Mistakes To Avoid While Laminating Floors

Posted by Deepayan Saha on January 31st, 2021

Laminate flooring has become a trend in the recent few decades or so. Much for its easy installation, easy maintenance, comfort, and versatile look, lamination on flooring is accepted widely across the country. Laminate wood flooring and other patterns make it a great choice for your home by not only giving it a fresh look but also enhancing the property value.

However, what matters is if the lamination is done the right way. If it is not known how to laminate flooring properly, it might give rise to several problems in the future and a messy look is the most innocent of the problems. There is nothing worse to find soft spots, bulging, buckling, large gaps, bubbling, and poor or unfinished transitions.

Let’s learn what mistakes are commonly made while installing laminate flooring, and how to avoid them. But before that, a quick glance at what laminate flooring means.

A laminate flooring is a synthetic image r texture laminated to a wood substrate with a top covered with a laminated protective coating. A laminate flooring is installed over stone, ceramic, painted tiles, wood, and more.

Mistakes done while laminating floors:

1. Laminating in the wrong areas

Lamination must be avoided in the areas that are prone to get affected with damp and moisture. Hence, it is important to choose your location wisely. If the underlying wood substrate absorbs water, the lamination might get bubbled. And it is risky to install it in kitchens, bathrooms, or entries for the same reason.

2. Not sealing the laminate against moisture

If, at all, you are going for lamination on floors in kitchen and bathroom, make sure to seal the joints properly. There are several options to prevent water penetration through joints. It is important to use the best adhesive to waterproof the joints. But then, floor tends to expand and contract. You can also use a silicon caulk between joints to avoid moisture crawling in through the joints.

3. Not letting the laminate planks adapt

Any material or fabric for the lamination is susceptible to humidity and hence, would expand and contract as the weather changes. Bring your materials to the installation site to let it acclimate to the temperature and the humidity level of the work area. It is better to leave it for 48-72 hours as a rough estimate. This, if avoided, can cause bucking or gaps in the flooring.

4. Not checking if the floor is levelled

This is one important step to check if the subfloor is properly levelled. This is to prevent soft spots which can lead to wear and tear near the edges. Irrespective of whether you are installing the lamination over concrete, plywood, or composite floor, the level must be rightly done. Make sure to keep a tolerance of no more than 1/8^th of an inch. The right way to level your floor is by grinding, sanding, and using a professional self-levelling material.

5. Underlayment left undone

Laminate flooring is thin. It does not have any structural integrity; it tends to bend and flex easily. Underlayment is a thin layer of foam that absorbs small deviations from beneath the subfloor, and take care of any dips or high spots in a tolerance of 1/8^th of an inch.

6. Not leaving enough space for expansion at the edge

Laminate floor is meant to float. Hence, it is advisable not to cut your laminate floors tight to baseboards or a wall allowing it enough space to expand. The same goes for expansion joints to avoid buckling.

It is important to know what mistakes to avoid while installing laminate wood flooring in your home. Or else, you might end up risking a badly done floor and, even worse, run into the risk of accidents.