Laminate flooring

tawnyowls

It is quite easy to lay yourself, especially with so many glueless, click-together laminates available on the market now. It can be noisy, which might be a problem as you're in a flat, so you might need a better grade of underlay than the thin foam stuff usually supplied in the packs. You do get a better finish if you take off the skirting so that it covers the expansion gap when replaced; if you choose beading, the concave form (curves inwards towards the wall) is a better choice than the convex.

Cleaning shouldn't be a major chore. A good doormat and runner will cut down immensely on the amount of water and dirt tracked in, and it's sensible to have indoor shoes/slippers to change into. A vacuum once weekly should be enough, with daily sweeping in high-dirt areas such as kitchens (which is no worse than with carpet, and at least you'll know the dirt is all picked up, not lurking inside a carpet pile). As mentioned above, you shouldn't get it really wet - wipe up spills with a cloth immediately. Marks can usually just be wiped with a cloth, and if it does need to be cleaned, mop with an almost-dry mop (the flat microfibre ones are good) and if necessary, wipe any areas that look wet with a dry cloth.

AMO

sammy_kaye18 wrote:

Am on budget but recenty had a tax credits pay out so am hopign to get a laminate floor put into my small falt as it will be more efficient in the long run with a jack russell and my 2 year old.
Any ideas on where i can get one pretty cheap but still good quality?

This probably won't help you directly, but here's some general advice..

1) Laminate flooring (not to be confused with real wood flooring or engineered wood flooring) currently costs from around £2.99 / square metre (e.g. at Carpet Right) to around £25 / square metre.

2) The cost for someone to install laminate flooring for you professionally costs around £10 / square metre. For those that have the cash but must rely on someone else installing laminate flooring have a good hard think about whether its worth paying for the cheapest £2.99 / square metre when you're paying over 3 times that amount for installation.

3) Like most other products, laminate is now a widely available commodity and purchasing on the internet can be around 20% cheaper. Note that like any other internet purchase you have to arrange returns if something goes wrong and laminate flooring is not one thing you want to manage yourself. Even if you decide to purchase the laminate flooring from the internet, make sure you have seen it instore first. Some laminates (especially the cheaper ones) simply do not look authentic when you see them instore.

4) One of the better known brands in laminate flooring is called QuickStep. This type of laminate flooring was at one time revolutionary in its click in place design. Its pretty much common place now, but B&Q lost a court battle with QuickStep by supplying an alternative brand that copied the QuickStep design. As I said before though, laminate has come a long way and whilst QuickStep is one of the easiest to implement, the others aren't far behind.

5) There are different types of laminate designed for different types of floor. For example, some laminates are designed for heavy use living room floors - others are designed to be more water-proof for bathrooms. Laminate has come a long way over the last few years and so long as you buy a good quality laminate, you will find that where the laminate joins together, it is water tight. Where old laminate would let water leak through causing problems, newer high quality laminate does not have this problem. You still want to clear up an water split as prolonged contact on the surface will ultimately cause damage from the surface.

6) Some people rip up the skirting boards so that the laminate can fit underneath and then lay some new skirting down. They do this because scotia/beading when layed down on top looks like its a retro job. However, if you do rip up the skirting boards, make sure that all your under-laminate wiring (if you want to trail speaker wires across the room for example) are done and any central heating is sorted out before hand as you won't be able to do anything once your laminate is in place. These days, for those that lay down scotia/beading, to make it look elegant, often the scotia/beading is painted the same colour as the skirting so that it looks like an extension of the skirting (even if you go for white scotia/beading you still have to paint it - otherwise you'll end up with two shades of white as the white of the skirting is unlikely to match the scotia/beading). This actually looks really good in most cases - personally, I think it looks better in some cases when done right.

7) If the room currently has carpet in it, when you put down laminate, you may find that the laminate will come up to a different height. When you pull the carpet away, if it looks like the skirting is a different colour or is dirty at the level of the carpet and below, you'll need to regloss the skirting before starting (probably a good idea to redecorate the whole room as you are less likely to want to redecorate after putting down laminate).

8) Check the room you are laminating doesn't have curves. Older houses have curved bay window type window sills, and the room curves there causing a lot of grief trying to cut the laminate around that area and also to get the scotia/beading to bend.

Finally, a couple of links that might help:
http://money.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1701433,00.html
http://www.targetwoman.com/articles/laminate-flooring.html

Oh, one more thing. In the guardian article, it recommends going to flooring supplies. I recommend you go to complete flooring instead:
http://www.completelyflooring.co.uk
although you can search the internet yourself for better deals.
If you insist on going to flooring supplies, check their returns policy (and also hope you never need to do a return).

AMO

AMO

julie_d wrote:

Hello Sammy-Kaye
I know you don't want to here this! But... I started off with this new craze to Have laminate flooring put down. We have it in the hall, down stairs toilet and front room-but the problem comes when things are spilled you are not ment to wash it! With our English winter weather all the rain water is walked in on shoes and buggy's...it is not good! I mop mine with a dryish j-cloth type mop, but this is a real no no and I fear the edges will peel in time. So we thought long and hard, had the pro's around and decided to have wood tiles in the back room. Wood look kitchen lino in the kitchen and conseryatory.
It does look realy nice, not to sure which type is best though with regards to the washing! Best Wishes

Don't worry about hallways getting wet. These are areas where relaying laminate a second/third time is not a huge chore as anything in the hallway can be easily moved. The only problem is if you have matching laminate to your living room for continuity and you can't get the same laminate anymore.

AMO