High-quality preparation of the floor for the laminate is of great importance so that this beautiful and practical finishing material can show all its advantages to the fullest.
Modern laminate is a material for creating a functional and elegant environment in any home. Its installation is convenient and as simple as possible, and caring for it does not cause any problems. But he is able to demonstrate all his positive qualities only if you properly prepare the floor base for its installation.
In situations where the laminate flooring is mounted on a poorly leveled floor, it quickly fails and loses its wonderful appearance.
Installation of laminate flooring
A variety of irregularities and gaps in the concrete screed, tubercles and cracks in the wooden base are literally deadly for the laminate. This is due to the fact that in such areas the interlocks of laminated products experience strong overloads. Naturally, excessive loads lead to the failure of the laminate. In addition, the material of interest to us is afraid of moisture penetrating into it from rotten wooden boards or from cracks in a concrete base.
If you do not take care of replacing or properly sealing all the gaps on the old floor, the entire external gloss of the laminate will come to naught. And after a while you won't be able to walk on it at all. For these reasons, the preparation of the base for the laminate must be carried out truly responsibly and efficiently. Only in this way will you get at your disposal a practical and beautiful floor in your home, which can be used for decades.
All work on the arrangement of a concrete or wooden base for laying a laminate is easy to do with your own hands. And you will need to stock up on only the simplest tool:
- Electric drill with mixing attachment. This device will be required in mixing the mortar for the cement screed.
- Level. It is optimal to use a laser device to determine the unevenness of the floor base. But if it is not there, the usual building level will do.
- Rule and spatula. These tools are needed to level the screed.
- Hammer and screwdriver. With their help, you will prepare the bases of wood.
In cases where it is planned to level the floors with bulk compounds, purchase a special spiked roller. Next, we proceed to the purchase of materials necessary for the preparation of the floor. These include plywood and chipboard (we work with a wooden base), sealant, building dry mix and plaster composition (treatment of concrete surfaces).
Leveling the floor with a bulk compound
You also need to choose wisely. It is very important, as it performs the function of a heat and waterproofing material that protects the laminate from water and cold. Substrates are of the following types:
- Cork. Eco-friendly natural products. They perfectly retain heat, but are afraid of moisture. Under the cork insulators, an additional polyethylene film should always be placed. And then they will perfectly perform their function.
- Polyethylene foam. These substrates are not subject to the negative effects of moisture. Fungus does not appear on them, microorganisms do not start in them. Polyethylene foam materials are affordable. Advice! Do not attempt to apply two layers of such films to increase their effectiveness. The result will be the opposite - the risk of violation of a single design of the laminate and substrate will increase..
- Products from coniferous wood. Such substrates are usually made to order. They are excellent in operation (environmental cleanliness, providing an ideal microclimate in the room, durability), but objectively expensive in terms of cost.
- Bituminous cork. Products created on the basis of kraft paper. Perfectly protect floors from moisture and retain heat. At a price they are slightly more expensive than polyethylene foam films.
After choosing the substrate and preparing the required tool, you can immediately begin to do the planned work with your own hands.
You need to remove all objects from the room, clean the room well, without leaving a single piece of debris on the surface of the old screed. Ideally, it is desirable to use a regular household vacuum cleaner for high-quality cleaning of the concrete pavement.
Household vacuum cleaner for cleaning concrete pavement
If you see that there are no significant defects on the base (hollows, bumps), just prime it, and then proceed with laying the laminated boards. If the condition of the old screed is not the best, it needs to be updated. You do it using the following technology:
- Knock down all the existing influxes and tubercles on the surface of the screed.
- Any tile adhesive cover the identified cracks on the concrete base.
- Apply a primer to the floor. Use only deep penetration solutions for these purposes.
- Mix the acquired self-leveling compound with water (the required proportions are always on the packaging of the mixture). At this stage, it is important to obtain a perfectly homogeneous solution. Do not allow the presence of even very small lumps in it.
- Filling a new screed. The mixture should be applied to the uppermost section of the floor base. From there, it spreads across the floor. You will only need to distribute it as evenly as possible with a spatula and remove air bubbles from the poured coating by rolling it out with a paint roller. If you do not take care of the destruction of air in the screed, a large number of microscopic holes will form on it. They will reduce the quality of the fill made.
Drying self-leveling composition will be about 24 hours. But remember! Laying laminate on a new screed can only be done 2-3 days after the used mixture has hardened.
With such floors, the situation is a little more complicated, although they are leveled without the need for time-consuming and messy pouring of a new concrete screed. You will need to carefully analyze the condition of the existing wood flooring, establish the presence of cracked or rotten parts, and make sure that the boards are strong enough.
After that, try to remove the most problematic areas with your own hands so as not to dismantle the entire floor. Install new boards in place of broken boards. Now check the evenness of the wooden base. With height differences up to 3 mm, no subsequent work can be performed. Start equipping the floor with laminate. But with bulges (hollows) of more than 3 mm, you will have to deal with the alignment of the old coating. This is done in the following ways:
- remove or drive protruding fasteners into the wood;
- pull all the floorboards as tightly as possible to the lags;
- level the floor base with chipboard (chipboard) or plywood.
Leveling a wooden base under a laminate
Let's talk about the last method in more detail. You need:
- Cover the wooden base with plastic wrap (you can lay this material only on problem areas of the floor).
- Cut plywood sheets or chipboard to the required dimensions and lay them on boards at a distance of 5–10 mm from each other. It is impossible to mount leveling products closely - during operation they will rub against the edges of adjacent plates.
- Fix chipboard or plywood with universal self-tapping screws (or stainless screws). Put hardware without sparing. The optimal distance between individual fasteners is about 20 cm.
In situations where the floor base is very uneven, it is allowed to lay plywood and chipboard products in two layers. At the same time, make sure that the junction of the lower sheets does not overlap with the junction of the upper ones. You have made a perfectly flat base with your own hands. Feel free to him!
