This blog discusses how to lay wood flooring, not necassarily leminate flooring. Layinging wooden flooring, like most jobs discussed in these blogs, is not an overly difficult task once you know how to do so. Like in the tiling blog, you wnat to work out how much this is going to cost in terms of how many wooden panels you will need, so like in the tiling blog, measure the length and the width of the room and multiply to get the area of the room and then measure the length and width of one tile and multiply to get the area of one tile, now divide the larger number by the smaller number. This number is how many tiles you will need, but it is a safer bet to get a few more tiles than that number actually reads. Now to the floor laying!

First of all you must check that your sub-floor has a damp-proof membrane you will need to install some, before attempting to lay the wooden flooring, if there is not. Once you have a damp-proof membrane in place you will also need to check that the subfloor is level. To continue you need a self-adhesive underlay; these are almost essential as they mean you do not have to glue or nail the wooden boards down and creates what is called a ‘floating floor’ as the panels are not fastened directly to the sub-floor. You can purchase a roll of self adhesive underlay from DIY stores such as B&Q.

Roll your self-adhesive underlay across the floor in the direction you wish to lay your flooring, with the shiny side facing upwards towards the ceiling. Make sure that you do not allow adjoining pieces of underlay to overlap each other as this will cause a difference in height when you come to actually lay the wooden panels. Once you have laid down the underlay it is time to actually lay down the wooden panels.
To begin this, gently peel back a portion of the self-adhesive underlay that is equal to about half the width of your first panel. The first tile is always the most difficult as it justifies the spacing and location of the rest of the tiles. First, have a spacer ready so that you can place it inbetween your wooden tile and your skirting board, now take the additional plastic sheet, that you should have when you purchased your underlay, fold almost a quarter of this sheet and place it over the top of the sticky underlay making sure that it covers almost all of it. Now, place your first tile upon the underlay that is exposed and is not covered up by the plastic sheet and gently remove the plastic sheet as you place the board into place. The difficult part is now over, you can continue by peeling back the underlay and lay wooden tiles as your progress.

You may need to cut many of your end rows, the easiest way to do this I find is to place the tile upside down, still adding a spacer between it and the skiriting board, and mark with a pencil the position at which you shall need to cut the panel, now you can cut the tile using a saw. However it is suggested that you wait up to 48hours before adding trims and finishes to the floor to allow the wooden panels to settle. You now know how to lay wooden flooring, and it wasn’t even as difficult as you may have first thought!