Anyone ever installed laminate floors before?

I've done it a few times and found it to be pretty straight forward. Read the directions a few times beforehand. Put some spacers down on the wall you start from otherwise the flooring will move towards the wall as you install the rows. You have to leave some space around the perimeter for expansion of the floor. Make sure the grooves where the boards lock together are clean. If you have difficulty getting a piece in remove it and check all contact points for damage or detritus. Don't hammer on the board edges directly. Use a piece of scrap material between the piece you're trying to move and the hammer. Spend a little time looking at the pieces to figure out how the system works. It will go pretty darn fast if you do it right. Good luck and have fun with it.

Edit: I'm actually sitting on a rolling office chair on top of laminate floor as I write. We've found this stuff to be amazingly scratch resistant. With 4 big dogs, 2 sons, and this rolling chair I would have expected at least some scratching by now but I looks like the day we installed it 4 years ago.

If you have basic carpentry skills you can do it . Just make sure you leave the required amount of space for expansion and contraction usually quarter of an inch around walls and door jambs. With anything, there is always tricks to a trade Im sure you with pick some up as you go.

yeah its totally do-able for the weekend warrior. no nailing or gluing involved so it goes pretty quickly. just remember to stagger your joints and leave a little expansion room at the walls that can be covered up with some shoe molding.

Take a few minutes and measure the width and length of the boards and the width/length of your room and do a little math, you don't want to start with a full width piece if that leaves you with say a 1 inch strip on the other side of the room. Also like mentioned above make sure you stagger your joints, been a while since I have put any down, but I seem to remember you stagger in thirds. This stuff is deadly hard on saw blades, if your have nice saws with expensive blades I would put in a cheap or dull blade for cutting. If your doing any jig sawing of the boards you can get the proper blades that cut on the down stroke instead of the up stroke this saves chipping at the cut. One more thing I can think of to pass on, although once together it is a very tough floor the individual pieces are prone to chipping at the corners and edges until locked together, nothing will piss you off more than then finishing the job and noticing a big chip in the center of the room, and you can almost guarantee it won't be where a piece of furniture will hide it So keep an eye on each piece as you are putting them down. It is impossible to replace a piece once the floor is complete without backtracking from your ending point.

Just laid 400 square a few months ago. I went with the pergo that had the pre attached underlayment, that made the job super easy. As far as the install goes. You will need a solid subfloor and 1/4" gap around the perimeter, so use spacers. My flooring was a little over 1/4" thick so I just used some scrap cut offs as spacers. Remember to stagger your joints at 16" or as the manufacturer directs. This must be done to give the joints the strength. As Morgan said, this stuff is hell on saw blades. Buy a cheap finish cut blade if you dont have one. I dont know if you were planning on replacing your baseboard or not but if not, you will need to either undercut your baseboard (wouldnt recommend this, wasy too much work) or install 1/4 round after the floor is down, otherwise, you will see your 1/4" gap. The one thing you will need to undercut (unless you are relplacing with new) is your door jambs. The reason for this is you will need to slide the flooring underneath it. For this job, I would HIGHLY suggest getting one of those new vibrating saws (im sure you have seen them). I tried one with a hand saw and quickly resorted to using the vibrating saw.

Other than that, it was probably the easiest project ive done yet. Very straightforrward, just follow the instructions.

Check the subfloor for low spots with a long straight edge. If you don't level a low spot of just the wrong size, you'll get a bridge that will sound hollow when you step on it or even cause the laminate to come apart or break. You can use the self leveling compound to fill the low spots.

On the click together type, once you have a few rows together, it's easier to get on the laminate and pull it toward you, rather than trying to push them.

+1 on the fragile edges!

Morgan said:

Take a few minutes and measure the width and length of the boards and the width/length of your room and do a little math, you don't want to start with a full width piece if that leaves you with say a 1 inch strip on the other side of the room. Also like mentioned above make sure you stagger your joints, been a while since I have put any down, but I seem to remember you stagger in thirds. This stuff is deadly hard on saw blades, if your have nice saws with expensive blades I would put in a cheap or dull blade for cutting. If your doing any jig sawing of the boards you can get the proper blades that cut on the down stroke instead of the up stroke this saves chipping at the cut. One more thing I can think of to pass on, although once together it is a very tough floor the individual pieces are prone to chipping at the corners and edges until locked together, nothing will piss you off more than then finishing the job and noticing a big chip in the center of the room, and you can almost guarantee it won't be where a piece of furniture will hide it So keep an eye on each piece as you are putting them down. It is impossible to replace a piece once the floor is complete without backtracking from your ending point.

Click to expand...

I can appreciate that sawing hard wood flooring may be work for a blade but I would NEVER recommend using a cheap or dull blade for cutting anything, especially nice wood that you are putting on your floor. A good blade will give you a quick and clean cut. Use good blades...or cheaper new ones...

I have it in a basement. It will NOT tolerate wet.

I put 1/8 or 3/16 hardboard down on my old kitchen floor that was all patches and repairs and had been remodeled several times , including plumbing and several different kinds of radiators.

Nothing was square and plumb or terribly level and if I were to do it again I would use the paper / chipboard template method.