Q: I am considering installing a border of dark walnut around the main light planking of my kitchen DIY project. Some of the border planks will have to be at 90 degrees to the main direction of the planks and one will have to be at 45 degrees to the main direction. I think this can be done by routing grooves in the edges of adjacent planks and installing a spline using adhesive. What spline material and what adhesive do you recommend or suggest? I’m considering Wilsonart Estate Plus.
Donald L.
Greenville, SC
A: An excellent idea which has been done with great success using hardwood floors. There is some trick to it with laminate, but the 90 degree angle can definitely be done. I took a quick jaunt over to the sample department to mess with the planks hands-on for the Estate Plus and you can get the planks to engage well at a 90 degree angle, but make sure you use a tapping block as it takes a little nudge to full engage the lock. The only hitch here will be some very careful planning to ensure you have the planks locks meeting up.
For the 45 degree angle, you would be forced to router out a groove and use a spline, but I will caution that doing this basically ensures a voided warranty on any laminate floor. Now as long as you are ok with this and have good faith in your skills with a router, it should be the best route. As far as adhesive is concerned, just use any standard tongue and groove adhesive and for spline material you will want to find a spline meant for a thinner floor, like a 5/16″ hardwood. The estate plus is a thin product compared to something like a 3/4″ solid hardwood, so it will take some precise and careful work on your behalf to make it right. As far as material is concerned, wood splines or a plastic composite spline would work, but the T&G glues are better suited to wood, so try to go that route.
Typically for jobs like this you will want to go with an actual hardwood, but if your subfloor does not allow for a 3/4″ solid or your goal is laminate’s durability then this will be a tricky, but possible path.
Monthly Archives: August 2008
Some pictures from a tourist stop
My camera actually died while I was in China a few weeks back so I used my phone, so the pictures aren’t great, but they are all I can share.
Below are a couple shots from Shanghai:
Slow going
I have not been able to post regularly as normal when travel gets crazy it is hard to keep up.
Last week I traveled to North Carolina to see the Exdura plant as well as Georgia to see a laminate factory and a area rug factory. We also saw a hand full of key partners which made for a busy busy trip!
I will post some pictures as I find the time.
T-Molding Transitions
Q: I have an area of transition from the hardwood I am installing over to a tile floor where the span is longer than 1 piece of T Molding.
What is the best way to make the cuts and join these 2 T Moldings together so that they won’t shift from each other at the joining seam ?
Jeff
A: If you happen to be using a track based molding you should have little to no issue with movement in the t-mold itself. If you want to be extra careful with a track mold, cut your track some to build a track which area which will bridge between the two moldings to ensure they remain in place, but truly this should not be necessary if you install the trim well. If you will be gluing the molding into place without a track, then its just a matter of ensuring the adhesive is given plenty of time to cure so the trims will remain in place.
Laminate Over Vinyl
Q: We have vinyl in the kitchen and laundry. Must I remove the vinyl before installing laminate?
A: As long as your vinyl is in very good shape – no peeling, crackling, bubbled up spots, etc then you should be fine to install laminate over it. Floating installations are rather versatile in this sense, but make sure you use a decent underlayment. Cheaper foam underlayments tend to have a “rice krispies” type crackle noise when walked over. Also, if your vinyl was installed over concrete, it is a good idea to install a moisture barrier as a safety precaution to ensure no moisture from the concrete gets into your laminate.
Now if the vinyl is cracking, worn through, peeling up or similar, you must remove it before installing the laminate. Having a floor in disrepair below the laminate will simply bring about problems later and will become visible in the floor as raised areas or noisy spots.
Columbia Click Floor Buckling/Warping
Q: Help! About 7 years ago my wife and I installed Columbia Click flooring in our Condo. IT has been great – up until about two weeks ago. In our dining area, which is about 100sq ft in size, right about in the middle it started to buckle and warp upwards.
There are no water pipes or anything of that nature in the dining area, and we haven’t spilled anything on it. Only two things in the house have changed but I can’t imagine this is it:
1. We had air conditioning installed last year and also started using forced air heat to warm our condo in the winter (we live in San Diego and frankly never used the heater until we upgraded to whole HVAC system). We have one output vent in the dinign area, but not near where it is buckling. We haven’t even really used the A/C this year. Could the heat/ac combination have caused this? The floor now expands and contracts more often than it did before????
2. We have a three year old daughter. Last year we bought her a small play kitchen. It is the only other thing in the dining room besides the dining room table. It weighs about 45 pounds. It is up against one of the walls. Could it be causing the floor to not float as freely?
Finally – how do we stop it and/or repair it without redoing the entire dining area? The warp is now about 1/4′ inch high. Enough to notice while walking thru and even catching a foot on when walking by.
We do have some planks left over from the initial install, but I would even want to try cutting out and repairing the warped area without understanding the cause first.
I did some follow up to get a bit more information on the room and a few pictures:
Follow-up: Did the best I could on pics and I hope this gives you a good idea. Attached are 3 pics:
‘wide view – shoes as reference for warp and vent location.jpg’ – This pic shows a wider angle of the dining area. The pink (awesome) shoes show how wide the warping area is. You can also see where the vent is located for HVAC. I don’t know the exact path of the vent. Only that it is underneath the dining room floor. From the vent – it drops down about 4 inches and heads in the same direction of the line I drew. From there I don’t know if it angles slightly and heads straight underneath the warp or not. Maybe condensation going up, and causing the subfloor to warp and push up on the floating floor? Distance between shoes is about 18 inches. The HVA unit is downstairs in the direction of the line. I just don’t know if it is a straight shot, or if it has to angle to get there.
‘ruler at angle.jpg’ gives you a sense of how far up the floor has pushed. About 2mm. Pic isn’t great, but you can see the ruler is flush on the fllor on the left, but raised up on the right where the floor is lifting.
‘over hang.jpg’ – this shows that to one side of the dining area is an overhang. On that side of the room the floor has plenty of room to expand. The decorative wood covering I have on there is fairly superficial. If the floor expanded in that direction it would push out the covering instead of giving in and buckling up.
Regarding the other 3 sides of the room and expansion gaps, I can tell you this. The side I am standing on when taking the pic is where my daughters play kitchen is. I pulled off that moulding easily and there is a half inch of expansion space. So that covers 2 of the 4 sides of the room.
Unfortunately the other two sides the moulding a nailed on pretty good and I didn’t want to wreck it. But from my memory I was super worried about that aspect when installing and left 1/2′ at least everywhere. If after reviewing the info on 2 sides of the room you think I should pull the moulding to be sure of the expansion gaps, let me know.
After looking at this myself, my theory is the HVAC vent routes underneath here and is causing condensation and the subfloor is warping. I just don’t know how to proof it. One thing that causes me to go against that theory is that the condensation should drop downwards and not upwards. I would also think that I’d get drips thru the drywall ceiling in the basement and I don’t see that. There is also one other room where the vent routes underneath the floor just like in the dining area and there are no problems in that room.
Anyway, open to ideas and how to start in fixing this. I have a horrible feeling of replacing the entire floor in the dining area.
– Steve
A: I had a chat with Gene D., iFLOOR’s commercial contract specialist to bounce a few ideas around. Our suggestion would be to first remove those last few base molds to make sure the expansion gap is in place. If the gap is gone, then removing the molding should establish some room and help your floor relax back into place.
If they are still there and the floor has not expanded to remove the entire gap, then you are more than likely looking at some moisture issue. I would suggest picking up a moisture meter from a local home store (should run you around $20-$25) and test the moisture content at the raised area versus an edge of the floor. If there is a difference, there is your culprit, if not, then its most likely an issue in your subfloor.
If this is the case, you could try weighing down that portion of the floor, sand bag or some such. You could also apply a bit of heat to the boards to help remove some moisture, then weigh it down with sand bags and it should relax the boards back down. One method of heating would be to wrap a steam iron with a towel, shoot a bit of hot steam into the towel and iron the boards, but use this as a last resort.
Pergo for a Bathroom
Q: What do you think of laminate flooring in a bathroom? Also if you use Pergo would you still need and underlay and what type?
Thanks
Leo
A: Laminate can work in a bathroom, but if you have younger children or expect to have standing water or wet clothing on the floor relatively often, you might want to look into another flooring option. The biggest concern here is moisture getting into the seams of the laminate where it is unprotected. When this occurs, warping and buckling tend to follow. This does not mean that is impossible to have a successful laminate floor like Pergo in your bathroom – especially if your home has no younger children and you should not have wet clothing or towels sitting on the floor.
A few tips for success here. You must use an underlayment under any floating floor – so look into a underlayment which is approved by Pergo and try to get one which is denser as this will cause the floor itself to move less when walked over, reducing the chance of exposing the joints. Cork underlayment is a great option here as it supports the floor rather than cushioning it. You could put a very thin bead of glue into the seams when installing the floor to act as an additional moisture seal, but again this is not really necessary for an adult household. When installing, take you time and ensure that all of the planks are snugly fit together and you may want to put some silicone caulking into expansion gap areas near the shower and around the toilet to act as a good moisture seal.
Laminate Flooring – AC Ratings
For our August edition editorial here on the Ask the Expert blog, I wanted to break down and discuss AC ratings for laminate floors. AC or Abrasion Class ratings are a way for folks to determine cost versus durability of laminate floors.
So, before we determine what each rating means, let’s know what the AC rating tests. The abrasion testing done ranges from resistance to burning, scratching, impact, chair casters, furniture legs and more. Basically any type of common abuse the laminate floor would see in a variety of applications from basic homes to commercial applications. Once all of the data is compiled, each line of laminate is assigned a rating of 1 through 5.
AC1 – the lowest tier of laminate floors, these floors are built to resist minimal residential traffic and are typically very inexpensive. AC1 laminate flooring is suitable for low traffic rooms such as bedrooms or other rooms in a home where traffic is light.
AC2 – suitable for lower traffic residential areas such as living and dining rooms. These areas receive some traffic in a home, but are not the rooms which will see the most abuse.
AC3 – these floors can be applied to a more varied area such has small offices, kitchens, recreation rooms or even very light commercial settings such as small office buildings. These floors are also much better at resisting the scratches from pets due to their stronger finishes.
AC4 – built for light to medium commercial applications, these floors are the beginning of commercial grade laminate. Suitable for busier offices, boutiques, restaurants and similar locations, these floors also are great in homes with multiple pets or children.
AC5 – the highest tier of laminate, these floors are suited for higher traffic commercial applications such as department stores, hotels, public buildings and similar areas where much higher amounts of traffic move through. These also see some residential applications for people who want the highest quality laminate floors or wish to ensure they have a floor which is as abuse resistant as possible.
Most quality laminate these days is typically at least AC3, and very few floors below this rating resist common abrasion very well and usually require fairly stringent cleaning schedules to ensure minimal abrasion possibility. I tend to recommend AC3 rated laminate at a very minimum simply from a durability stand point, but some times it necessary to get a laminate floor which is more budget friendly. Often, laminate is far more abrasion resistant than other forms of wood flooring, but keep in mind that the highest quality finishes applied to some hardwood floors will perform akin to AC3 and AC4 laminate – so not all laminate is tougher than traditional hardwood floors.
Gas prices are all we hear about
You can’t go anywhere these days without hearing about gas prices, and since we ship more flooring across the globe than just about anyone, I probably hear about it more than most. This is one issue that affects everyone and the one thing that we seem to have no control over. Or do we?
One way we’ve adjusted (as have many consumers,) is to buy in larger quantities while making fewer trips. Not only does this save us on shipping (not to mention less of an impact on the environment- see our eco-zone page,) but with greater volume purchasing comes better pricing by the square foot. This is one way we’ve been able to maintain our excellent prices while costs for just about everything seem to be skyrocketing. But we’re not stopping there.
We’ve figured out how we can save on gas and now we’ve figured out how you can, too! For the next 4 days, we’ll be giving away to our customers a $500.00 Gas Redemption Voucher that can be used at just about any gas station (see detail page for complete information.) For the average commuter, that’s about 2-3 month’s worth of gas, even at today’s prices! And, we’ll also be offering 18 months no payments and no interest, so you’ll essentially start receiving gas vouchers well before you even have to make a payment!
To sum it all up, you’ll get the best deal on the best flooring, $500.00, and you won’t have to pay for any of it until 2010. I think that’s pretty awesome! Don’t wait until the last day, though, many of the items we’ve marked down are only available while supplies last!
And yes you should check out the details related to the gas redemption and yes there are some rebate hoops to jump through over time, but if you can put this in your calendar and manage the rebates it is a great way to save money.
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