You can Install Glueless Laminate Flooring!

Laminate Flooring used to be a home improvement area left only to professionals. In most cases, flooring such as installing carpet or tile still is. Recently, glue-less laminate flooring has made an introduction into markets around the world not only for its looks but also because of its ease of installation. Installation of laminate flooring takes around half the time of traditional glue down flooring and is ready to walk on immediately after installation!

Types of laminate flooring

What are Tongues and Grooves?

Each plank has two kinds of edges. Tongues and grooves. Tongues stick out past the finished wood. They slip into the grooves which are notches or channels in the planks. The groove helps lock the tongue in place and that keeps the boards from coming up. You also have to staple into the tongue side. This means that your first piece should have a tongue pointing towards you when you lay it down on the floor.

In this case, like I said, we didn't get to start on a long wall. It was actually a very short one. We went down the hallway and measured from our chaulk line on one side of the hallway (see diagram) and then measured from the chaulk line on the other side. We could then line up our first piece with these two measurements and we'd be parallel with our chaulk line.

Removing Existing Trim

The trim in this house was just beautiful. Very old and well taken care of. We definately wanted to preserve and reuse it. One thing about old timers...they used big nails...real big nails. Removing trim like this without damaging it is almost an art. You have to get a thin prybar between the wood and the wall and gradually get it farther in. You then wiggle it back and forth and try to get the trim to separate further. Like I said, it's an art.

This project allowed us to do two rooms, the kitchen and the dining room. There was also a hallway and an entry. All surfaces were covered with carpet. The hallway and entry way gave us a particular challenge, since the two rooms were joined. The layout made the installation tough, as there was no single point of reference. You'll see how that made things interesting.

I had the pleasure of working with a friend of mine from Aylmer, Ontario, Canada, John Friesen. Yes, he's German, but he still did a pretty good job. ;)

The first thing that we had to do was tear up the old carpet.

Preparation For Hardwood Laminate

After removing carpet, you need to pull up the tack strips that will be nailed down around the perimeter. You want to think about how many transistions and what type of transitions you have. For example, I had transitions to carpet and knew that I'd need some tack strip to finish those out, so I made sure to keep enough of the tack strip in good pieces that were big enough for the doorways. There isn't typically any tackstrip installed in a doorway, so when you cut the carpet, you'll need the tack strip to hold the cut part.
Next, remove the padding. This is typically stapled down on the edges, but pulls up fairly easy. Again, I had my little helpers roll for me.

Measuring Your Room

Before we get too far into the project, let's first figure out how much material we'll need. This is a determining factor in some instances since one product or line of products may vary substantially in price. So you need to know how much it's going to cost you.

In this particular installation, we had two rooms, a kitchen and dining room. The kitchen had an entry way to an exterior door, and the dining room had a hallway. The rooms did have a common exterior wall with which we could take measurements off of. The trick was that there was an opening between the two rooms where things needed to line up nicely. The floors would be installed in the same direction in both rooms, and when they came to that opening, they should line up.

Adjoining Rooms

Hardwood Laminate Appearence

One of the important factors in planning your layout is, how the finished product will look. Things like window lighting and room size/shape determine which direction your flooring will be going. When possible, position the flooring so that it runs perpendicular to sunlight coming in through windows. This will maximize the reflection and give it that 'mirrored' look. Of course, you can't make that the only factor you consider. The general look of the room will determine how it should go as well.

What do you do when you come to a door jam? Jams usually go down nearly to the subfloor. You have two options. One is ugly, at best, and the other is tedious. You could try to cut around the jam and try to make a fairly tight fit. You probably won't succeed though. You actually need to leave a little gap around the jam to allow for expansion of the wood. This gap also allows for looking ugly and for debris to fall into the crack. The other option (preferred) is to lay a scrap piece of laminate flat, near the jam. Then take a cutoff saw and, using the laminate as a guide for the proper height, rest the saw on the scrap piece and trim off the bottom of the jam.