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Acclimation
Before installing hardwood, laminate or cork floors, acclimate the materials in the rooms to be installed three to five days prior to installation.
Acclimation is a normal pre-installation process of adjusting new floorings to indoor temperature and humidity levels, not in the garage. Ideally these indoor levels are 65-85* degrees and humidity 35-55%. Heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system should be correctly working (HVAC).
Because wood products are sensitive to both temperature and humidity, installing outside these parameters can result in a problem floor, with squeaks, board edge gaps, board warping, cupping or over drying. Put off the installation until these levels are corrected.
Moisture Test
When installing Cork or solid wood products, perform a moisture test on both the sub-floor and new flooring. Know your moisture levels before you begin. Depending on your region of the country, the ideal sub-floor reading is under 12% with a 4% balance in the new flooring not to exceed 16%.
However, exotic woods such as Brazilian Cherry, Mahogany or Teaks may need additional acclimation time, a moisture test will indicate this. Create a future paper trail by documenting your current readings. Require your installer to document these readings on your invoice.
Floor Preparation
Sand down high spots or uneven plywood seams, remove any floor squeaks, countersunk nail heads.
On Cement: Grind down high spots and level out low areas to 3/16 of an inch in 10 foot increments.
Padding
Some Laminates are without a pad attached to the backside. These should be floated over a foam or dense type pad.
Real wood Floating floors are quite heavy when clicked together. These perform best when floated over our dense Insulayment or Quiet Walk pad.
For a moisture barrier, tape the Quiet Walk seams well with a plastic type or duct tape. For damp basements, use our 6mm plastic poly sheeting over the padding for the best possible moisture barrier. Do not tape the pad seams when covering bare wood floors, this allows the wood to breath. See their Web site for related instructions.
Working Tip
In most cases, it is best to work away from the hard areas (such as door frames and jams), not to them.
Expansion Gap
All wood floors need an expansion gap. This is most critical for floating floors. This gap is always the thickness of your flooring, it allows for floor expansion as well as an air channel keeping the board ends dry. For a straighter job work off the longest wall.
Floor Integrity
To aid in the integrity of your floor, discard pieces under 6".
Laminate Kit
A laminate kit consist of a tapping block, tapping bar and plastic spacers. Use a tapping bar to tap together board ends and areas hard to work around such as under cabinetry toe kicks or older hot water radiator heaters.
Inspect
Inspect, inspect, and inspect the flooring as you work. Check the board surface for sheen variations, chips on the edges or corners. Visually check the grooves for any hidden trash that can prevent a tight fit or create gap separation in the seams later.
In addition, ensure your tapping block is clean and without milling defects as this can cause tiny finish fractures in the board edges, only to chip out later.
Undercut
For a professional look, undercut door-jams and other obstructions so the flooring just slides under. Remember to allow for the expansion gap.
Finishing Touches
Include the finishing touches to your project with shoe moldings and doorway reducers. Nail shoe moldings into the wall not the finished floor. The Doorway reducers must allow the flooring to float.
Enjoy your floor!
With over 10 years in business serving Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Palm Beach, and surrounding areas, The Flooring Factory Outlet offers wood laminate flooring services you can trust and prices to fit virtually any budget. The company has an extensive online inventory to browse but can also cater to custom design requests. At factory direct prices, the public has access to over 100 colors of laminate wood flooring and all underlay and padding materials needed to finish the job correctly.
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