Laying new laminate flooring, replacing the old one.....

[Efour]

How easy is this do you think on a scale of 1 to 10.
Everywhere says its on par with wallpapering or painting. "Anyone can do it" but obviously theres skill and technique to it.

I have very basic tools a jigsaw and a rotary saw, i know ill need to replace the underlay/plastic foam stuff... Im very scared of cutting this stuff Can be cut with a stanley knife 8mm thick?
I guess i can hide a lot under furniture....
Leave a gap around the walls to hide with skirting.....

anyone do it for a living or done their own gaff recently.

I want to do a test room first about 16m2 then if it turns out nice the rest of the lower house, We don't have carpet in Sweden as a rule....

Either this or i contact a firm to do it and probably the best part of £2000 quid knowing the price of workmen here....

help.

 

[R.C.Anderson]

It's pretty damn easy tbh.

Any cuts will be hidden, so your jigsaw will be good enough (try to get a fairly straight cut, but a mm or 2 won't be seen) Assuming by rotary saw, you're meaning what we'd call a circular saw, that'll probably make a neater & straighter cut). You want to allow an expansion gap around the edges of ~10mm, which is then covered by either skirting (loots better, but more work if refitting), or with scotia bead (quick & easy, but not as nice imo). If your cut is a bit wonky, as long as it's all under the edge & you've still got about the right expansion gap, you're golden. The only complexity is around any pipework (e.g. radiators), where it's not up against the wall. You can either drill a hole & feed the pipe through, or you drill the hole, then using a saw, cut the hole to the edge & replace the wedge once the board is back in place (you'll still see the saw lines, but it's normally fairly well hidden behind the pipe).

The underlay, depends what type you get, but most will just with a stanley knife. The more wood fibre stuff is a bit tougher, but I've mostly used the foam stuff.

 

[Diggsy]

If you’re doing LVT, this video is decent…

 

[Efour]

LVT is higher end stuff right?
I Google here its at least twice as expensive per square meter.

I was Bloody dreaming about this crap last night lol feel like I've already layed 10000 square meters

 

[Grim5]

LVT is higher end stuff right?
I Google here its at least twice as expensive per square meter.

I was Bloody dreaming about this crap last night lol feel like I've already layed 10000 square meters

Luxury Vinyl Tiles/Planks (LVT/LVP) are made up of multiple layers starting with a base of PVC, topped with a fill layer for thickness and dimensional stability. On top of this, a photographic image is placed to replicate the latest trends in wood, ceramic and stone designs. On top of this image, a clear vinyl wear layer is applied to protect the tile or plank for durability. Depending on the variety of LVT that you are looking at, there may be slight differences in the layers making up the flooring. Some manufacturers use more or fewer layers or have different protective layers on the top surface to further enhance wear resistance and other features. These vary across the different ranges and can make some LVT superior to others




For your use case, LVT is easier to install than laminate, and LVT is more water proof than laminate. LVT has some downsides, it's less scratch resistant than laminate and LVT at the end of the day is still Vinyl and has all the Vinyl downsides, such as direct sunlight can stain it over time and certain types of rubber compounds contacting the floor can make it turn yellow

 

[doggles]

It's relatively easy to do. I would have a think about where the joins are, when you lay one plank end against the next the next one

if youre laying you'll need to make them staggered, but do you want uniform in a pattern or do you want it random.

 

[Efour]

It's relatively easy to do. I would have a think about where the joins are, when you lay one plank end against the next the next one

if youre laying you'll need to make them staggered, but do you want uniform in a pattern or do you want it random.

Yes I started reading up on it.
Randomish lengths seems best for integrity but the one she likes looks more like planks on the Mary rose and I guess there will be more wastage and offcuts.

I don't hate it but it's kinda tough picking something that's gonna probably be there 10 years....

I'm worried about the kitchen area, I shouldn't be it seems fairly
Straight forward, the laminate we have now has done well for at least 10+ years( previous owners) somewhere said glue it in the kitchen to give it better water proof joints...

Final question for now.

The whole house is almost 1 continuous run, it's very open plan. Must have been fashionable in 2000s Sweden.....

Can you rip up half, lay new, move all the furniture on top and carry on.(a bodge?)
The lounge will be ok to empty but the dining kitchen hallway is just 20odd meter straight run from doorstep all the way to the opposite end wall. It's more like a wall less bungalow tbh.

I obviously don't want to mess this up lol. The fact it's 1 continuous huge floor leaves no room for errors and there's no natural, good looking way to break it into 2 smaller jobs without what I thinks a bodge...but probably the only way to do it ...

 

[R.C.Anderson]

You shouldn't have much wastage with laminate, unless you're going for a very specific layout that causes it. The norm, is whatever you cut off the end of one run, you use to start the next. This is what gives you the staggered plank pattern. So really, all the wasteage you get, is on the last run (as your room won't be a perfect number of planks in size), and round any corners etc. You'll occasionally need to scrap an offcut, but that only happens when it's gets too small (normally ~20cm or so is the smallest you'd want to start a new run with).

There's nothing inherintly wrong doing it in 2 sections, it's not really any different to how you would do it normally. Just stop a reasonable way away from the bit you still need to remove, so you don't damage the flooring you've just put down whilst you are ripping up the old stuff. Make sure you continue the underlay properly (i.e. keep staggered joins, rather than have a continuous join where you move around) & protect the edges of any laid flooring as you're moving stuff around/walking over it. Any laid underlay will want some laminate on it when walking over, even if it's just a loose plank, otherwise you'll compress it & it may not come back properly (at least this is the case with the foam stuff I've used)
I did similar with hardwood flooring, I was doing the whole ground floor in the same wooden flooring, but I had to only do the kitchen initially, then it stopped there for best part of a year before I could finish renovating the rest of the ground floor & get the flooring down there too.

 

[Haggisman]

If you're even semi-confident at DIY then laminate is easy-peasy, especially if you're just replacing old for new and don't have to worry about preparing the sub-floor

Yes I started reading up on it.
Randomish lengths seems best for integrity but the one she likes looks more like planks on the Mary rose and I guess there will be more wastage and offcuts.

I don't hate it but it's kinda tough picking something that's gonna probably be there 10 years....

I'm worried about the kitchen area, I shouldn't be it seems fairly
Straight forward, the laminate we have now has done well for at least 10+ years( previous owners) somewhere said glue it in the kitchen to give it better water proof joints...

Yes - we got some special "joint sealer", but from the feel/behaviour/smell, I would guess it's literally just PVA glue!

Final question for now.

The whole house is almost 1 continuous run, it's very open plan. Must have been fashionable in 2000s Sweden.....

Can you rip up half, lay new, move all the furniture on top and carry on.(a bodge?)

Yeah, absolutely, just as @R.C.Anderson says, protect the underlay so you don't put dents in it.

A few tips:

• The quality of underlay you use will massively affect the quality of the final job, I would recommend the denser rubbery foam, rather than the expanded polystyrene type stuff, we did our living room with Royale "Sonic Gold" (black expanded poly foam) which was highly recommended at the time, but there was always a bit too much "give" in it. Did our hallway/kitchen with Duralay "Timbermate Excel" (dense rubber foam) and the difference was night and day, the floor felt much more solid, less echoey, and just generally better quality - so when we redid the living room we used that as well (only problem is it's 3x the price and is heavier than your mum).
• If you're going for high traffic areas, e.g. kitchen/hallway, I'd stick to looking at AC4/AC5 stuff, the AC rating is for durability, and 4 and above are rated for commercial use - you get a much longer warranty with it; the stuff we used is AC5 and has a 30 year domestic warranty - while it's only been down 2 years, it still looks like new (well, it did until 2 weeks ago when we had a leak and whole load of water got under it...).
• Make sure you leave an expansion gap (~10mm) around the edges - you can get foam or cork to fill this to maintain the seal around the edges.
• Taking the skirting off and refitting over the top is a right pain in the ****, but it looks significantly better than pinning scotia to the existing skirting.
• Jigsaw blades - you want a relatively high tooth count (~10TPI), and for the teeth to hit the face of the board and push through to the back, not the other way round - chips come out as the blade pushes through, so if you're cutting face up, you want reverse cut blades which cut on the DOWNstroke so that the teeth hit the face of the board and push it through to the back. You can also cut face down - which can make it a bit harder to mark out your cut lines - and for this you want regular blades which cut on the UPstroke, again so the teeth hit the face of the board and pull through. For reverse cut, I use T101BR, for regular blades, I think it's just T101B
• However many jigsaw blades you think you need, triple it. Laminate absolutely chews through them, and when they get blunt they'll start to chip the edges more.

 

[Efour]

(only problem is it's 3x the price and is heavier than your mum).

I doubt this very much.

Everything else, awesome. I'll look into the better "underlägg" Swedish, cool.