Topic 'Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete' in forum 'Home Improvement' - dslreports.com

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 00:46:55 EDT

neonturbo posted : From what I have seen even the cheapest laminate floor fits and feels better with an expensive pad/underlayment. The type I used looks like recycled blue jeans and other fabrics with a built in plastic vapor barrier. »www.quietwalk.com/quietwalk/index.html

I did my living room and my basement with inexpensive laminate and this very good padding, and it feels much nicer than many other houses I have seen with similar flooring without the pad. It quiets the floor, and the padding seems to "take up" the high and low spots.

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 00:15:36 EDT

John97 posted : Update:

I put the flooring down tonight. It came out great. I was able to slide the planks right under the baseboard moulding. All I have left to do is trim down the final row of planks. They are an inch too wide. I'll do that in the morning.

Pictures will come once I have the room all put back together.
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Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:40:21 EDT

John97 posted : I gave it a shot. I broke out the compressor and the multi-tool. With a half-moon woodcutting blade and a plank of the new flooring I went around the perimiter and undercut all the molding. It took me under 2 hours including beer breaks and I think it looks pretty good. Tonight I am putting the primer on the concrete and tomorrow I will lay the floor down. If it doesn't look good, I'll get some quarter-round but I think it'll be fine.
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So put me on a highway, and show me a sign.
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Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 10:55:18 EDT

cooldude9919 posted : We replaced some some old wood paneling with drywall on the lower walls, and put in the new base trim, so the floor was all put in first then the base trim after. The guy spent some time sanding of bottom of the trim with an electric sander to try to match some of the dips/slopes in the floor. Turned out pretty well all around without having to do the quarter round.


small gap to the left of corner, had to take off ~1/4 inch to get it as is

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 10:24:53 EDT

Annmarie posted : I have no experience laying a laminate floor.

That said I have seen several laminate floors layed and they are in a couple of styles.
Laminate up to the wall with quarter round to finish looks great.

Coincidentally, I have seen what your buddy is talking about at my in laws this Christmas.

That tool is sort of a Dremel that can cut straight in under the existing molding?

Where the floor or the base board was not level it was noticeable since laying the board and cutting straight across did make a straight cut but left gaps.

It kept catching my eye.

Brother in law wound up putting the quarter round down anyway to cover the gaps and a bit of the raw edge.
My husband went over with the nail gun and small compressor. Pow pow pow had it finished before the beers even got warm.

Quarter round comes in very hands in all sorts of ways around the house.
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Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 09:53:56 EDT

natedj posted :

said by John97:

The advice I was given was to take a piece of the flooring and put it against the baseboard and use the multitool to cut across right on top of it.

An oscilating tool won't be my choice for such a long cut. Something like this would be better »www.lowes.com/ProductDisplay?par···Id=PDIO1 but I think that the 1/4" round would be neater and faster.
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Good judgement comes with experience...Experience comes after bad judgements

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 22:23:58 EDT

robbin posted : I think that would work. Maybe 2-3 hours of time. Should be a clean cut.

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 22:01:37 EDT

jjoshua posted :

said by John97:

The advice I was given was to take a piece of the flooring and put it against the baseboard and use the multitool to cut across right on top of it.

That will take forever and will look like crap. That trick is to cut door jambs to the correct height.

Quarter round is the way to go.

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 21:15:40 EDT

John97 posted : The advice I was given was to take a piece of the flooring and put it against the baseboard and use the multitool to cut across right on top of it.
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So put me on a highway, and show me a sign.
And take it to the limit one more time...

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 19:48:00 EDT

VioletVenom posted : Using a multi tool to undercut your baseboard sounds like a nightmare. They aren't very precise tools and it would take forever. If you're set on this route, a jamb saw would be a better tool for the job. One reason quarter round or shoe mould is used is because floors are not completely planar. It is difficult to get a tight fit between baseboard and the floor surface. Quarter round flexes enough to cover any of the floor's inconsistencies.

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 17:54:47 EDT

John97 posted : After doing some research and talking to a buddy of mine, I have a solution.

I am going to go with vinyl plank flooring. And, my buddy from work gave me an answer in terms of dealing with the molding. I can just undercut it with an oscillating multi-tool.

I will post pictures when I am done.
--
So put me on a highway, and show me a sign.
And take it to the limit one more time...

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 14:58:41 EDT

jjoshua posted :

said by robbin:

said by John97:

The house is on a slab, so the floor is concrete and is in perfect shape

If the slab is perfect, why not stain and seal it. It's gotten to be the in thing in this area.

Looks great when done right. Put down some rugs and you're all set.

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 14:47:26 EDT

robbin posted :

said by John97:

The house is on a slab, so the floor is concrete and is in perfect shape

If the slab is perfect, why not stain and seal it. It's gotten to be the in thing in this area.

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 13:48:30 EDT

cooldude9919 posted :

said by jjoshua:

said by cooldude9919:

I just had this done recently

I think that you're supposed to stagger the joints.

Yea i know that, but i wasnt home when the guys put it in and i guess they didnt realize that. With rugs, TV, furniture, etc down you really dont notice it much now.

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 13:33:34 EDT

jjoshua posted :

said by cooldude9919:

I just had this done recently

I think that you're supposed to stagger the joints.

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 10:30:42 EDT

Bamafan2277 posted : If the floor is not perfect you can put a coat of self leveling concrete to make it the perfect base for the flooring.

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 09:32:50 EDT

cooldude9919 posted : I just had this done recently and used the nicer laminate from sams »www.samsclub.com/sams/select-sur···vAction= . For around $~1.70 per sq foot with the backer built on its hard to beat.

As had been said our floor looked in OK shape and we where kind of in a rush, but there are several low spots that if you pay attention you can feel it when walking over them. Given these boards are super thick (14mm) so it isnt as bad as thinner boards would have been. If you have the time i would really check it out to be sure it is in fact in perfect shape.

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 09:15:01 EDT

cdru posted :

said by QuaffAPint:

If you have any sort of moisture in the room, I would recommend vinyl planks over laminate, since there is no risk of warping with the vinyl like with laminate. Other than that, either would work and are pretty quick to install.

If it's a bedroom-like room, there should not be any issue with moisture-related problems. Bathrooms and kitchens are a no-no and asking for problems unless it's designed for wet environments. And even if spill some water, as long as it's cleaned up and doesn't sit around, it's not a problem.

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 08:28:46 EDT

QuaffAPint posted : If you have any sort of moisture in the room, I would recommend vinyl planks over laminate, since there is no risk of warping with the vinyl like with laminate. Other than that, either would work and are pretty quick to install.

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 07:34:15 EDT

SparkChaser posted :

said by John97:

The house is on a slab, so the floor is concrete and is in perfect shape.

How perfect is it???

The reason I ask is I did the same thing to an addition a few years ago. I installed laminate in a 20 X 20 addition that's on a slab. Never noticed any thing with the W/W carpet but every little imperfection seemed like a mountain or canyon when under the laminate. I wound up doing a lot of work to the concrete floor to get even close to acceptable.
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"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." - Aldous Huxley

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 06:11:10 EDT

VioletVenom posted : You have quite a few options, depending upon your budget, time, preference and expertise when installing over a slab.

Florida's favorite floor covering has to be tile. Other options would be: laminate, engineered, vinyl. With installation methods ranging from glue, snap-lock systems, self-adhesive or mortar. Look into the vinyl wood planks, they're about the easiest floor to put down and fairly cheap.

You might want to check out Floor and Decor, I see there is a Tampa location. They have a huge selection of flooring usually at a decent price.
»www.flooranddecoroutlets.com/

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 00:02:59 EDT

John97 posted : That's a great idea. Quarter-round will definitely do the trick.

Re: Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 23:50:50 EDT

nightdesigns posted : I've used laminate (Shaw brand) and it was easy to install and looks good. Like you, I had moulding I didn't want to remove. Ran the flooring to the edges and used quarter round to cover the gap.
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This Space for Rent...

Looking to install some type of floating floor over concrete

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 23:41:19 EDT

John97 posted : We're in the process of redoing what is going to be a multi-purpose slash guest room at our "new" house. The room (like many of the other rooms here) had some God-awful wallpaper. We got rid of that. I have a hopper gun and a compressor, so I sprayed orange-peel on the walls to make them look good after all the wallpaper scraping. Today we painted, and pulled up the worn, stained, and otherwise nasty 27 year-old carpet.

The house is on a slab, so the floor is concrete and is in perfect shape. I have to get some kind of flooring in place rather quickly because my wife already has family coming to visit later this month.

There is very nice stained hardwood baseboard molding all around the room and it's flush with the concrete floor, there's no gap to try and slide hardwood, vinyl, or whatever under it. The last thing I want to do is attempt to remove it. I'm afraid I will damage it and won't be able to replace it.

So, I am looking for options. I want something that will be easy, not necessarily break the bank, and hopefully let me avoid pulling off the baseboard molding.

I'm in Florida. I have no idea what I need as far as underlayment, vapor barrier, etc. I know that stuff would depend on what type of floor I put in. Again, I am looking for easy.

Thanks in advance for suggestions/help.
--
So put me on a highway, and show me a sign.
And take it to the limit one more time...