin. Pack underneath to hol it up ... and then screw, nail or pin to hold until glue sets.

Reply to
Osprey

I bought a cutter that fitted to a angle grinder to undercut the skirting's, waste of money and effort, remove the skirting's and replace, I used white UPVC, that was five years ago, her indoors still says what a nice job I did :-)) Joe

Reply to
Joe

Agreed. Nothing will do that kind of cut. You don't have to wreck the skirting just by taking it off. What you probably will wreck is the plaster/battens behind it, but that's easy enough to repair.

Reply to
Stuart Noble

We've just laid laminate flooring in our lounge and I'm never doing it again. We used that Aqualok clicky together stuff and it took me 15 hours. I'm not particularly cack handed so either I missed something really obvious or you have to assemble a whole run (i.e. room width) of the stuff then click it into the previous run.

Anyway we didn't used a bead or cur the skirting. We used a 1 cm wide cork strip round the edge and left it exposed. Of course you do have to make sure the edges line up perfectly especially in the middle round the hearth.

Reply to
malc

Thanks to all for your advice, very helpful. David.

Reply to
DavidM

If he ever goes back to carpets he'll (possibly) have noticeable gaps around the skirting and under the doors.

If you do take it off, don't throw it away though, reuse it!

Reply to
DrLargePants

Just lay the carpet on the laminate surely?

Reply to
Tony Bryer

I believe so...

Reply to
adder1969

Never thought of that, lol!

Reply to
DrLargePants

Do not forget, the bodgers put the laminate on the carpet underlay.

Adam

Reply to
ARWadsworth

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