That laminate vs new wood flooring Q - thanks

Thanks to all who offered advice on the question I put 10 days ago. Suffice to say all did not go as planned but it's pretty much finished now.

In the end I went for laminate on the basis it was easier and faster to lay (ROFL). I had discarded the carpet but retained the rubber backed underlay and added the green insulation stuff which is essentially compressed paper, easy to cut but incredibly dusty.

Lessons learned

The glueless laminate used is Floormaster from B&Q and this is the first time I've attempted to lay it. Its gone down over pretty poor floorboards and the variation in the height of the floor makes laying the laminate very difficult indeed. Or so I thought. As I got around 2/3 of the way across the room I noticed that some of the laminate itself wasn't flat (!!) and that obviously had compounded the difficulty.

This really is a two man job as when laying board 2, board 1 pops out a little or more often a lot. There's no easy slot in of #2 as #1 has to be raised to allow the leading edge to mate properly etc. It's a pain. Needless to say except for two rows I've had to do the rest myself. Sloooooowly....

Somewhat disappointed that a fair number of new boards had small damage along the laminate edges while in the pack and would have taken them back if I had had the energy.... managed to use them for offcuts at first but in the end just laid the damn things.

Wastage: there's too much of it. Probably mostly down to the room/property where no wall is at 90deg to another and walls and chimney breast aren't parallel!!!!! Left with a 2" gap at the end and as I haven't put the beading down yet I'm left contemplating the awful job of cutting a 1.5" infill (4 planks, so expensive) or pulling the whole floor across (it can be done surprisingly) and using larger beading instead.

**Suggestions gratefully received**

Also a conundrum: the room ends in a mezzanine stair and terminating the whole width of floor aesthetically is a challenge as there's no banister. Again

**Suggestions gratefully received**

HTH anyone else contemplating laying a laminate floor. If you have a rectangular room with a concrete floor it's probably not too bad, anything else ... well expect the worst.

Reply to
Tenex
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Just put some Floormaster stuff in here... The floorboards were so bad that I just screwed P5 T&G down on top then the underlay and laminate...nice and flat :-)

The cheap sliding chop I bought for the job saw was definitely a good idea though :-)

Lee

Reply to
Lee Blaver

My sentiments exactly :), Spent 2 weeks laying down the stuff and the next 4 patching cracks and doing the beading. Have still to fininsh. Must admit it's miles better than carpet when you have small kids running about and spilling stuff.

Sianu

Reply to
Sianu

That's where you went wrong. Can't possibly lay laminate while you're ROFL ;-)

Reply to
Martin

I was tempted to say ROF sobbing .....

Reply to
Tenex

I got the £119 one from B&Q (I was in a hurry..), but put a decent blade on it. Ok it's not exactly well built, but if it just gets through the four rooms worth of laminate, skirting, door frames and architraving, then it will have paid for itself :-)

Lee

Reply to
Lee Blaver

<Grin>

Lee

Reply to
Lee Blaver

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