Laminate flooring - help needed (esp with thresholds)

netman

Hi folks,

I decided to lay down a laminate floor in the box room as my first project, and I'm normally the type of guy who goes in head-first, makes a mess, and then starts thinking of how to fix it... So this time around I'm actually spending time to plan things out

I feel like those poor lost souls I help on the Computers / Technology forums, don't know what I need, don't know how to do it, but I do know what I want as a result

I figure I have most of the aspects covered and I just need to figure out what to do with the doorstep. I've been looking at B&Q, Homebase, Woodies etc for something suitable, but all the joiners they have are for laminate-to-laminate, or laminate-to-carpet etc.

Our doorstep is a block of solid wood, 20mm high, dark colour - red-ish, and I'd prefer to leave it where it is and the way it is. Attached are two photos of what it looks like. The laminate is about 6-9mm high, and the underlay is 6mm max, so that will bring the height of the new floor to 12-15mm, 5-8mm lower than the doorstep. I'll also need to leave 10mm gap for expansion, so I need something to fill the gap between the floor and the doorstep, and compensate for the difference in height. Any ideas what I can use?

As for the rest of the room, this is what I plan to do, if anyone's done this type of job before (I'm sure there's many of you) please point out any mistakes I'm about to make, or things I'm overlooking:

- I plan to take off all the skirting boards. The only tricky one is under the radiator, they've been nailed into the wall and there's not enough clearance to just pry the boards off - the radiator pipes are about 20mm away from the wall. I was going to try and push the nails all the way through with a pin punch.
- Paint the walls while there's no floor and no skirting boards
- Lay down the underlay
- Use a tenon saw to cut a bit of the door frame at the bottom, to leave clearance for the floor and a bit of a gap for expansion. (to hide the edge)
- Lay down the laminate floor, leaving 10mm gaps at edges
- Cut a hole in the laminate floor where the radiator pipes are, I plan on hiding it with the little round wooden accessories that go on top.
- Put the skirting boards back, without nails this time (no-more-nails).
- Put edging around the built-in wardrobe to hide the gaps

I figure it's a weekend job, that might carry over into the week for finishing.
The room is relatively small, and there's just under 5 sq.m. of flooring to lay. (because of the built-in wardrobe)

Any advice is more than appreciated!

netman

Would something like this do for joining the laminate floor to the doorstep?

http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav/nav.jsp?action=detail&fh_secondid=6020092&fh_eds=%c3%9f&fh_location=%2f%2fcatalog01%2fen_GB%2fcategories%3c%7b8530201%7d%2fcategories%3c%7b8530229%7d%2fspecificationsProductType%3e%7bflooring_accessories%7d&fh_refview=lister&ts=1141054500409

netman

Or another "brilliant" idea I have is to cut under the doorstep and push the laminate floor in. While this might look good I'm not sure if it's such a good idea as it definitely wouldn't leave a 10mm expansion gap, and it's irreversible - messes up the doorstep. What do you think?

GreeBo

depending on your plans for the other side of the saddle you could just take it up altogether and fit the floor underneath it...

Regarding removing the skirting from around the rad, you can use a hole saw (20 mm or so) to cut around the nail, then the skirting should just lift off.
If you are not replacing it just cut it in half once its away from the wall, if you are keeping it you will have to see if you can get it out from behind, or else "just" take of the rad...

netman

Actually, taking off the rad would make things a lot easier, especially with painting. Is it hard to do?

There's a valve on one end where you can control the temperature, and a similar thing on the other side except whichever way I turn it nothing happens (it doens't "close" or "open", just turns).

If I close the valve fully I expect the flow into the radiator would stop, right?

So that just leaves the matter of water that's in the rad at the moment, any easy way to get rid of it?

Heinrich

Unscrew the plastic cap of the valve on the other end using a crosshead screwdriver. Then screw down the brass nut using a small spanner of wrench. Slightly undo one of the connections and put a recipient underneath. Have a good sized bucket to hand as the rad will have a lot of water in it. As the recipient fills up decant the contents into a bucket. Have some sponges at hand also as it can be a sloppy job.

GreeBo

netman wrote:

Actually, taking off the rad would make things a lot easier, especially with painting. Is it hard to do?

There's a valve on one end where you can control the temperature, and a similar thing on the other side except whichever way I turn it nothing happens (it doens't "close" or "open", just turns).

If I close the valve fully I expect the flow into the radiator would stop, right?

So that just leaves the matter of water that's in the rad at the moment, any easy way to get rid of it?

Yeah, basically you want to close both ends of the rad.
The one that jsut seems to turn is the lock shield valve, this (white) cover will just come off exposing the valve that you should be able to close with your hand (if its newish) or a pliers if its not
Now you have isolated the supply (hopefully!) to the rad.
So you are left with
pipe -> valve -> rad.
You want to open the nut betwee the valve and the rad, make sure its the correct one, as in on the closed side of the valve.
Drain this into a bucket (a few times) and the remove the other side.
The rad brackets on the wall can be a bit tricky at first so two people will probably be needed.
The brackets are a bit like a G cramp, with the supports on the rad hooking into the hook part of the G.
When you are putting the rad back on make sure you have it on the brackets properly otherwise its sitting on the pipes...

Good luck.

netman

Thanks!

This sounded a bit daunting at first but after your explaination I think I'll be able to handle it and it will certainly give me a better result in the end.

Degsy

If i was you i'd leave the floor the way it is,stain the floorboards,apply a coat of varnish and forget about laminate!I was gonna do my landing untill i decided to leave the floorboards as they were.

GreeBo

Actually I was going to say that your floorboards did look to be in quite good condition.
Its a bit of a messy job and you will never be able to stain soft wood to look like hardwood, but if you are ok with that you could just varnish.
Or maybe just try it out in the box room and if you dont like it, then laminate it.