For a seamless and long-lasting installation, your floor must be ready for the laminate to be installed. It’s critical to evaluate the state of the current floor surface before starting. To begin, give the floor a thorough cleaning to get rid of any dust, grime, or debris. By doing this, a clean base is guaranteed and the laminate’s adherence to the floor is enhanced.
Next, look for any flaws in the floor, like holes, cracks, or uneven patches. It is best to take care of these before moving on. Using the appropriate floor filler, fill in any gaps and let it dry completely as directed by the manufacturer. For a consistent finish, smooth out any uneven areas on the surface by sanding them down.
It’s time to install an underlayment after the floor is smooth and clean. The underlayment protects against moisture, lowers noise, and cushions the laminate, among other functions. Select an underlayment suitable for your particular flooring and install it according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
It’s crucial to allow the flooring materials to adjust to the humidity and temperature of the space before installing the laminate. By doing this, gaps and buckling caused by the laminate’s expansion or contraction after installation are avoided. Before starting installation, let the laminate and underlayment sit in the space for at least 48 hours.
- Where to start
- How much does it cost to renovate the floor in an apartment?
- Preparing the subfloor
- Video on the topic
- How to prepare to level the subfloor before laying laminate vinyl and quartz vinyl tiles
- How to prepare the floor for laying laminate?
- It is IMPOSSIBLE to lay LAMINATE on such a floor.
- Preparing the base for laying laminate flooring
- How to PREPARATE a floor for laminate | Making the PERFECT FLOOR..
- What you need to know before laying laminate flooring. DIY laminate installation.
Where to start
My three-room apartment had linoleum installed during construction. After 22 years of use, the condition of the living room and bedroom is 4, perhaps a little less, but still 4. However, the rating in the former nursery is more in line with unfavorable.
Waves surfaced; I’m not sure why, but in some spots the concrete beneath the linoleum was destroyed. Considering that the floor covering was directly on the concrete floor, I couldn’t think of any reasonable explanation for how it could break (I didn’t realize it was a floor screed until I began the actual repairs).
The old floor was condemned when the 2-year-old granddaughter tripped over a linoleum bulge during one of the grandchildren’s visits. We combined all of our available funds and started to determine if they would be sufficient for a prompt and excellent repair. You can start laying the floor for a private house several months in advance. But spend several months working on a building site? Sorry, but no.
What is needed for an expedient fix? materials’ accessibility and the presence of a skilled construction crew. You do need money, after all, to ensure all of this. If insufficient, it is preferable to put off repairs until the necessary quantity shows up and carry on with daily activities.
As a result, we started by figuring out how much to spend on a new floor covering. The decision between laminate and parquet was made quickly. Parquet flooring was immediately eliminated from consideration due to its high cost.
Laminate floors are stylish, elegant, long-lasting, and reasonably priced. I knew that it would cost roughly 550 rubles per square meter. As a result, we computed the room’s area—21.8 m2—and the money needed to buy a new floor with ease. It was discovered to be about 12,000 rubles. The fact that there were still 55.0 thousand rubles in stock allowed for the installation to be done by professionals.
I looked up numerous forums about this flooring online to learn how to install and prepare the floor for laminate installation. A number of surprises were waiting for me here.
1. The best laminate is said to be produced in Finland and Germany. As an expert in the mechanization of technological processes, I can say with certainty, however, that laminate flooring is made in Russia utilizing the same machinery as in Germany and Finland.
Since the entire process is automated, the final product’s quality ought to be the same. This is not a passenger car assembly line where a mechanic can use a sledgehammer to adjust a door instead of using a screwdriver and taking 15 to 20 minutes to complete the task.
2. I believed that the slats should be as thick as possible. Nearly every forum discusses this. However, the statement "the quality of a laminate is primarily determined by its density" caught my attention on one website.
Didn’t immediately give it any thought. However, the sentence continued to whirl around in my mind. Nevertheless, I chose to give it a look. Abruptly, it became apparent that the lamellas do, in fact, have distinct densities. It probably doesn’t need to be explained what this means in terms of quality—foam rubber that is 5 cm thick will crumble under the weight of an individual.
This task can be easily completed by a denser metal that is 2 mm thick. As a result, a laminate with a density of 8 mm is preferable to one with a density of 12 mm. A minimum density of 850 kg/m3 is required for the lamella board in order to guarantee good floor quality while it is in use.
A brief aside: when I bought laminate flooring at multiple stores, not a single vendor brought up this quality indicator. Conversely, they were taken aback and inquired as to what it was and how it impacted floor usage.
Additionally, this number is not disclosed by manufacturers on the packaging. Don’t be angry, though. Making the calculation on your own is simple. This can be achieved by dividing the weight of the lamellas (net), which is one of the product’s required parameters applied to the packaging material, by their area, which is equal to the lamellas’ length, width, and number of boards in the pack. You can then divide the result by the thickness of a single board.
3. You must purchase with a minimum 10% reserve. Installation technology affects the indicator in the following ways: direct – 10%; diagonally – 20%; and pattern – 30%.
4. There is typically 2 m 2 of laminate in the package. The slight variations are due to the various board sizes. I changed the amount of laminate needed based on the new information. It was discovered that 24 m 2 of slats would cost 13.2 thousand rubles to purchase.
5. I discovered that there are four ongoing issues with laminate flooring:
- Very hygroscopic. Through unprotected sidewalls, it, like a sponge, absorbs water from the air, and this leads to loss of strength in the locking joints and swelling;
- Not only conducts well, but also enhances sound (resonates);
- Afraid of oscillatory movements up and down. Due to constant defects under the irregularities of the base of the floor, slowly but steadily, the connecting locks are destroyed;
- Unpleasantly reacts to tubercles on a concrete screed. They are pressed into an array of lamellas, pushing the part of the pressed material at the same time, from which the laminate consists. The pins that have appeared over time abrasion. A ugly spot appears in their place, through which the lamella begins to absorb water.
Nevertheless, answers to these issues are provided (in the same order as the problems):
- waterproofing of the base of the floor;
- Laminate soundproofing;
- the device of the floor screed (later it turned out that it can be 4 types: dry, half-dry, wet and with plywood or sheets of cement-stem plywood);
- Laying under the lamp.
The information was a little unclear in that there would be future costs, the exact amount of which was not yet known.
How much does it cost to renovate the floor in an apartment?
On topics of interest, the information available on the Internet was either contradictory or nonexistent. As a result, it was essential to speak with a specialist—rather than just the typical estimator that big construction and repair companies send to the client—who could respond to any queries.
The answer just naturally came to me; I remembered a conversation that had taken place in one company a year prior. A restaurateur who attended the events spoke about the renovations he made to his restaurant. The repair time was the issue. The proprietor of the restaurant made the decision to perform repairs every day after the business closed, that is, late at night and early in the morning, in an attempt to keep patrons and generate revenue.
Nevertheless, the neighbors above contacted the police as soon as the builders started working. Regretfully, both the restaurateur and the construction workers were correct. This went on for a few times until every possible performer turned down the request.
A fellow restaurateur who works with me suggested that I get in touch with a small business that does excellent work and successfully handles delicate matters. The director, who doubles as the owner, is the only boss, which makes it unique. This gives you ultimate control over all of the company’s operations. The owner was not pleased with the decline in work quality that followed attempts to grow and hire more foremen and craftsmen.
Following initial discussions, the company’s director requested a few days from the restaurateur to provide a definitive response. These days, he personally went to see all the families who lived above the restaurant and made agreements with them not to report noise complaints to the police. The repair was finished promptly and to the right standard. Nobody ever found out under what circumstances the neighbors decided to wait for the repairs to be completed.
It took some skill to locate this expert and set up an appointment. The young man, the company’s director, first described what was available and what should be after inspecting the premises.
- Linoleum lies on a screed 3 cm thick, not reinforced. It needs to be removed.
- The builders either saved money or forgot to put a damper tape under the floor screed, as a result of which it cracked and crumbled in some places.
- Laying laminate flooring requires mandatory hydro- and sound insulation, as well as a substrate for the lamellas. In addition, you will have to level the base of the floor with a screed (without a screed, the laminate will not last more than a year). All this will significantly raise the floor in relation to the flooring in the corridor. You can minimize the rise in floor level by using a wet, fiber-reinforced screed (it is the thinnest). In this case, the substrate should be purchased with a waterproofing layer, so as not to lay a separate waterproofing layer. Instead of a wet screed, you can use a self-leveling mixture, which will lower the floor level by 1 cm, but this is very, very expensive.
- The decorative trim on the door frame will have to be trimmed. Replace or shorten the door.
- The difference between the heights of the floors will have to be eliminated with a special inclined threshold.
He then set the prices and the amount of work that had to be done:
- Removing linoleum – 1,000 rubles. or 50 rub./m2 (laminate – 150 rubles./m2, tiles – 200-300 rubles./m 2 );
- Break the screed – 5,500 rubles. or 200-300 rubles./m 2 ;
- Load the waste from the screed into bags (in our case you will need about 100 bags) – 2,000 rubles.;
- To take the bags out of the apartment, take them down the elevator and load them into the car – 3,000 rubles. If there is no elevator, each floor will cost 100 rubles. for 1 bag. Thank God there is an elevator;
- Take out the garbage (order a ZIL car) – 5,000 rubles.
Be advised that the price of rubbish removal has gone up to 6,000 rubles since the spring of 2018.
- Install beacons, attach damper tape and pour wet screed (without materials) – RUB 11,000.;
- Lay a substrate with a waterproofing layer – RUB 3,300. or 150 rub./m2 (when laying the waterproofing layer separately, the price for laying the substrate will be 50 rubles. per m2, and waterproofing 150 rubles per 1 m2);
- Lay laminate flooring directly – RUB 7,000. or 250-400 rub./m2, depending on the volume and method of installation.
Therefore, the cost of the work alone is 37,800 rubles. But continue to purchase substrate, sand, cement, and other supplies. The atmosphere suddenly soured. It was decided to do the repairs yourself at the family council.
Preparing the subfloor
The first step in preparing the floor for laminate installation was to remove as much of the room’s furniture and belongings as possible. Although we had anticipated finishing the work in a few hours, it actually took us nearly a full day.
Although we were able to swiftly remove the baseboard and linoleum, we were unable to completely remove it. It was not allowed to be thrown into trash cans by the management company. However, it didn’t annoy us. Ordering a car is still necessary for the remaining construction waste.
They started breaking the screed the following day. We discovered that we would be fiddling around without a hammer drill for a few days after an hour of dusty labor. He was not at home, and neither were his friends in possession of a hammer drill. I already knew the director of a construction company, and he suggested that I rent tools by the hour. The 500 rubles per day for a BOSCH hammer drill turned out to be a reasonable price.
It was finished by the end of the day with the hammer drill. I ordered a car for the following day, and it was supposed to arrive by noon. There is a time slot set aside for filling bags with trash. We spent only 370 rubles on used, thick garbage bags instead of brand-new ones, which allowed us to make significant financial savings.
After the trash was removed, the concrete base was swept and then vacuumed. It was discovered that there were three small cracks and one fairly large crack where the old screed had been severely beaten off.
I was truly perplexed by this. After all, from what I’ve been told, products made of reinforced concrete shouldn’t break. Here are a couple of the cracks. The cracking process along pre-existing cracks will proceed more quickly and intensely if they formed on a flat surface. Action needs to be taken immediately.
Once more, the Internet is your friend. However, I didn’t think the beginner builder could understand the recommendations. I kept seeing directions that said cracks needed to be sealed with a particular mixture or primer, both of which were too expensive for me. I had to give the expert another call. Consequently, an easy-to-make and reasonably priced recipe for treating a concrete base was developed.
Note: in an effort to assist those same novice builders, I penned the article "Preparation of the foundation for the floor screed" based on my experience, online suggestions, and professional advice. There, the preparation of a wooden floor beneath the laminate is also covered in a separate block.
Cleaning up the remnants of the old screed was the next step in preparing the concrete floor beneath the laminate. They fell, albeit reluctantly, to hammer and chisel. He also used a hammer and a chisel to remove a few chips and exclve portions of a concrete base. I also needed to adjust the cracks.
I had by now jotted down detailed instructions in my notebook on how to take care of them. Several points are emphasized at the same time.
- Small cracks need to be widened to 3-5 mm, otherwise it is difficult to rub cement mortar into them – I did this using a bicycle screwdriver and a hammer.
- Large cracks are reinforced. For this purpose, using a grinder, with a cutting wheel for concrete, make grooves 9-10 cm long and 15-20 mm deep across the crack at a distance of 4-5 cm from each other. Then you will need to put screws with the cut off heads in them and seal them with repair mortar. But that"s a little later.
- Be sure to prime the cracks and grooves for the reinforcement. The purpose of this operation is to saturate the concrete with water in the grouting areas. It just seems like he"s a monolith. In fact, its surface greedily absorbs water (according to science, the process is called “capillary suction”). And if you do not saturate the sealing areas with moisture in advance, the water will leave the cement-sand mixture – the concrete surface will pull it out like a blotter. And without water, the hydration process (in plain language – the process of formation of cement stone) will not be completed. As a result, we get crumbling small pieces of cement stone. Along the way, the primer binds dust that the vacuum cleaner could not remove.
- On forums on the Internet it is suggested to prime concrete with water or Ceresite ST 17. However, experienced professionals, to whom I include the directors of the company, prefer to perform this operation with cement laitance. It is much cheaper, and the quality is better than water and is not inferior to special primers. At the same time, milk cement penetrates into the smallest pores of concrete and creates a film on the surface of cracks, which ensures mutual adhesion of the repair composition to the concrete body. Out of curiosity, under the bad comments of my neighbors, I tried to damage the surface of the repaired cracks. After all, it was necessary to know why the vegetable garden was built. Amidst malicious laughter, nothing worked out for me.
Just to clarify, why is it less expensive? In any case, you must purchase M400 or M500 cement because you cannot make a screed without it. You see, a canister of Ceresite ST 17 for concrete costs approximately 4.0 thousand rubles. Additionally, I later found less expensive primers, which were 2-2.5 times less expensive than Ceresit.
- Cement laitance consists only of cement (one part) and water (2 parts). I filled the cracks and grooves with laitance. However, due to dust, the surface of the concrete was not wet everywhere, and yet the base was vacuumed just an hour ago. I had to rub milk into the cracks with a paint brush. In just a couple of minutes the water disappeared, leaving only a wet trail. The procedure had to be repeated twice more. Only after the third wetting it was clear that the concrete was almost saturated with moisture.
It’s time to use repair mortar to seal the cracks. One part PVA glue, three parts water and fine sand, and one part cement make up the simple preparation. I prepared the repair solution in a two-liter plastic bottle that I cut in half because I needed very little of all of this.
In accordance, the components were recalculated. There is a vast array of industrial repair mixtures that are sold and work incredibly well. However, they are highly costly, and you also need to keep 10% of the total amount sold. Where should the remaining pieces go? As it happens, I’m not an oligarch and I’m squandering actual money.
Even after vigorous stirring, the mixture did not flow at all. Without a doubt, it won’t enter tiny fissures. I had to use a screwdriver to trample it into the crevices and massage it in with a spatula. In the end, it worked out nicely. As the wide crack demonstrated, it is naturally much easier to rub such a solution in rather than pour it into larger openings in a concrete base. This took only a few minutes to complete.
For keen readers, no, I did not overlook adding screws to reinforce the crack by placing them in the grooves.
It took 28 days for the repair solution to dry. On day seven, the work could have theoretically continued, but it was stopped for a variety of reasons. In order to further ready the floor for laminate, multiple technological procedures were involved:
- waterproofing;
- attaching damper tape to the wall;
- soundproofing;
- pouring wet screed;
- laying the substrate.
The only item on this list that came in last was laying the substrate. The remaining procedures might be the initial or the preparatory. Everything was reliant on the kind of materials utilized. I was leaning toward the option of priming the concrete base with specific waterproof compounds for waterproofing, which I believe lowered the floor by 5 mm, in an attempt to lower the height of the floor.
With numbers in hand, my savior—a young professional—showed that this option is too costly and that the reduction will only be a realistic 2 mm. The ideal choice is:
- prime the concrete floor with cement laitance – for better adhesion of the screed to the base concrete or, as pundits say, for better adhesion;
- pour wet screed;
- lay plastic film over the screed for waterproofing;
- put a backing.
Along the way, install beacons for screed pouring and fasten a damper tape to the wall.
Even though I followed a professional’s instructions, I didn’t quite capture the first point exactly. To be more exact, I recorded it exactly as it was told to me, but that is not at all the point of what I recorded. It is written in the same way in textbooks intended for finishers, incidentally. Again, though, this is not totally accurate.
It is not necessary for the floor to adhere to the screed. If not, how can we explain the phenomenon known as the "floating screed," which occurs when cement mortar is applied over a sound- or hydro-proofing layer—a film to which cement cannot and will not adhere?
Filling the surface of the concrete with water to prevent it from separating from the screed is the sole and primary purpose of priming. There are two crucial points to keep in mind in this situation.
- Factory primer saturates the pores of the ceiling with moisture and solid polymer particles, which, after drying, form a moisture-proof film on its surface. Therefore, before pouring the screed, the concrete must be dry; builders call this “dry on dry”.
- Cement laitance saturates concrete with water and also creates a film. But it does not in any way prevent the flow of water to the concrete base of the floor. Therefore, here everything is the other way around – you should not let such a primer dry (“wet on wet”).
Step 1: Clean the Floor | Remove any dust, debris, or old adhesive from the floor surface. |
Step 2: Level the Surface | Ensure the floor is flat and smooth; use a leveling compound if necessary. |
For a smooth and long-lasting finish, the floor must be ready for the installation of laminate. To begin, thoroughly clean the subfloor to get rid of any dust, debris, or adhesive residue. This step avoids uneven or bumpy areas beneath the flooring and improves the laminate’s adhesion.
Next, look for any damage, such as dips or cracks, in the subfloor. To level the surface, fill these with an appropriate filler. In order to stop the laminate from shifting or creaking over time, a level subfloor is necessary.
To create a smooth surface, lightly sand the filled areas as well as the subfloor as a whole after filling. In addition to improving adhesion, this step guarantees a level surface on which to lay the laminate planks.
Install a moisture barrier to shield the laminate from moisture damage after the subfloor is level and smooth. This barrier may consist of a moisture-resistant laminate padding or a separate underlayment. By keeping moisture from leaking through, it helps your flooring last longer.
Lastly, give the laminate planks at least 48 hours to acclimate in the space before installing them. This reduces the possibility of expansion or contraction after installation by enabling the flooring to adapt to the temperature and humidity levels of the space.
Crucial steps must be taken to prepare the floor for laminate installation in order to guarantee a seamless and long-lasting finish. It’s crucial to start by giving the current floor a thorough cleaning and clearing it of any dirt, dust, or debris. Then, in order to create a smooth surface, look for and correct any uneven areas or imperfections. To prevent moisture damage to the laminate over time, it’s critical to install a moisture barrier. Lastly, to avoid warping after installation, allow the laminate to become acclimated to the humidity and temperature of the space. By following these guidelines, you can make sure that your laminate flooring lasts longer and looks fantastic while offering a sturdy and appealing surface for your house.