Project 3: Prepping for Laminate Floors, part 2

This project was started here.

Sorry last week was so crazy, between the lack of internet and the car accident I didn’t really get much blogging done. But, our home computer now works and I’m up and walking around again (though slower than normal and still sore), so this week should be back on track.

Ok, where were we last post about the laminate? Ah yes! We had just hammered the living daylights out of about a billion nails on the floor.

As we worked our way around the rooms we found it easiest to just throw all the old carpet tack into the middle of the room. Then, when the room was completely free of tacking strips and nails we carefully carried this out to the Bagster. I say carefully because this involves carrying splintering pieces of wood full of old and sometimes rusty nails. Wear some thick gloves unless you want a splinter or to get stuck with a rusty nail.

The next step is sweeping the room. You need to get all the nails and concrete pieces off the floor so that it is completely flat. You don’t want to be half way through laying the laminate in the room and then find out there are a bunch of nails under the flooring you’ve already done.  They will cause boards to be slightly raised and will damage the boards if not removed. 

I want to point out here that many professional sites suggest completely leveling the concrete before you go any farther. This involves adding some concrete to any place where it is too low and somehow buffering/sanding down raised areas of the floor. We decided to skip this step because our foundation was just leveled completely, so there shouldn’t be any major dips or rises.  Most sites I found said this step is only necessary if the floor is so un-level you can tell by walking around on it. Our floors seemed good to me, so we charged on ahead with the next step.

After you have a smooth clean surface to work with you will need to lay down the moisture barrier. This is plastic sheeting used to protect the laminate boards from moisture coming up through the foundation. I know that sounds crazy, but apparently water can work its way up through concrete when the ground is completely saturated. Sounds crazy to me too, but supposedly that’s what happens. 

They sell moisture barriers at Lowes or Home Depot, but we bought ours from the same people who sold us our Laminate; Lumbar Liquidators.  The price was comparable and it saved us a trip.

This is what ours looks like; just a giant roll of plastic:

To lay out the moisture barrier you start with the roll on one end of the room and roll it out, cutting it when you get to the opposite wall. I suggest using a box cutter or sharp scissors.  I found the scissors to be easier to control. Of course, for us this involved borrowing  scissors from our friends K. & B. who live two blocks away because we don’t have any of our own at the house right now.

After you have one long piece the length of your room, you unfold the plastic. I wish I had better pictures of this process, but when we were working we had about a dozen wonderful friends helping. I didn’t want to be that person that stops progress by yelling “wait! I need to take pictures for my blog!!!” so instead this is just a pic of the moisture barrier roll where I’m trying to show you how it is folded like an accordion.  

 You unfold the barrier in the room and if you are lucky, the room is the exact same width as the barrier. This actually happened once in our house. I think because the room was ten feet across and the barrier is ten feet wide. But most of the time you’ll have to either cut the extra width (if the barrier is too wide) or add more on (if the barrier is too narrow).

To cut away the edge I suggest lining up the barrier with two corners of the room and pushing the extra towards the other side. Let the barrier cover the whole floor and then the extra just continue on up the wall. Then take a razor and run it at the very bottom of your baseboard. This should cut off the extra and leave a perfectly sized moisture barrier.

If your barrier is too narrow you will need to cut another strip and tape it to the first sheet you put down so that they overlap. I let mine overlap about 6” cutting off anything beyond the 6”. Do not throw away any of the barrier you cut off. Many of the odd shaped pieces are useful for thin hallways, closets, or doorways. Use tape along the overlap to keep the two pieces together.

Once the barrier is in place, you need to tape it to you slab at the edges all along the room. This will keep the barrier from shifting around when you start to work. We used painter’s tape, which I wouldn’t suggest. It isn’t super sticky to begin with, and the concrete is so dusty that a lot of times it just pops right off. I read an article that suggested duct tape… so maybe try that instead?

 

Here is a picture of the barrier taped around the edge. This piece wasn’t cut quite close enough to the edge of the room… but I don’t think it’s worth ripping everything up and re-doing it. 

I guess I’ll keep you posted if we ever have moisture pop through at the edge of the room and ruin our boards. I’ve talked to a couple of people who have laid laminate floors before without using any barrier, so I’m willing to risk the two inch gap around this room. What can I say? I live life on the edge. ;)

So, prepping the floors (if you used to have carpet) involves:

           - Pulling up the carpet tacking strips

-          - Pulling out all the nails on the floor

-          - Sweeping floor so it is completely bare

-          - Laying moisture barrier

Project cost: $20/300 sq ft (for moisture barrier)

Time (for moisture barriers only): 2-3 man-hours for several rooms

Total time to prep floors: 1-2 days of hard work for two people to do 1400 sq. ft.

Difficulty: I’m going to say this is not for beginners, but it’s still not ‘difficult’. The work is very physically demanding. You need to be able to swing a hammer and hit what you aim for and operate a razor blade without cutting yourself. So, let’s say a level of easy for an experienced DIYer, but a level of ‘ask a friend for help’ if you’re completely new to tools.