Hardwood/Laminate flooring -- anyone ever install themselves?
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 - 5:36pm
The Mrs. and I are looking to install new flooring in the house -- I keep reading these reviews online about how easy the laminate flooring is to install yourself, but I really have no idea.
I do know that if we go that route, it'll save us about $2500.
Does anyone have any experience doing this themselves?
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The wife and I have done this. It isn't to bad, much easier than laying tile in my opinion. The only recommendation I would make is rent a decent table saw if you don't have one. It will make the cutting go much faster. Other than that the stuff basically lays into place and takes a quick tap to lock it in.
We did a modest sized bedroom in about and hour and a half.
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I installed laminate in my rental property and it is pretty easy. As long as you can measure correctly your good to go. If you have a longer room, it does help to have a pair of extra hands when "snapping" it into place. I'm satisfied with the quality as well. had my basement flood where the laminate was installed, and we managed to salvage a good 75% of the flooring. I would say for the $2500 do it yourself.
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Laminate is pretty easy. For that much, I would at least try it, especially if you're floating it and can just pull it up if you change your mind.
Hardwood on the other hand, can need some tools.
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I installed laminate on the main floor of our last house. It took one person and I about 5 or 6 hours to do the entire floor, followed up by some touch up work (baseboards etc) the next day. It was straightforward and easy to do, although the layout of our house made some areas a challenge (long rooms).
I am pricing out hardwood (preferable) or laminate in our new home. We want to do the stairs as well, which I have never done and need to investigate. Although I would like to have someone install everything for me, I'm likely to cheap out and do it myself again.
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Everything is easier than laying tile. I did ceramic tile once. Boy was that ever fun. Especially the acid etching on the concrete.
Ugh.
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Invest $19 into one of those "Flooring 1-2-3" tutorial books they sell at Home Depot. They break things down in a very understandable, well illustrated way. You'll get all of the advice and caveats on tools, technique and materials you need.
I installed laminate floors before in a friend's basement Since the floor surface was bare concrete, we laid down an underlayment first. Measuring/cutting/butting/taping took an extra 1 hour.
What you need for cutting of the planks is not a table saw, but a miter saw - a slider with a 10" blade, or a regular with 12". A circular handsaw with a 5" or 7" blade would do as well. Even a regular saw would do, too. It's just that laminate is rather dense, and cuts slowly. Without an aid of a powertoool, you'll still get it done, but tired and probably not without blisters.
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Well, what the hell. I'll give it a shot, start in the spare bedroom and if it goes poorly, I'll hire someone to finish it. Plus if we can do this ourselves and save the labor costs, that equals a new HDTV for me.
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The only problem with the hardwood squares we put down in our office is that they squeak in some places because the tiles didn't properly adhere.
If the flooring is of the glue-down type and the glue doesn't feel particularly sticky/soft, adding more adhesive before laying it down would be a wise use of your time.
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I think he should go with a tongue-and-groove variety and stay away from the glue-down type.
One thing I forgot to add -- avoid using laminate in heavy-traffic areas where you may have any form of dirt being brought about. The residential-applications laminates do get scratched in a manner that becomes pronounced over time.
If you want to have an appearance of wood, go with the engineered wood planks in such areas if possible. Those don't get scratched in a maner that is as evident as with the laminate. The downside (there's always one) is that pre-fabricated engineered wood planks have these tiny bevels around the edges that form grooves in between the planks when those are joined. In areas with dirt, the dust specs accumulate in these grooves in no time and look off-putting.
The best compromise for high-traffic areas, IMHO, is vynil tile. The hard-surface stick-on varieties are economical and can withstand many years of abuse. I think it would be a good choice to consider in a kitchen or an entryway.
All in all, get one of those Home Depot or Lowe's instructional books first before you commit to any flooring project.
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Have you priced out pre-finished hardwood at all? Laminates look pretty good, but for resale the hardwoods kick ass. I'm not talking about the really expensive hardwoods either. The basic oak planks look great with most wall colors. Down side is that installation sounds like more of a pain than laminate and requires rental tools unless you get one of the floating wood floor systems.
I've put down the floating locking wooden floor (Kahrs) down in several rooms of the house (a mixture of concrete and suspended floor). You get a reel of underlay which you stick down with a bit of masking tape, then put the planks down. It's not too bad if you have a decent jigsaw. The hardest thing is to get off all the skirting board which trashes the wall, and then you have to scribe the internal corners when you put it back on. Also, you need to leave 1cm gap round the edge so you have to saw the bottom off the door frames, put it underneath and then put some replacement wood on top (you angle it in so you need to cut off more than you might expect). Tight spaces are quite hard, but you can chisel off the locking tongue and there's generally enough to keep the plank in.
It looks the business and has a nice little bit of bounce to it when you walk on it.
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My wife and I have been going back and forth over what to do with our kitchen. We've got vinyl in there now that's all scratched and dented to hell. (It was like that when we bought the house a few years ago and it's even worse now.) My wife wanted to put in laminate at first (we were going to extend it out to the living room), but now we're back to just doing the kitchen and the tiny adjoining laundry room.
Home Depot indicated laminate probably wouldn't go in the laundry room because there's a drain in there, so we were thinking about going with tile, but lately I've been thinking it would be easier just to go back to vinyl. My only concern is just how bad our current vinyl floor looks. But maybe it was just cheap vinyl? If we sell the house in the next three years or so (something I'd like to do), I really don't want to have to re-do the floor yet again because the vinyl didn't hold up well.
Any advice?
---Todd
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The vinyl has been in the house since we bought it six years ago and it was pretty old and dinged up then. It's not a carbon copy neighborhood, but the homes probably all came from the same builder, so I'd bet most of the homes do use vinyl.
Thanks for the advice!
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Laminate's dead simple to install. (Real) hardwood is the complicated version of laminate, and not necessarily something I would recommend "just trying" without someone with experience.
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There is vynil linoleum (comes in rolls up to 15' wide), and then there are vynil tiles (come in squares up to 24", I think)). The tiles don't need to be pliable and flexible, and as a result their surface is made much harder. Tiles can stand to much more abuse than the lino.
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No lie. I just did a bathroom and the wife fell in love with 18x18 tiles. Those were an ever lovin f*ckin joy to install.
Red Foxx, standing by.
Thankfully, we hired someone to install the tile in the bathroom.
Would I rather be feared or loved? Easy - both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.
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I'm all about an easy tile in the bathroom, a better looking tile in the kitchen and entry ways and wood flooring for the rest of the house. Recently I've been looking at a Bamboo flooring. It's more expensive but hardwood floors made from bamboo look really good and they are extremely tough.
Couple of things on Bamboo Flooring:
http://web.utk.edu/~mtaylo29/pages/Bamboo%20flooring.htm
http://www.bambooflooringcompany.com/
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