Gluing Laminate Flooring

[bungle]

Hi,

I am going to lay some laminate flooring in my kitchen but have a problem that I don't want to lay it under the kitchen units and therefore do not have a square room with all the laminate touching walls.

I have therefore considered using a heavy duty glue such as gripfill to stick the laminate down with.

Does anyone have any better suggestions to this or could anyone advise why this might be a bad idea? I know that the laminate is supposed to expand and contract slightly and was worried gluing might cause any issue.

Thanks in advance

Dave

[CW]

Laminate flooring is typically laid with 1/4" gap at the wall. If you put it up against the wall, it will buckle when it expands (I've seen it done). As it is meant to float anyway, cutouts around appliances are not a problem. If you glue it down, it will have expansion problems. Before you do this, get the manufacturers installation instructions. They all have them. The warranty is void if those instructions are not fallowed. Also, make sure that there is enough clearance to get things out (such as a built in dishwasher). It would be a pain to have to tear out the flooring to replace a dishwasher.

[Patriarch]

"CW" wrote in news:qr%qe.3071$ [e-mail]:

It really is, as some good friends of ours found out. Only it wasn't a floating laminate floor, but a ceramic tile in an old-school mud base. Turned a $900 dishwasher into something much more expensive and stressful. They ended up tearing up the tile countertop to get it in.

A floating floor can be a really good thing, sometimes.

Patriarch

[bf]

It's a very bad idea. Just lay the laminate down with the same gap as recommended by the walls. Make sure you use silicone caulk around the entire perimeter. Then put baseboard trim on the toekick of your cabinets and/or 3/4 inch roundover trim. That will cover the gap.

For a dishwasher, what you do is raise up the front legs of the dishwasher and lay your laminate partially under the diswasher (like maybe 1/3 under the dishwasher. Lower the legs of the dishwasher and it will look like there's flooring under it.