easy laminate flooring ?

I'm only at the beginning of my DIY career. However, I have built shelves and a greenhouse. I want to lay laminate flooring. I'm doing a lot of research and it seems easy. B&Q do a glue free laminate special at £9.90 a pack. The difference between this and the other floormaster ranges is that this has a thinner tongue and so is not as easy to lay B&Q tell me. Anybody had problems with this ? Anybody think laying laminate would be too much for me ? I've stated my only major diy jobs at the start of this thread. Any advice greatly received

Josepea

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josepea
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Josepea

Laminate flooring is not hard to install, I would say about as hard as building a green house. I laid the type you glue together this year (after advice which said the clip together stuff can part and leave ugly gaps), The flooring was very easy to lay, just annoying and slow at times when the flooring need to be cut round doors.

The most important thing with this as will all other jobs is good preparation.

Make sure the surface is flat and lay an underlay.

Let the floor acclimatise for a few days before the floor is laid.

Leave the appropriate gaps round the edges to allow for expansion

If you do glue he flooring together I recommend purchasing a number if clamps to hold the floor while it dries, also ensures the floor is held tightly and leaves no nasty gaps

Hope this is of some use.

Andrew

josepea wrote:

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Andrew

Hi,

I have just laid floormaster flooring from B&Q throughout the downstairs of my new house. I can say that its pretty simple, but definetly look a the back of the box, and triple think all the first set of cuts that you make, as you really need to mark the underside of the board and cut with a fine jigsaw blade, as this stops it ripping, but marking the underside can lead to confusing issues about left right and front back though if you are not careful!

After the first few boards it gets pretty easy, just think about where to start as well, as you often have to tuck boards under doorframes, and it is best to lay away from the most difficult doorway.

My only critisim is that whilst it is REALLY tough once its down, its so so fragile when you are laying it. You can easily chip the laminate edge (resulting in the board needing to be replaced) just with your nail when you are positioniong it if you are not careful. Also, if you lock and unlock a board several times, the MDF toungue starts to break up and can cause a problem getting a clean joint between boards until the debris is cleared.

You may want to consider the edging as well, in the end I went for standard pine quadrant from B&Q in the wood section, it was half the price and 25% longer than the equivilent floormaster trim - although not as easy to bend against uneven walls!

Regards

Paul

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Paul

I haven't done any laminate flooring yet but it seems to be going down like hot cakes around these parts.

Stupid question I know, but what are the widths of the boards? I'm assuming these are supplied something like loft boarding of a standard size?

If the width is below about 12in then presumably a sliding mitre saw could do the business?

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