Laminate: Pro or DIY?
Should you or shouldn’t you install your laminate DIY? That is the question. And the way to answer that question is to first ask yourself a few key questions. To do a DIY job, you should really be the kind of person who enjoys a DIY job! Otherwise checking your local ads or asking friends and co-workers for the name of a good installer might be the preferred choice.
Can You (or Should You) Do Laminate DIY?
Ask yourself these questions (and try to answer as honestly as possible):
- Can you afford to get a professional installer? If you can, maybe you should treat yourself.
- Do you like to build things? Many people enjoy installing floors because they like to build things as a hobby. This type of person is the perfect person to venture into a laminate DIY project.
- Are you patient? In other words are you the type of person who measures twice—or even three times—and cuts once. It helps if you are.
- Do you have any problems with your back or your knees? Although installing a laminate floor is very easy, there will be a lot of bending, time spent on your knees or crouching and lots of reaching down and standing up.
- Are you easily frustrated or tend to put off finishing a job once you start? The last thing you want to do is to be hard on yourself when you’re embarking on an installation job. So take your time but make sure you make it a priority once you start.
- Are you afraid of saws or anything with blades? If so, the time might be right to pick up the phone and call your installer.
Laminate is one of the easier DIY jobs, especially if you get a glueless click-lock system with pre-attached underlay. If you’ve always wanted to build, installing a laminate floor is the ideal job to get you started.
John
For those who may visit the learning center, this is what I have learned: Never put laminate on a floor. I’m not a DIYer. I bought the material from the other half of Roebuck and had their knowledgeable installers which the salesmen sold me on come to my house. Guess what? Sears doesn’t have installers, they subcontract all their work…at least most of Texas. It was a nightmare. First, the salesman got the order wrong and the crew didn’t have sufficient material to start. The salesmen said it was a weekend job. Almost a year later it still wasn’t done correctly. The first crew did a great job on the carpet. However, nobody had any idea about laying laminate and most didn’t even want to BE there. They were unprofessional and did sloppy work on the laminate floors. Totally disappointed. I should’ve thrown them out and ask for my money back. Experience may be the best teacher, but there are many hard lessons it teaches. 2nd crew didn’t have enough material to re-lay the floor…but hid it well. The third crew found the error when the laminate started to separate and pop up. 30 days after the last crew finished, bubbles in the laminate started to appear in small areas. We were so disgusted with how we had been treated, the quality of work, and the unfulfilled promises, we decided we would just live with it and cover the errors with rugs.
If I ever do flooring work again, I will use local companies with someone to answer. If you’re a DIYer, have at it. You can’t do any worse than the guys this company sub contracted.
After the job was done…most contractors I spoke with wouldn’t touch laminate with a 10 foot pole because of the problems with installation and with the product after installation.
Wayne
As with most projects , first thing is to pre-lay the floor & get any cuts you might need to foresee any trouble , then stack up like legos, and reapply with nails or Adheisive , saves much time after starting the installation.
Carol Klinkner
I bought Sku 245168 from Lowes. This will be the 4th place we have installed the laminate flooring. We thought if we paid a little more for it it would go much easier & fit much better. It is Swiftlock Technology. We are having the same problem. We get the first piece in the proper way & by the time we get to the end some of the pieces will not lock together for us. What is the problem? Sometimes the 1st piece fits on the left side but not on the right side.
Yes we have a moiture barrier under it. This is very frustrating especially since we paid more money thinking it would work much better. We did a bedroom & had no problem. No we have been working on our Grand room which 13 X 25 & we are having an awful time with it. Does anyone have any ideas of what we can do beside take it apart & start all over after 3 days worth of work & still not finished with it.
ken fong
I bought sku 10074935, Peruvian Rosewood and am installing on concrete (contrete is uneven and so I put a subfloor on top to level everything)…..Each piece suppose to snap together and then slide into the ajoining piece. the first problem I have is the pieces that snap together keeps coming apart as I go down the line. The second problem is that the ajoining pieces slide together but can easily come up (i.e. it does not fit tightly together like tongue and grove). Is there a way to keep everything together as I build my lines of flooring? Should I nail the pieces down to the subfloor? or maybe use glue? Has anyone else had this problem and how did they solve it?
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
kim
instead of using underpadding(robert’s ) on the whole floor, can i use some in areas that are sunken in and not the whole floor?