Laminate in the form of thin sheets with a width of six to eleven millimeters is a fairly popular type of coating in any room: both in apartments and in offices. Laying it without assistance is easy.
Do-it-yourself laminate flooring is carried out in rooms with a normal value of humidity and temperature. In the bathroom, shower and sauna, that is, in rooms where humidity is elevated, the use of a laminate is prohibited.
1. Laminate preparation
It is necessary that the room temperature was eighteen degrees Celsius. Before performing laminate flooring, the coating must be kept indoors for two days. This is done to acclimatize him to the new conditions.
2. Floor surface preparation
Laminate flooring, the cost of which depends on the number of stages of work, can be performed on the surface from various solid materials, for example, concrete, chipboard, wood. The surface of the floor should be flat. To smooth out all irregularities, screed is most often used.
3. Preparation of the substrate
The substrate performs the functions of protection against noise and moisture, serves as a shock absorber. Make it from cork, foamed polyethylene. Between the stripes of the substrate, gaps or overlaps are unacceptable, they must be laid end-to-end, and if necessary, can be connected with masking tape.
4. Directly laminate flooring
Laminate is a floating type coating. This means that it is not fixed to the floor, but only the ends of its slats are fixed to each other. You can perform laminate flooring with or without glue. Recently, a glueless method of assembling a laminate is most often used. In the process, it is necessary to leave a special deformation gap between the wall, objects and the laminate. The length of this gap is ten to twelve millimeters, and it is needed to expand the laminate wood at new values of humidity and temperature. To comply with deformation gaps when performing work, use special pegs or struts.
It is better to start the laminate flooring from the window and move in the direction of the fall of the sun's rays so that the seams are not so noticeable. The first to lay a solid panel. After the row is laid out, the length of the last panel is adjusted. If the length of the remaining part is more than forty centimeters, then it is used for the next row. Do not forget that in rows adjacent to each other, the distance between the joints of the panels should be at least thirty centimeters. If you need to lay a laminate, for example, next to pipes, then you can use a jigsaw. Taking into account the gap between the pipe and the laminate, a cutout of the required size is cut out in the panel with a jigsaw.
In the method without the use of glue, when joining the panels, it is necessary to tap them first in the longitudinal and then in the transverse direction so that the locks snap into place.
After the laminate flooring is completed with your own hands, you should close each deformation gap with a decorative baseboard. A special metal door is used to close the joint on the threshold.