internal doorways - doorbars/thresholds

anoneemouse

What is the best way to cover a 10cm wide gap between laminate in a main area and hessian-backed carpet (with underlay) in a room?

Would it be a 100 mm wide "Coverstrip"? (in which case where would I get that?)

or

having a carpenter making wooden door thresholds

or

some other idea I havent thought of?

Would appreciate guidance on this please.

ukwoody

Well, we make our own so maybe I'm biased, but since they can be made from offcuts and are dirt cheap to make. Idealy they should overlap both the laminate and carpet so...
They lets say the laminate is 10mm thick and there is a 100mm gap. You need a board about 120mm wide, approx 13mm thick, with a rebate on each side of around 10mm deep (poss less on the carpet side). This should take a joiner/chippie in a workshop about 15 mins allowing for finding a bit of wood, planing rebate and giving quick sand over and round the edges. To do 2 would only take a bout 2 mins longer.

Have a chat with a local joiner and see if for a tenner cash he'd knock you up one from an offcut of hardwood. I would (and do!). (Even better if you can find an apprentice...)

Woody

anoneemouse

Thanks very much for those detailed instructions.

I have duly copied them down and just put a bit in brackets by a couple of phrases of what I think the change in measurements would be to allow for the fact that the laminate I have is 12 mm thick - so, according to my calculations, that equals the board being approx 16 mm thick (rather than the 13 mm you mentioned) and the rebate on each side being 13 mm deep (rather than the 10 mm deep you mentioned for the 10 mm thick laminate).

So - with that - I know what needs doing and how much to pay for it. Shame you arent living in my area.

Guess I could find a local joiner by googling with the words "joiner" and "(my area)".

Thanks again.

sutwam

Hi

There are standard door bars / coverstrips out there, Floors 2 Go do a Dural one or Image one both costing around £10 but easy to fix I know they sell thousands of the Dural ones the Image ones are relatively new,

B&Q do a floormaster one, Topps also have one. Most larger laminate retails do them to be honest.

Just take your laminate and see which matches closest, I have a Dural one in my house from laminate to carpet it bridges the expansion gap of 10mm and rests on top of the laminate whilst the otherside is in the pile of the carpet.

I hope you get it all sorted out

ukwoody

Sutwarm, just to clarify, the Op states the gap is 10CM (4") not 10MM ;-)

woody

sutwam

Hi Woody

My eyes are going! Sorry

In that case the best way is what the other post said as any off the shelf metal bar would look awful and far too commercial for a domestic setting.

Good Luck

anoneemouse

longstoryshort....I decided on the wood thresholds and had them made - very carefully specified the colour they are to be....and the firm turned up with the wrong colour!!!:mad:

So - upshot - they are going to have to make new ones - in the colour I specified in the first darn place!!!

They told me that laminate stays the same colour - but wood changes colour over time. It would have to fade a heck of a lot in colour to go from the colour they made them to the colour they were told to make them in the first place!!!

1. Does wood fade very much in colour over time? and how long would it take to do so? (NB: I suspect the wrong colour door thresholds are pale wood stained to the too dark colour - rather than having been made out of that dark colour wood in the first place IYSWIM. I very much doubt whether stained wood would tone down to a paler colour ever - would it do so?).

2. The fitter said he thought perhaps they should have made these thresholds wedge-shaped (ie not the same shape right across the width) to allow for different height floor coverings either side and that he thought they would break as I stood on them walking across them otherwise. Is this so?
(NB On one of the doors I think the carpet/underlay might be just about same thickness as the 12mm thick laminate the other side. On the other door - the laminate is 12 mm thick still and the carpet/underlay is going to be 20mm in thickness together as far as I can see).