Top Tips: How To Lay Laminate Flooring

Laminate flooring is an excellent flooring material for many different rooms in the home, including living rooms and hallways. Laying your own laminate flooring is a fairly big task, but if you have decent DIY skills then you should be able to get the job done for yourself.
We’ve put together a rough guide to help you when you take on the laying of you own laminate flooring. Remember, not all laminate flooring materials are the same and the size and shape of a room can factor into how hard a task it will be to lay.

Gather Up Your Tools

To ensure your DIY project gets off to a good start you need to ensure you have all the right tools to hand. It’s no use ordering lots of flooring panels if you have nothing to secure them with. Throughout the process you will need:
Masking Tape
Hammer
Knee Pads
Craft Knife
Spirit Level
Jigsaw
Mallet
Saw
Combination Square
Tape Measure

Measuring

To know how much flooring you’ll need for your room, you’ll have to do some measuring. The best formula to use for your calculations is width x length of the room (in metres). You should then add an extra 10% to cover for any wastage. Once you have this number you should divide it by the pack size of the flooring you wish to use – this number will be in m2. You will most likely get a decimal point so round the number up to the nearest whole and that’s how many packs you need!

Level Your Floor

Before you lay anything you need to make sure your floor is level throughout the room. To create a smooth surface you can use a self-leveling compound, and after your sub-floor is completely dry you can put underlay into place. You can choose from a variety of underlay, including Polyfoam, Combined and Wood fibre boards. If you have a concrete floor then you’ll also need to put in a damp-proof membrane before the underlay.

How To Lay The Boards

You need to first decide in which direction to lay your boards. The best way to lay them is in the same direction as your longest wall, but if all the walls are the same length then simply lay them in the direction of the light coming through the window.
The best place to start laying is in the corner, working your way up along the wall with spacers laid out around the wall to give the boards room to expand later. Most laminate materials will lock together, but they will need to be cut down in places to fit – you also need to cut out spaces for pipes on radiators.
Push completed rows together and tap gently with a rubber mallet to ensure they are tightly interlocked. If you need to get your boards under the architraves of your doors then work out the thickness of your board, saw out a space at the bottom of the architrave and slot your board underneath.

Here at Pyramid Carpets, we provide high quality laminate flooring to suit any home – simply contact us today and we’ll help you find the right style and quantity of flooring for your requirements.