Laying laminate wood flooring

fez

fez

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Tunbridge Wells
We have just carpeted our bedrooms in the flat but the mrs has her heart set on wooden floor for the main living room and corridor. We had a chat come round to fit our doors recently and he quoted for the fitting of the wood flooring when he was done but now that we have actually looked at his handiwork on the doors we don't want him anywhere near our new floor.

We have ~30m2 to fit and we are considering doing it ourselves but there are a few issues that I was hoping some of you could advise on. Its a second floor flat and pretty much everything is solid concrete. Concrete floors etc.

From what I have read, if you are laying over concrete you should lay a damp proof membrane first but see how this is a flat and not on the basement and the floor has had tiles on it before, do we still need to do this? There is a black tar like substance on the floor that the tiles were adhered to.

The second and much larger issue is that there are a number of cracks and drops in the floor in certain areas. Some are ~2mm and others are smaller. Most of the advice I have seen says that the floor needs to be very level but they are usually talking about gradual drops in the floor or undulating floors rather than small lips. Do we need to get some levelling compound on this? I have used levelling compound in some areas already before we laid the carpet but I find its quite hard to get a really nice even finish as it goes off so quickly so the thought of trying to do a large area worries me a bit.

Any advice?
 
I would still lay a damp proof membrane for peace of mind, they don't cost much from Screwfix. Choose a thicker underlay for your laminate, these can iron out imperfections of up to 3mm so you should be okay.
 
From what I have read, if you are laying over concrete you should lay a damp proof membrane first but see how this is a flat and not on the basement and the floor has had tiles on it before, do we still need to do this? There is a black tar like substance on the floor that the tiles were adhered to.

Be careful as depending on age of flat... black stuff could be old bitumen style stuff with asbestos in.
 
As You can see many flooring underlayment's come with a waterproof membrane as standard:

https://www.flooringsupplies.co.uk/laminate-flooring-accessories

But you don't need it in a flat providing it's at least on the 1st floor.

I'm not sure I'd bother levelling a floor with only a couple of mm variances and, as said above, a thicker bouncier underlay will be more than enough to cover them up. That being said the great thing about snap-together flooring is that you can lay it out and trial it on the worst areas of the floor and see if you notice any issues before completing the job and laying the skirting
 
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I had floorboards 2-5mm out due to one half of the room having old Marley tiles, with the middle of the room new floorboards and a scattering of random Marley tiles which were nigh on impossible to get up, black bitumen etc, various chisels, garden spade, and it took a lot of work to get one up. Ended up removing enough Marley tiles to give a straight line of them which is where the 2-5mm gap came in. Used the Wickes 5mm premium underlay and shimmed the step down of marley to floorboards with the laminate floor boxes cut up.

Floors been down for a few years and apart from the very occasional creak when first going in the room its solid as you like :D

Fitter charged £85 a day and it took 1.5 days.

I cut up and removed the old carpet myself, and prepped any loose floorboards with wood screws.
 
you are in a flat and not ground floor?

just make sure you check you allowed to have a wooden floor as many don't allow it in this scenario
 
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