Laminate flooring installation.

[dabuddha]

So I'm in the middle of doing it and I'm running into a couple of issues.

1) The laminate instructions say to start the first row with the tongue facing the wall and to cut the tongue off. All of the videos I saw online say to start the first row with the tongue facing away from the wall.

2) Is every seam supposed to be "invisible"? I'm finding as I'm pushing some boards together, a seam here or there seem to become visible. As in it's not a gap exactly but it's about 1mm or so (basically it's visible) When I push those boards back together, something else pops apart slightly.

After spending an hour with the tongue in the wall method, I gave up and reversed it (went with the tongue facing away from the wall method) It seemed a little better but #2 still keeps happening. If that's expected, I'll keep going, otherwise I was going to stop for the day (before I throw my miter saw through the glass door in frustration )

Thanks for any help!

 

[SphinxnihpS]

1) If you are running parallel to the wall, the first row should have the toungure ripped off and that edge should face the wall. The instructions are correct, though it almost makes no difference with Pergo because it's only 1/4" thick. This is in the instructions because it makes it easier to put in the last piece.

2) The boards are perfectly straight and flat, and your concrete floor is not. The uneveness causes bends in the planks, and the bends show up as gaps between them. This is why you pour a self-leveling underlaymentment prior to attaching finished flooring to concrete floors. I suspect you skipped that, though the advice was offered.

3) #1 has nothing to do with #2.

4) Would you mind scanning and posting the instructions?

5) Would you mind posting a few pics so we can stop guessing at what you're doing/using?

DIY looks so easy on TV...

 

[dabuddha]

i'll try to put up some pics. I did forget the self leveling and my wife did tell me that when she was washing the floors, water would pool in some spots. I'll swing by lowes tonight.

 

[dabuddha]

Man the self leveling underlayment is more expensive than I was thinking. $36 / 40 square feet coverage. I found some that's cheaper at Home Depot:
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1...atalogId=10053
That's $29 / 50 square feet.

After looking at the laminate at Lowes, I realized that the laminate I've got is much cheaper quality. If I apply enough pressure with my thumb, I can break off or chip off the tongue on one of my boards. Couldn't with the ones they had at Lowes. We're kinda leaning towards selling off our remaining boxes and buying some better quality boards now.

 

[SphinxnihpS]

Man the self leveling underlayment is more expensive than I was thinking. $36 / 40 square feet coverage. I found some that's cheaper at Home Depot:
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1...atalogId=10053
That's $29 / 50 square feet.

After looking at the laminate at Lowes, I realized that the laminate I've got is much cheaper quality. If I apply enough pressure with my thumb, I can break off or chip off the tongue on one of my boards. Couldn't with the ones they had at Lowes. We're kinda leaning towards selling off our remaining boxes and buying some better quality boards now.

There are many grades and brands. The kinds that are acutally plywood core, rather than some pulp-board (MDF, particle, foam) are going to be better.

The self-leveling resin, like all resin products, is expensive. Some of them are not made for concrete either, AND, to get it to stick to the concrete properly, you may need to thoughly wash the concrete with muriatic acid to get all the grease and gunk off, AND primer the floor witha special paint! Finally, have you fired a laser accrss the floor? You may find that there are areas 1/2" lower or higher than average. That's normal. Does this floor have a drain?

Tile is the way to go! ...in case you change your mind. Then agan, installing tile is FAR HARDER and 10 times more time consuming, and level pour is still recommended, though it can be done with mortar alone.

 

[edro]

I personally think laminate is junk. It's yet another way modern homes are taking the cheap and easy way out. None of these laminate floors are going to last more than 10 years... and you will be lucky to get 5 years of normal wear.
They are too susceptible to water damage and scratching, especially if the seams are perfectly tight.

I would go with tile, if you like a hard floor. Much more durable, just as cheap, easy to install, easy to clean, etc. It has its own faults though, like cleaning grout, sealing every few years, etc.

Why didn't you want carpet?

 

[dabuddha]

It's more about what my wife wanted lol. I wanted carpet originally but she has something against it (god knows what). My 2nd preference was to go with tile but the amount of work kinda turned me off on it. I am putting down about 20ish square feet of tile near the sliding door but that's about it.

 

[dabuddha]

Does anyone know if carpet installation base price from Home depot or lowes includes installing the tack strips? Or is that extra?

 

[dabuddha]

Just an update.

I got lucky and found someone to buy my laminate off of me. Even made a slight $18 profit off of it. Next step is to buy some better quality laminate. I know these are crappy pictures (taken with my cell phone) but you can see the difference between my laminate (bottom one) vs the better stuff (7-8mm samples).

The top two samples have the notched boards on the left
Third sample has it on the right
Mine (4th one) has it on the right. You can see that it's not really a notch

WARNING: IT'S BLURRY!

 

[spacejamz]

I just finished this room using laminate I bought from Costco...Still working on the baseboard though...

 

[dabuddha]

Looks awesome! How much per sq ft was it from Costco? I'm heading over to Sams club and BJs tomorrow evening to check em out.

 

[vi edit]

Lumber Liquidators usually has some 12mm laminate on sale for around $2.20-$2.50 a sq/ft. For a basement I'd stick to lighter stuff like maple just to keep it "brighter" in there.

 

[spacejamz]

Looks awesome! How much per sq ft was it from Costco? I'm heading over to Sams club and BJs tomorrow evening to check em out.

I got them when they were on sale for $1.25 /sq foot (reg price was $1.39 / sq foot)...

They are 7mm planks....

Here is their website, but they primarily sell their products at Costco...

http://www.harmonics-flooring.com/products.cfm?item=1

 

[vi edit]

7mm is some pretty flimsy stuff. I'd look for 9mm or above myself...

Also another thing that helps make laminate look less...laminate'y is getting planks that have a bevel on the edges. Makes look like a more true wood product and less fake.

I paid $.79 a sq/ft for a decent looking light maple with a bevel edged from ifloors.com. It was an odd lot of around 800 sq/ft that I bought. Shipping was about $200 so it was more like $1.15 once you added that in.

 

[Mark R]

I personally think laminate is junk. It's yet another way modern homes are taking the cheap and easy way out. None of these laminate floors are going to last more than 10 years... and you will be lucky to get 5 years of normal wear.
They are too susceptible to water damage and scratching, especially if the seams are perfectly tight.

I would go with tile, if you like a hard floor. Much more durable, just as cheap, easy to install, easy to clean, etc. It has its own faults though, like cleaning grout, sealing every few years, etc.

Why didn't you want carpet?

Laminate, like everything, comes in different grades and, to a large extent, you get what you pay for.

You can get cheap junk, with poor print quality, low density fiberboard backing which can dent and warp, and poor quality lacquer on the top which is susceptible to scratching. Alternatively, you get get good quality material, based on plywood, high density particleboard or composite substrate, and a thick scratch resistant lacquer.

I've installed decent quality laminate, and it's pristine 5 years later - literally, after a quick wipe down, you wouldn't know it wasn't brand new. By contrast, I've seen cheap laminate that's been badly installed falling apart after less than 1 year.

Laminate is so much easier to keep clean, and lasts so much longer than carpet, and is highly resistant to typical home-type abuse, that I really don't think I'd ever willingly have carpet again.

Of course, laminate is only a cheap imitation. You can get real wood, and if you want convenience and ease of installation, you can get 'engineered' wood - which is a real wood surface, mounted on a heavy plywood tongue-and-groove base, so it is installed exactly like laminate. It has the same advantages and disadvantages of real wood, while being much easier to install, enabling a perfect finish from people who aren't highly skilled carpenters, and without the use of glue and nails - so it's much easier to replace at the end of its life (Of course, as it's real wood, it can always be resurfaced).

One trick that I was taught by a skilled joiner who did all my floors last time, was that if you cut your laminate/wood so that the short seams are evenly spaced, it looks much better. Most people install laminate/tongue-and-groove in such a way as to space the seams randomly (to minimize wastage), giving an irregular and uneven appearance to the floor pattern.