ANyone installed laminate flooring?

[banditpowdercoat]

I got a wild hair up my you know what to rip out out dingy carpet and put Laminate down. Is there any real tricks one should know? it's going to be tricky with the 150g as I;ll have to do the room up to the tank, then drain 2/3 of tank rock and such in other tanks/rubber maid's then slide the tank/stand over to middle of room, finish, and slide tank back. Anyone see any issues with this? I was going to just cut the carpet around the tank, so it'll rest on the carpet and not directly on the laminate.

Just wondering if theres any advice. Havn't got the laminate yet, but need approx 600 SqFt and looking for around $1/Ft

[tgoeujon]

yeah ive done just about my whole house now. if you want when i get back from school ill give ya a hand. dont buy the cheap stuff, get at least 10mm. the 8mm tends to shift and crack eventually and the edges are weaker which means more waste and excess expense anyway.

[belzebuth]

don't buy the 8mm for under the tank. It will get all wrecked. Get the 10 mm. Worth the extra $$ and tend to be more water resistant.

[tgoeujon]

+1

[mark]

I've done lot's and it's really rather easy.

Advice, do pay attention to gap around walls, doors etc. Neighbour didn't and the stuff looks like crap when it started buckling in the middle of his room. Also if do place under the tank, glue the seams there to prevent water getting in between pieces. Same around outside doorways.

I have done lots do get the best you can afford. I would recomend the stuff that is like plywood the top layer is hardwood of what ever type you want. It is ment to be a floating floor so you have to leave a 1/4 inch space on all sides or else it will end up looking realy bad. All wood exspands and contracts do not use glue the person we bought this house from used glue and it looks realy bad. I have to redo all the laminate on the main floor. The plywood type and the laminet flooring is made to take on some moisture so put some plastic down where the tank stand is going to be, this will protect the flooring.
You can get clean plastic from fabric land it comes in different thicknesses get the thikest they have, it is a linal product. You also have to make sure that your floor is level no dips or rises as this will make the flooring look bad and it also makes instalation hard. If the floor has dips and rises get some self leveling cement and that will do the job then you will have to lay down a new underlay wood before putting dow the flooring but if your going to do some thing you might as well do it right. I got to the point that I could do a realy large living room in less than a day with trim, get the instalation kit it makes thing alot easer. My brother didn't while he started his floor I went and got my flooring tools that I was using for my laminate floors. I got back and he had only done 1 row we finished his kiten in about 2 hrs.

Bill

[StirCrazy]

ok, I have done pretty much the 1/2 the whole house in it now, and did a lot of reading on it.

the thickness donesn't matter so much, 8mm, 10mm, 12mm there all good but what does matter is you buy a good quality in that size. there are two types, DLP (direct pressure lamanate), and HPL (High pressure lamanate) you want HPL if you can find it it is more stable and stronger, but more expensive. If all you can find is DLP then get 12mm or thicker which is also more expensive. My theory is the 0.99 lamanates are just there to get you into the store so you can see how ugly they actualy are. I have some of that buck/foot stuff in my dinning room that I have to remove and put differ stuff down. Previous owners installed it. it is already getting buckels at the joints, but we are going to do the whole upstairs in laminate so we are just trying to decide which one to go with upstairs, befor I start that. besides, I have to many other renos going on right now to worry about that haha

also what are you installing it on? If over cement, it is different than over wooden subfloor.

wooden subfloor, clean, amke sure you remove any staples/nails that are left over from carpet and any screws or nails that are holding the subfloor down are sunk properly, put your underlay down and install the lamanate. On cement you need to do some extra work. first you need a underlay then the padding. my basement cost me 500.00 to get the floor ground level (about 600 sqft). my laminate was 2.30/sqft on sale reg 2.89 (which is the cheepest you are going to get a good lamanate for, unless there is one heck of a sale) then you have to put your underlay. I recomend getting a good one. I got floor muffler for about 0.79/sqft and because I was in a basement below grade I needed a thermalbreak / moisture control layer which was a roll of dimpled ABS. all seams on the ABS and underlay were tuck taped and then the floor installed ontop of that.

that 600 sqft was split into two rooms, a big bedroom and the family room. the bedroom took about 6 hours to do as the stuf we used required the ends of the starter row to be glued togeather then wait an hour and the cutting around the closet took a bit. the family room which is twice the size took me about 4 hours and I had to do some fancy cutting around the fireplace. there are good instructions with the products and make sure you follow them.

remember you cannot install it under a fish tank, as it is a floating floor and only made for lighter furnature loads. the big problem is it will crack the locking joints if the weight is to much, so if you are going to put a big fishtank over it you want to buy the types with the aluminum locking joints and now were talking big bucks. Its not a good idea around the tank anyways as water that isn't wiped up right away can eventualy swell the material and buckel your floor. I did the bar/tank area in slate tiles, and the rest in lamanate.

for tools, you will need a saw for laminate, a miter saw with a lamanate blade works good, I also got a blade for my table saw as I had to do some long rips also. you will need a puller thing for lamanate flooring. Don't buy an instalation kit they are a rip off and there is only one tool in them you need (which is the puller thing that you can buy on its own.

so your wanting to go in a 1.00 sqft is going to be hard unless you gfet your laminate for about 0.65/sqft then your underlay (a cheep one) for about 0.35/sqft and don't have to buy any tools. this will give you a floor that you are going to have to pull up and replace in about a year (as my brother is finding out now) a more realistic number would be about 3.00-3.50/sqft upstairs, or 3.50-4.50 for a downstairs on cement.

Steve

[banditpowdercoat]

I'm doing it in a Mobile Home. So wood subfloor. And I can't put it under a tank? Some say I can, you say I can't What's the deal??? I need to know 100% before I commit to this. I can't just leave a non floored section for the tank. This will be a rental home soon, we won't be here for ever, and the tank comes with us, of coarse.

[Pescador]

You could keep enough flooring to finish it after you move out?

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by banditpowdercoat

I'm doing it in a Mobile Home. So wood subfloor. And I can't put it under a tank? Some say I can, you say I can't What's the deal??? I need to know 100% before I commit to this. I can't just leave a non floored section for the tank. This will be a rental home soon, we won't be here for ever, and the tank comes with us, of coarse.

if it is a small tank, you could, but a large tank.. I wouldn't. it is a floating floor and needs to expand and contract with the seasons so if you put a large weight on it and preven part of it from moving it will buckel and possably break the locking joints which means new floor time. Persoanly I would start on the opisite side of the room from the tank. install it around the tank andf just have enough to redo the tank area when it is gone. or just wait to do the floor till the tank is gone.

Steve