Laminate floor laying question...

themightystu

I'm a little confused,

I have heard from a number of people that you should always leave a 10mm or so gap at the edges when laying laminate floors, but when I bought my flooring this weekend at floors2go the guy (who was very helpful and seemed quite knowlegable) said that this is a commonly held myth for laminate as they don't expand like real wood floors do...

Does anyone have any exerience with this? Should I just go right upto the edges like he says or should I really be leaving a gap anyway?

latecomer

Leave a gap - if you dont and it does expand then its going to buckle.

wealdroam

Well to quote from Floors2go's own website...

4.4 Planning of expansion gaps; Since laminate flooring is made of organic materials, it is subject to certain movement behaviours (shrinkage/expansion) due to changes in climate conditions. It is necessary to leave gaps of 10mm for the expansion in all parts of the structure i.e. walls, doorframes, stairs, around pipes.

Tucker

It can push the floor up at the joint. It did on mine when I fitted it tight to the door casing.

It ended up lifting slighly at times and it caught the door, which eventually marked it.

I would leave a gap all round the room, even where it meets the door casing or pipes etc...

fred7777

Laminate will still expand or contract due to temperature differences as wood will do. Wood will also expand or contract with humidity changes. So laminate needs less gap, also the gap needed for either is relative to side size of floor as a smaller floor has less surface to expand.
In my experience doing a narrow hallway you can get away with much less than 1cm, in fact with a narrow room the laminate may move around exposing bigger gaps so you need to use a smaller gap.
Anyway it's difficult to cut laminate to the exact measurements of the room & the edging should cover any gaps so just cut the laminate so it's edges are covered by the edging and you'll be fine.

ormus

dont use edging trims. its expensive and looks naff.
fit new skirting instead (or reinstall the old ones). the job will look a 100% better.

latecomer

Fully agree with ormus - remove the skirting boards before fitting the flooring and either put them back on or put on new ones.

themightystu

Thanks for all the speedy replies. Sounds like I should definitely leave that gap! I like the idea of raising the skirting but that sounds like quite a job, especially getting it off without marking the walls...

explumber

lay laminate leaving 10mm expansion gap, then fix 20mm softwood timber quadrant to cover gap. prime,undercoat and gloss quadrant before pin fixing. punch in pins and just make good and touch up after.
much more natural looking as it blends with your existing skirting.

themightystu

Not quite sure what you mean there shape wise... They had some quite nice white (my skirting will be white as I plan on painting it first) edging in the shop that was only about £3 a length... I will keep an eye out though, I'll be going to a timber yard anyway. The floor is going in my kitchen/dining room and the kitchen units don't have any kick-boards at the moment. There is no way I'd be able to put the laminate all the way underneeth them!