Hi Scott, OK,
As for transitions, the usual thing where there is a door is to imagine how it looks with the door closed. You don't want to see part of the other floor projecting into the other area under the door so you put your transition there. That will usually mean it will bridge the gap between the door jams, you may set it up so that the transition strip lines up directly under the closed door or so that one edge projects into one or other of the areas but the point is that you don't probably want to be seeing a couple of inches of strip from the other room when the door is closed. sometimes the door is too long to swing over a transition so it is set up to nudge just under the door. They even have hinges to allow for this, a bevel on the leaf so the door rises immediately when opened to clear the carpet or other transition. Where there is an archway and there isn't going to be a door then it usually comes down to convenience. The first room done will often scoot right past the doorway so the second area has to have a tongue into the doorway. The usual way, if you are working around a door frame is to run the flooring under it. Usually one removes the frame, cuts an eighth of an inch or what ever off the bottom then reinstalls it always assuming you don't split it while removing it. This is similar with the door casing. Careful notching though will usually do. Yes, a Zip saw should work fine. You can get piloted bearing cutters for them and use the bearing to follow a template to give you a truly accurate cut. I say this but I should also tell you that I don't have a Zip saw and I have never used one. Nevertheless this is one of their intended purposes. When laying the floor you are expected to stagger the end joints. The usual way to do this is to run one course, the fragment you cut off of the end of the last board becomes the piece you begin the next course with, you take it back to the beginning of the next row and off you go. You should really pull your baseboards or if you have quarter round, that should come up so the floating floor will snug up to within quarter of an inch or so of the wall and the edge is covered when you reinstall the quarter round or baseboard or both if that is your pleasure. Actually, because these are usually truly laminates the floors are very stable and it is the rest of the house that is likely to move. Modern houses though generally have a plywood or other composite floor decking which too is pretty darn stable so you are not likely to see much movement, you probably don't need much space for the floor to expand and contract. If you are to do a truly professional job, and most professionals don't, you carefully measure the width of the room in three or five locations taking care that you do have the shortest distance between them and divide the smallest dimension by the finished width of the boards, that is, excluding the tongue. You then divide the fractional left over distance by 2 which will tell you how wide the filler strip will be at each side and you will begin your first course that distance from one wall so that you end up with the same fractional strip along each wall. It will probably have to be scribed and cut to fit precisely but here again, the quarter round or baseboard can hide any imperfections. In that way you have a symmetrical installation. This of course is much more important with tile floor where partial tiles along one wall becomes way more obvious. Most laminate flooring won't show that very obviously especially in a furnished room but in a hallway it might be a little more obvious depending on any pattern in the material. Hopefully I have covered your questions, and equally hopefully correctly, I haven't forgotten anything. I did see your posting yesterday but was pretty sure someone else was going to respond. ----- Original Message ----- From: Scott Howell To: [email protected] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2008 11:43 AM Subject: [BlindHandyMan] installing laminate flooring, I get some of it Ok folks, I did some additional research and I think I have a better understanding of this laminate installation business. I guess part of my problem is fear of screwing things up and wasting materials which isn't as though it is incredibly expensive, but I just hate wasting anything. One of my questions was concerning installing the laminate around a doorway. Seeing as I am not sure what that piece is called exactly that stops the door from swinging through the doorway, I'll call it the jamb for now. Now lets call this entire doorway five and a half inches wide. The reason I'm going through this entire explanation will be apparent in one second. See, I looked at how the tile was installed in the kitchen and upstairs bath. Seems they brought the tile to one side of that half-inch piece that the door rests against while closed, what I'm calling the jamb. The carpet starts on the otherside with a transition strip, but actually the carpet really does butt up against the tile and the strip is a transition piece. Now in our kitchen, the doorway of course is just a doorway so no door and no half-inch piece (assumed width) jamb so the tile and carpet meet half way. I gather this is all personal preference. Now down on the level where I'm starting this project, they really did a stupid thing. The problem where I was trying to deal with is they brought the tile up to the baseboard and door casing. In other words, they made a straight line across the width of the room and never cut in to the door way. So, the carpet came all the way through the doorway and I don't think that looks clean. Seems you'd want the transition from one floor surface to another to be mid-way with a transition strip which in this case they did not have, it went from carpet to tile. My problem is I can't possibly undercut the door casing, I'd have to cut into the frame itself so this means I either get some tile and cut it down to little squares to fill-in the area they neglected, find a very wide stransition strip that doesn't look bad, or notch the laminate out so it'll fill in that gap and still use a stransition strip. I won't have as much a problem with the other two doorways since I will be replacing the carpet in both places and I can do what I want with them. If I choose to cut the laminate by notching it and I also have to cut some in order to make holes for the vents in the floor, would a zip saw do the trick? I don't have a jig saw. Thanks guys for putting up with my ramblings etc. This is one of those projects you really want to look nice. The one thing I did learn is that you may at times have to rip a piece down the middle to make it fit properly on either side of the room. It also seems that if you had two ends of two separate planks butted up against one plank it still would look just fine. Seems there's nothing you really can't do. I know the point is not to make it look uniform. tnx Scott Howell [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 270.0.0/1489 - Release Date: 6/7/2008 11:17 AM [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
