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Submitted by: Kurt Hartman Jr
I just couldn’t take it anymore. “What?”, you might ask. It’s a long story, but essentially, we bought a home, just over a year ago. The home was nice enough, but it was evident that the builder had cheaped out on some of the basic amenities.
One of those basic amenities was the flooring in our kitchen. During our home inspection, the inspector noticed that the vinyl was beginning to come up in the corners of the kitchen.
Over time, with living, and washing dishes, the problem became worse. Eventually, it ceased to be merely an annoyance, and instead, became a trip hazard.
The other weekend, I had enough: I turned to my wife, and loudly declared that we were headed out to Lowe’s (well, first I said we were going to Home Depot, but they had squat that either of us liked in the flooring dept.).
While there, we happened upon a very knowledgeable fellow in the flooring department, with nearly 14 years of experience in the industry. I was considering a new type of ceramic tongue and groove tile, but that was well out of my budget, at $7 a square foot. Much more, and I might as well put down granite or marble.
In lieu of that, the wife and I decided to put down laminate flooring, due to the fact that she hates how cold tile feels underneath her feet.
In discussing the installation with the guy at Lowe’s, I discovered that I was in for a bit more work than I had originally anticipated. Fortunately, I could skip the “scrape the adhesive off the sub-floor” step, as it turns out that our floor had next to zero adhesive underneath.
You heard me: They had used a little bit next to the vents, and around our kitchen island. The corners of the flooring were merely shoved underneath the moulding. It was fairly depressing.
So, after I pulled up the linoleum, it was time to level out the floor. Generically, the stuff used to do this is called “floor patch compound”. It’s a bit like half-set concrete, with sawdust, and a little bit of putty thrown in for good measure.
I diligently applied it to all the gaps in the subfloor, caused by expansion, and tried to level out any dips. Once it dried into a highly abrasive substance, similar to concrete, I took on the fun job of trying to sand this stuff down to smooth.
A warning to the wise: This absolute demolished the 120 grit sandpaper I bought. It tore some royal holes in it. Make sure you buy a much rougher grade of sandpaper for this particular endeavour. Also, be sure you have a metal scraping tool of some sort, as occasionally, you will leave a lump of the stuff on the floor, and you don’t want to even attempt sanding that out.
Next, and honestly, this was the most important step I learned…seal the subfloor. Absolutely, positively, do not under any circumstances believe that you can lay down adhesive laminate flooring without first sealing the subfloor with latex primer.
As I learned from the flooring guy at the home improvement store, the subfloor is super porous, and over time, that will dissolve all the adhesive on the back of your tiles. The only way to prevent this, and ensure proper adhesion, is to seal the floor first. This primer must specifically be for flooring.
It has the look of Elmer’s glue, combined with paint thinner. It stinks, and smells like a glue gun is burning. When you put it down, you will need two coats. I applied mine with a primer roller. $4 total.
Once you have applied two coats, and they are completely dry, it is then time to apply the flooring. Believe it or not, this is the quickest part of the whole process.
Start by finding the very center of your floor. Run a chalkline down the floor in a straight line. Then, build a pyramid with the tile, starting with the top, and moving outward. This accomplishes two things:
1. The tile has an aesthetically pleasing “staggered look.”
2. It eliminates stress on a single seam, that could cause the tile to move out of place. It essentially locks the tile in.
Rinse. Repeat. That is pretty much all there is to it.
A few final warnings/tips:
1. If you don’t have a saw, at least go to the tools section, and get some cutting shears. These shears will allow you to cut some of the more difficult angles/lines you encounter.
2. Let the tiles acclimate to room temperature over a few days. You don’t wan’t to bring tiles in from the heat, and have the adhesive be overly gooey. Likewise, you don’t want cold, rock hard adhesive, either.
3. Get a builder’s square to make sure that your cuts are straight. It is going to be very important that the lines are square at all times.
4. Just because your tiles are square, and your cuts are square, does not mean that your room is square. Mine certainly isn’t, and when I put down engineered flooring at my parent’s, theirs was not either.
This means that you will frequently be making cuts on one side that are at an angle. The easiest way to make this cut, is to measure the distance with a tape measurer at one end of the tile, and do the same for the opposite end. Mark the points at each end with a pen, or pencil. Then, take a straight edge, and draw a line between the points.
This will help you make the cut at the proper angle.
That’s all the advice I have on the subject. If any of you folks are more experienced in this area, I encourage you to leave your tips in the comments below.
I wish you success…and offer one last tip, “except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain, that build it”.
About the Author: Kurt Hartman is a weekend warrior of sorts. His day job is not construction, but as a Web Developer for a company that sells heavy equipment and loader tires on their website at
otrtiresupply.com
. If you need any more advice, you can find him there, anytime, or visit his blog, where he dishes on the latest news in the mining and tire industries.
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