Are You STRUGGLING Getting Planks Together | Here's 5 Tips That'll HELP

okay so it's really easy to have some struggles putting plank together also it can be really easy to end up having some gaps here and there and this video is going to walk you through how to be able to put plank together easier so that you don't have a tough time during your installation it's already tough enough right to be able to go through an installation and learn all of this stuff while you're doing it and not getting overwhelmed by not being able to even put the planks together that's something that you just want to not have happen so this video is going to give you several tips i have like five different tips that i'm going to share with you in in this video on different situations that you will run into during your plank installation that are going to help you get your planks together now i want to start off by talking to you about well okay so we've all went to the store and bought like uh something some kind of a toy or cabinet shelf something that we need to put together right so we bring it in the living room we get it out of the box we're excited to put it together there's not much room in there we start putting it together and it's not easy to do because we're on the carpet maybe or we're just not on a good solid ground to be able to put that together where we should probably just go out in the garage on the concrete and put the thing together right well maybe it's cold out there i don't know but the same thing applies for vinyl plank and laminate now if you don't have a stable foundation to build off of while you're trying to install your plank it's only going to cause you problems your entire installation you're going to struggle putting planks together you're going to have gapping you could get a couple rows out and put a row together and next thing you know you got a gap three four rows in because the plank came apart so what's up with that well i'll tell you what's up you were set up from failure from the very beginning because of these spacers that they try to sell you at the big box stores heck even the plank manufacturers try to sell them by putting it on their box to use them you see people tape them on the walls or they use scraps of the plank itself to try to use that to secure the floor so that it doesn't move and you can try to put the plank to get that doesn't work it doesn't work the only ones who are making who are doing well with these spacers are the people who are selling them it's not you who are using them so anyway i want to show you right now a tip that you can use that's definitely going to give you a better installation so here all right so now we have this secured you can see how we did all of that now i just want you to know the reason why i do it like this is because this is better than those spacers that you put in the wall or i've seen people blue tape them they just don't work very well but you can see this floor ain't going anywhere it's going to be a nice solid foundation now it's perfectly straight our planks are going to go together great from here on out so what's really important to build a good foundation here is you have to have a chalk line snapped on the floor that you can follow now this is going to keep the plank straight which is also really important and i just measure some planks to figure out where these planks are going to go and i like to leave out the row that's next to the wall so that if i have to do any finessing or re re-adjusting of the floor i don't have to worry about being short or long and it's really easy to come back at the end and put these planks in now you can see how we're securing the floor with screws and scrap pieces and i go down the entire roll of planks here making sure it's perfectly straight with that line all the way down before i secure it and then i fully secure it as we go down and make sure that it is perfectly straight you can see is all i'm doing is putting a screw through a scrap here really simple now if you have concrete we can talk about that in a little bit now if you only want to put one row together because your planks are a little more stubborn you can see how i put some planks together and then i put another plank across the joints i didn't connect them on the butt joints that really helped me keep it straight so i could get this floor straight and you can see how i screwed this floor without using those other scraps so there's another way that you can do this so there's a few different ways that you can use to get yourself a good foundation to build off of in different situations okay so you've seen how solid of a foundation that this makes and how those spacers don't even come close to comparing what you can do now if you are in the situation here where this is maybe your problem i do have another video that you can watch actually a couple of them and i'm going to put a link up here so that you can go to that video if this is where you think that your problem is now again even when you get out towards the middle of the room if you still have your plank moving around that can definitely cause gaps and gaps can come around as you're installing later on in areas where you already installed because you don't have a very good secured floor or solid foundation that you're working off of so this is really key now there is another video that has a lot more detail about if you have a concrete slab that you're working off of because you might be saying joe that's great how am i going to screw into my concrete slab well i have another link right here to a video that goes through a lot of this that we just discussed in great detail so go and check out that link right above for that video now i want to talk to you about putting plank together i'm going to share some tips with you here that you can use while you're trying to put your plank together because not all plank is the same some of them need a little bit more tender loving care than others some of them are a lot easier and just knowing how to work with the locking system is going to be really key plus there's a few of the things that i want to share with you in this but this plank is really easy to start a row here i just get it locked into the long part now this is one that has the tongue and groove on both the butt joint and the long joint so you have to slide the plank in so i like to lift it up and get underneath the board like back here underneath the board and then i just get it locked into the butt joint set it down and you can see right here how we have it a little bit away now i just slightly lift it and use this tapping block now it's all together nice this is a tapping block that i'll leave a link for it's a really good tapping block it's not a cheap cheesy one so it's gonna last you it's not gonna break during the installation so i'll leave a link for this okay so you can see right here i have part of the lip is broken now that's not a plank that isn't unusable you just want to make sure you get anything out sometimes when you're using the tapping block you can break that but that's still good to use don't even worry about it just go ahead and install your next plank in just get the debris out and see how it all went together nicely still let's talk more about the locking system now you can see on the tongue part of this plank it has some damage to it now that could have came out of the box like that maybe got hit up against the wall or against the floor who knows what happened but this is really hard to fix so it's just better to cut this part off and use the plank where you can a lot of times you can use a full plank if it had full damage all the way along it along a wall where that part of the plank would get cut off now this is the groove and you can see it has this lip on there now that lip can get damaged in the box also it can get damaged by just putting the plank together with your fingers but the tapping block can definitely do some damage to that lip and you you don't want to have chunks inside that channel it will stop the plank from going together tight it might look like it's going together but this can cause the small gaps that maybe you're having problems with so get those pieces out now i want to show you here some tips that i gave my son-in-law who's never installed vinyl plank before so is okay lift up on the end there a little bit yeah now try to tap it while you're lifting little okay first time installing plank are my methods teaching you something yeah that was easy okay now i want to show you another tool that could really help you especially in tight areas where you can't get a tapping block or rows where you have a butt joint that has a gap that you need to close up also it works really good for maybe you have a gap in the middle of the floor i'll show you some different ways that you can use this now this is a called it's called a pole bar okay and you want to make sure that you get a good quality one and i'm guaranteeing you right now that you're probably not going to find one at one of the big box stores they don't sell very good high quality pull bars there and if there's two tools that you shouldn't skimp out on on a plank job it's a tapping block and a pull bar because you want something that you're going to be able to bang on if you need to and i guarantee you those tapping blocks that they sell there are can break easily because i've had to use one in a pinch and they're just junk and the pull bar is that what they call it so now we're getting to a point where we're a little closer to the wall here i've showed this in other videos you can't get the tapping block really in there very much so i just like to take a scrap piece and i'll have the tongue on there because the groove is showing if this is the groove side then i would have this small piece have the groove on it i mean if this was the tongue on the floor the other way anyway you want it to slide in there and lock in if you can't pull these in to get them in then you can use this strap get your pull bar in there this is a pull bar it's got this big knuckle on the end to beat on it and just hit it in the scrap protects this from not getting damaged then i'm just gonna go down the line and beat her in and i don't mean beat but give her a good hit get it started so it's somewhat in the joint here so i might need to lift it a little bit to do this i know my hand was in the way there but you can see how it's tilted up a little bit right here right now and i'll hit it now it went flat and i can go back if it was still up a little bit and just give it a tap just to make sure it's in there nice and solid so now putting in these next pieces i like to put the butt joint in first then i like to lay it down now i'm just going to take my pry bar and i'm going to pry in to get that to click did you hear that click now you don't want to go through the sheet lock with your pry bar so if you feel like it's weak in a spot then just use a scrap you can just make sure it's all in you can hear that how it just clicked in and then you just beat this in just keep moving your pole bar down here sometimes you got to work these joints a little bit get this end in for it to all go in together nicely i feel like it's it's up right here so i gotta push down on that now see how it's coming in nicely there now you can see right here i'm a little tight so what i could do here on a spot like this is i could buff away the sheetrock scrape it so then i have that half inch underneath the sheetrock and then i can get my vacuum my wet dry vac and vacuum that out i want you to look at this gap that i have right here and i'm already a couple rows in and i just noticed that i have that gap and this is where that bar comes in you can see that i just tapped it and it went and it closed it up now i just used this bar right here and i shoved it in there and i took one good whack now i want to make sure that i come down to the other side and i want to make sure that that row did not move everything else down there so that it's touching the wall or that there's not enough gap in the wall one of the things that you can do when you use that tapping block is stick a wedge of some sort in the other side so when you're tapping it that way that it won't push into the wall where you have to come back and tap it back okay so the plank you're seeing right here is called a drop and lock locking system now what you do is you stick the long part of the plank into the joint you slide it over to the butt joint you drop it down and then to lock it you hit it with a rubber mallet and that will lock it into place now this is a simple product to install not necessarily better than the other where you put the butt joint in first and then go into the other joint but it certainly is easier so now what i'm going to do is i'm going to put this board in before i put this row in and the reason why is because i want it to go in there easy and so what i do is i slide this board in where it's supposed to go and now i'll take this row and i'll start putting this in i'll get this out of the way a little bit now i have this row in this is already slid under my jam there so i'm not going to have any issues getting it in now i'm going to start putting in this next row now we're getting into some areas where it's a little more difficult to install the plank like this situation where i stuck the plank in first then i put the roll in before it then i put that next plank in tight well the reason why is because i wouldn't be able to slide that plank in in to place there because it wouldn't bend that was a laminate there and to clear the locking system and everything it was just easier for me to slide that piece in first then install the roll before it then have that plank go into place now when you're getting into situations like around door jambs things like that where you can't slightly lift and tilt that plank a little bit to get it to go into that joint correctly well some locking systems can break easy and then what happens is you break that lip off that we showed that we that i showed you earlier ins off of the female groove that can get jammed inside there and stop your plank from being able to go together tight also even if if it doesn't jam and you break that off later on what can happen is that can come apart so that is why i did what i did there now i'm going to show you a few more things when it comes to difficult areas like this and this is just going to be a little bit of work to get it in there but it's really going to go pretty simple actually now i'm going to grab underneath the middle of this board or i can tap from that side but i lift up the middle and i keep that end down and that's how i'm going to get it to lock in there now i'll get it in place and this is where my tapping block comes in and now you see how nicely that's in now another method that you can use in these difficult areas which will come in handy for you throughout your installation is you can take the lip off of the groove here now what i do is i remove that lip and then the plank can slide into each other very easily you don't have to lift up at a slight angle like you normally do to get it to lock in now here's a small planing tool that you can use to remove this lip you can find this at any home improvement store or i have a link online you can also use a sharp chisel or a utility knife to cut this lip off now usually you just have to take one pass down the plank on both the butt joint and on the long joint but some planks take a little bit more you might need to take two maybe even three swipes depending on how thick that lip is now i planed this and i'm gluing it what i'm using this is a vinyl plank i'm using gorilla glue it's a clear gorilla glue it takes a little bit longer to dry but it gives you some working time and i was able to cut under this enough where i could slide this forward and while it was sitting under here then i glued i glued this and then i glued this and you can see i just put a little bead in there so it's not going to squirt out and now i'm just going to slide it together and then i'm going to tape it i'm kind of pressing it a little bit there's a little bit of a wave in this floor so i have to kind of work it into the joint then i just take some duct tape or blue tape if you want but duct tape just looks a little better to vinyl playing just press down and pull press down again and rip all right so i want to talk to you a little bit more about gluing that joint now this is a vinyl plank and so was that that you seen on the floor that's why i use gorilla glue if you have a laminate wood glue will work just perfect for you now clear gorilla glue doesn't foam that's why i'm saying to use that but to activate it has to have a little bit of water added to it so i just take a wet moist cloth and i'll rub both joints the both the groove and the tongue of both the planks that are going to go together so that the water will activate that glue and you won't have any problems now you can use super glue too which i like to use a lot but when you have places where you're putting together a lot of planks you don't get much time with super glue so be careful if you do use super glue because if you get into a pinch with it and it dries before you get it together you're going to be in trouble now there is one more thing that i want to talk to you about that will cause you a ton of problems and it's probably one of well these are all big issues that we're talking about but floor prep if you have big humps and dips in your floor that is going to cause you a lot of heartache a lot of headaches a lot of frustration to get your plank together because if that plank isn't sitting perfectly flat on the floor and the has some dips in it it's going to be hard to get those planks together now especially with the vinyl plank because it's a little more flexible and it will ride the floor however those humps are so you want to make sure you take care of those dips and humps now i have a video that talks about all these things actually that we've been through in great depth if there's anything in here that you want a little more depth in there's a video for it just for that situation on my channel now at the end of this i'll put the playlist on and i'll put a video on there that you want that you should go and watch that's going to go through all these things a little bit more in detail and many other things dozens of good tips to help you with your vinyl plank or your laminated installation now i just want to thank you for watching please hit that subscribe button if i've earned it hit that like button if i've earned your subscribe and hit that bell if you want to be notified for some more and i just want to pray for you and your family that you're blessed and that you are blessed not just for today but for many days i also pray that your projects go well and i pray for these things in jesus name god bless you thanks for watching and again my name is joe latender

Channel: So That's How You Do That!

Views: 309,768

Keywords: vinyl plank flooring, how to install vinyl flooring, how to install vinyl plank flooring, installing vinyl flooring, installing vinyl plank flooring, how to install laminate, vinyl plank flooring install, vinyl plank flooring installation, vinyl flooring installation, diy vinyl plank flooring, vinyl plank installation, installing vinyl plank flooring on concrete, how to install vinyl plank flooring through doorways, how to install laminate flooring, Installing Laminate flooring

Id: dPfzlmC_Slk

Length: 21min 49sec (1309 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 08 2021