Easy enough to do myself?...Vinyl and Laminate

Minky2Slice

Hi guys! hopefully someone can shed some light, i'd like to replace my bathroom carpet (eurgh!) with some vinyl flooring. How easy would it be to take up the carpet and fit it myself? and can it go straight on the floorboards? does it get glued on or how does it go down? bathroom is quite small, so hoping it wouldnt be a massive job :rolleyes:

Also, how easy, relatively speaking is it to fit laminate flooring yourself?
(Getting Quick Step) planning to do lounge and diner...got a quote for around £600 for someone to come fit it for me, would be great if we could do it ourselves (I dont mind hard work!)

Any advice would be muchly appreciated!:o

jenniewb

I have not put in vinyl tiles myself, but have tried cork and laminate.

Get help- unless you have done this before or are fairly good at keeping things VERY precise, the vinyl could easily slip out of place if its anything like Cork. Its not the actual tiles that are the problem, its the glue underneath- if its in any way uneven, it will show big time with the tiles.

With laminate- get at least another person helping you out. The clip-in place stuff looks easier then it is, it needs bashing together with brute force and again, the underlay will need to be VERY flat underneath or it shows on top. My dad did mine, it took a few days to do my room as it was so hard getting the tiles to clip together. Some fitted perfectly, others just would not go. Then there was the fact the floor was uneven, I do have small cracks where the laminate just would not clip close enough together but thats because the floor underneath is uneven. Alone my dad's attempt was hilarious- my sister posted it on her facebook account as she thought it was so funny, it definitely takes two people to get it done, but can be done- if you find yourself thinking "I can live with that crack/raw edge" then its time to take a break. Trust me, two months down the line it will bug the hell out of you!

mr_vampy

Hi Minky2Slice,

Quick Step laminate flooring is very easy to fit together by one person. It uses the Uniclic system, where there are 2 methods of fitting the boards.
With any laminate flooring, just make sure your subfloor whether it's floorboards or concrete is flat and dry. If your subfloor is concrete, be sure to use a combined underlay with damp proof membrane. When fitting the laminate floor, allow a 10mm expansion gap between the floor and wall. This gap can be covered up with scotia beading.
Hope it helps

SplanK

you would be best going for vinyl really - laminate flooring - water can get through the gaps, swell with water ingress....

with vinyl - depends on the floring - but I laid some thin plywood onto the floorboards (nailed down) then laid the vinyl, i under cut it so it was too large for the room then cut it to fit the floor as I went along. Once happy - used double sided sticky tape on all 4 edges to hold it in place!

We needed a 2m X 2m square sheet - so quite small area - just required a bit of patience and thought - esepcialy before cutting