A cement surface is the most common surface that you will deal with when laying a laminate floor, but before you start installing there is certain thing that needs to be checked. Most important is dampness. Any electronic measurement of fewer than 5% is ideal. It’s also very important to check the level of your floor. Over a distance of 1m the rise or fall must not exceed 5mm (dips and bumps). Laminate floors can also be installed on certain types of tiles. If the tile surface is nice and flat the laminate floor can be installed over it. However, if some tiles are loose it is recommended to remove them. Holes can be filled with any self-levelling cement. It is not recommended to lay laminates over clay tiles as they differ in thickness resulting in a very uneven floor. In cases like this, it is recommended to remove tiles and re-screed floor. At this point you should also decide weather you are going to leave the skirting on or remove them. Skirting can be left on and the floor can be installed within them. On the other hand, if you remove them there are a lot of options for new skirting if you want to replace your old ones.

These days different types of under lays are available to soot installation needs. First of all the floor needs to be covered with dpc plastic serving as a moisture barrier. If you need more than one piece plastic to cover a room the plastic should overlap one another by at least 15cm. after this you need to consider which type of under-lay will soot your needs. The most common one used is aerothene. Aerothene is very affordable and easy to com by and on a nice smooth surface you won’t need anything more. One thing to keep in mind with aerothene is noise levels. Aerothene are basically millions of small sealed air bobbles. The air will always be trapped resulting in an air pocket between laminates and cement floor. This air pocket results in the hollow high pitched sounds. There is however a simple affordable solution. A product called Rubber-lay can be used to reduce noise levels. Rubber-lay is pores. Because of this the air can be pushed out as the rubber gets compressed resulting in a stable, more quiet floor.

The first thing to consider is the direction in which to lay the floor. The ideal direction is towards the main light source. Laid like this the joints of the boards will appear less visible. Unfortunately this isn’t always possible. When you do an installation in a passage the ideal is to run the boards along the length of the passage. With this it is recommended to use the same direction when the floor is erected into the rooms. Running the boards in two different directions in one home is not advisable. Next step is to decide in what corner to start. The groove sides of the board should always show away from the walls and towards you when you lay them. It can be done the other way around but getting the boards to click in is much more difficult. All new boards these days are click on the short ends these days. So your first row must be completed from wall to wall before you start with second row. Remember to always leave an expansion gap of at least 10mm around all walls and cupboards. When you start with the second row, make sure that the short ends of the boards do not come closer than 300mm to one another. This cause weak spots in your floor where it can flex and pull apart. When you reach the last row you will need to cut the board to size to make it fit. Here is an easy way of getting the measurements for the last row. Place the board that starts the row, perfectly on top of the first board of the second last row. Take a peace of off-cut board and place it on top of the board that you want to cut. Move this off-cut board against the wall. Draw the line on the board you want to cut. Cut the board on the line and it should fit perfectly with enough expansion. When you get to a door opening it is important to leave enough expansion for the expansion profile. Anything between 20mm-25mm should be enough. Now your room is done and you can move on to fitting your profiles.

Your floor is now finished with enough expansion on all sides. If you left the old skirting in place you need to do the following. Quarter rounds must be mitred and cut to size to cover al expansion gaps along the skirting and cupboards (should there be any cupboards). You can use pine or merantie quarter rounds. They can be painted or varnished to the finish you prefer. They can be glued to the skirting with glue (glue screws or no more nails) or you can use panel pins. If you use glue, use a glue gun with the glue to keep the quarter rounds in place till the glue sets. Laminate quarter rounds in the same colour as the floor are also available if you don’t want to use pine or merantie. If you removed your skirting and you want to replace them, you can do so with pine, merantie or laminate skirting. Pine or merantie can be painted or stained to fit on your floor. Steel nails are the best way to fit them. Laminate skirting is also available in the same colour as the floor and gives the best finish of all. They are more expensive than pine or merantie but they never need maintenance as they are also laminated. They must just be fitted properly with enough glue and ideal conditions are no rising damp. After skirting is done you move to cupboards, should there be any. Quarter rounds should be used to cover the gap. Fitting is exactly the same as mentioned above. Next step is door ways. You get different types of profiles for different applications. Should your laminate floor end the same height as the tiles or carpet, you should use a T/profile. Should the laminate floor end higher or lower than the other floor, you should use a reducer profile. An end-cap profile should be fitted at sliding doors or entry/exit doors. These profiles also get fitted with glue (glue screws or no more nails) and a glue gun.