Laminate Flooring - End Joints, Doorways, Last Row, and Transitions - SECRETS TO PRO RESULTS!

[Music] hi i'm rick welcome to elbow shots today i'm going to be doing just a square or rectangular room with just straight walls it's actually a continuation of a job that i've been working on it's a laminate floor so let's take a look at just a simple rectangular room today i'm going to show you a system that i developed for installing plank flooring that's going to save you time and conserve material while at the same time giving you a structurally sounder floor that looks absolutely amazing we're also going to take a look at fitting to a doorway on one side of the room cutting out a heat register and getting that last row in when you have to deal with vertical trim that's already installed i'm also going to show you some tips for installing transitions the autofocus had a mind of its own but it gets better stick with me since this is actually a continuation our forward layout is already determined so i'm going to focus on the lateral layout and by that i mean placing the end joints in a randomized pattern laminate floors have several different methods of installation that are specific to the manufacturer if yours has a pad attached you should not use additional pad depending on your situation you may want to use a vapor barrier follow the manufacturer's guidelines if you are using a pad or vapor barrier you may want to lay down just enough to allow you to install about a dozen rows or stow you'll still have space to unbox and shuffle your material this pad is only three feet wide so i put down two widths if you get too far ahead of yourself you may damage the pad while you're working i'm going to loose lay my first three rows just to check my end joint alignment these planks are 48 inches because they're all the same length the relationship of the end joints at the starter boards remains the same through the length of the rows that's why we focus on the starter pieces and the rest is automatic this particular floor is assembled by angling the end joints together and then locking the edges in place yours may assemble differently but many of the concepts in this video will apply to all flank plank floors getting the first three rows assembled is one of the tougher parts of the job but the more pieces you get locked together the more stable it becomes the easier it gets persist i use 5 16 inch laminate flooring spacers to maintain my expansion gap at the starter wall and to help stabilize the pieces for assembly a strategically placed spacer will help keep that tail from lagging i use the whatever it takes approach to getting his first couple of rows together i usually have to use my shunting tool backwards at first because it doesn't fit the conventional way once i get away from the wall i can turn around and pull the planks to me it's also easier to tilt the plank from that angle to get the edge started when you tip in the end joint keep your plank as close as possible to the previous row as you can then your plank won't have as far to travel home the greatest point of friction is where the joints are locked in may be able to get the free end starter by hand and tap the lock down i've already cut and installed the last plank of the first row so using full planks i flip the next to 180 degrees to mark where i want to cut here is where you'll save a lot of time in the material you make three cuts and have six usable pieces we'll set these aside and use them to start our next three rows before i lock this piece in i check to make sure the base trim will cover the edge of the plank tap the ends in to snug everything up the red pencils show the location of the end joints in the previous three rows we're going to place our three cut pieces to correspond with them long middle and short good thing i put down two widths of pad it isn't always long middle short because the length of our starter pieces is constantly changing you will get to certain points where that order will change as well the location of the end joints will correspond to the end joints of the previous three rows let's take a closer look at marking for cuts the last plank is rotated 180 degrees with the end butted up to the wall make my mark even with the tab sticking out at the bottom this gives me clearance from the wall to get the piece in place and provides our expansion gap i tip the plank at an angle to keep it from sliding under the drywall if you butt it up to the bottom plate your plank will be too long i work in rows of three and staggering the end joints by one-third the length of the plank which in this case is 16 inches 16 inches is a guideline not an absolute we want them to be a couple of inches off either way that's what gives us the randomized appearance the pattern i hold in my head for the starter pieces is full plank two-thirds plank one-third plank some of these boxes i'm flipping end over end and some i'm just rolling over with all of them i'm orienting them to the way they will be installed shuffling the planks will usually give you a more blended looking floor every once in a while make sure everything is snugged up sometimes when you get to the end of a row you need a piece that's longer than a full plank just drop in a full plank and mark your cut save yourself a trip to the cut station keep a sharp eye out for little chunks those crumbs could get down in the joints preventing the pieces from engaging with two consecutive planks having damage in the same spot tells me that it likely happened during shipping now because i was fussing with those i have to reset my starter pieces this is my cut station for the end cuts this magnum shear allows me to make dust free cuts usually right in the room where i'm working i have a smaller 13 inch shear that is much lighter and is great for the thinner laminates and vinyl planks but it won't cut this thick material this flooring is so thick and dense that the blade mushrooms the end a little making it necessary to re-trim but if you know you're going to do it and you're not pulling it out to show the camera it doesn't take that much time sometimes it helps to slide the plank back and forth a little to get it into the track you also want to watch for clustering of identical prints especially if they have distinctive features like knots or high contrast greening now here i'm just using the sliding glass door frame as a straight edge folding the ends over to cut them if you just have a straight wall you could just start at one end and knife it the length of the wall i just did this to get a straight edge on my cutoff piece it doesn't really matter you always want to cut out your heat registers or other cutouts right away not just to keep your pad from ballooning up but also you don't want to accidentally cover them up with flooring if you had to you could cut them out later but they're hard to find and it gets messy let's take a look at cutting to a doorway since the flooring on the other side of this pocket door will be about the same height as our laminate floor we will use a t-molding between them the t-mold will be centered under the door and will allow about a quarter inch expansion gap for our flooring now let me show you a special little trick here if you're using a table saw to make your cut stop your cut a little short you can snap it off and it will leave that little corner in there giving you more coverage tip your plank into place you'll have less friction if you make sure it's fully seated then you can tap it over into its final position i use the knife to shoehorn it in when i undercut this trim it looks like i didn't get all the debris out nope here it comes so it's an inch and 5 8 from the edge of the jamb so i match that on the other side and draw a line to cut to another important consideration for layout is traffic areas this doorway is a hub to my left is the kitchen in front of me is the dining room to the right of that is the deck and the barbecue to my right is the garage with the laundry room and the back door on my six let's not put a little piece here that means we're going to have to do a little rearranging taking a couple of minutes to think this through can make a big difference in our end results so far we've been able to just drop three cuts and go this is where you apply your artistic eye let's play with this a little let's see what we can do with the pieces that already have the right end cut off we won't be able to use them anywhere else so let's use them or lose them i found a combination that almost works it would be better if this end joint were a few inches further to the right so i flipped the plank around cut the end back a little and put it back together there fixed it for you now let's take a look at cutting out a heat register you don't have to lock the pieces together to mark them just line up the finished edges to make your marks mark the ends and then when you measure to stay consistent make sure you're measuring to the finished edges when you cut out heat registers it's a good idea to leave about an eighth inch expansion gap around them i like to make my cuts perpendicular and parallel even if the ducting was not cut squarely into the subfloor i do what i can to straighten them up but sometimes you just have to go with what you've got and measure to what is there the first board of this row also needs to be notched out so i'll mark it and take it out to the saw at the same time cut multiple pieces every chance you get the dry fit looks good now this is so cool and easy it really bugs me when i see a little square hole from an overcut where the jam and the casing come together i actually developed this technique when i had to cut around a lot of bullnose sheetrock corners i just stopped my cut back a little further to get a larger radius i prefer this method of tapping the piece into position under the trim as opposed to removing the rib and gluing them together but sometimes you still will have to use glue because of the sliding glass door and its trim this last row will present a few challenges let's begin at the beginning cut the first piece to length for end joint placement this piece will have two different rip cut widths so i mark where that change takes place measure from the wall to the tab sticking out along the bottom your closest point and mark it i'm going to use this cut off piece of end cap for reference now our end cap is an inch and a half across the top and 5 16 on the bottom almost an inch we will allow a quarter inch expansion gap underneath so we will subtract an inch and 3 16 from our width three and three quarters one 5 16. when i rip off this edge my mark will go with it so i want to transfer my mark across first we'll cut this first cut to 4 and 5 16 all the way down and then we'll rip out that little section the vertical trim in these doorways were not magically at the right height i went through with a scrap of flooring and an oscillating saw to undercut the ones that needed it i used the edge of my knife to slightly compress the pad and shoe horn the piece in under the trim then tap it into place the pad is gaining a little fullness as i tap but the plank is not digging into it so it will relax back into place now we have a nice gutter for our end cap when i mark for doorways i usually mark back a little from the edge of the casing typically door jambs are three quarters of an inch thick which leaves a gap for expansion underneath that will be covered on top i didn't do it but if you back bevel the leading edge especially that leading corner you'll face less resistance getting your piece into place it won't dig in it may take a little wiggling tapping and persistence but you can get the job done now i'm going to pull the plank down and line the ends up so i can bow the plank into the end joint the door trim helps hold the other end making it easier to bow the plank then give it a nudge to lock the ends together before trying to engage the edges bump the plank over as close as you can get it then tip up the far edge and persuade the plank to join the rest of the floor here we go the last piece is cut to length and ripped width hey look i found it the piece i've been looking for since i started this job the last one for whatever reason i cut this plank a little too wide my shunting tool will only fit in one spot so i'm going to try to use my wonder bar to get the plank in place i'm not prying against the drywall that can damage the wall it's more pulling than prying you can put a flat scraper or heavy putty knife against the drywall to protect it persistence is a virtue and more often than not when you persist you prevail wisdom is recognizing when something isn't working and adjusting to conditions come on out let's go visit the saw this should have been the easiest of these last three pieces if i had cut it correctly it would have been because this piece is in the corner and difficult to pull back out i let my base shoe bar hold the other end up a little you know in case i have to get it out of there again from one end to the other i tapped the plank in place and now i'm using the base shoe bar to hold the back edge up to angle the plank into the groove get in the groove i've slipped my wonder bar under the edge of the drywall to let its weight hold the edge of the plank down to really lock in that last row i use end cap at the exterior doors to provide a clean finish for covering the expansion gap if you don't allow an expansion gap your floor will likely buckle during times of expansion floating floors must be allowed to float we want to glue this transition to the subfloor so we trim the pad and remove it polyurethane adhesive provides a strong waterproof flexible bond sometimes i'll use silicone for the same reasons make sure your adhesive is flowing and vacuum the gutter there's no need to flood the area with adhesive place dollops a few inches apart that are tall enough to get mushed down with the transition too much tension is causing the transition to bow even though there's glue all over this transition i'm gonna have to pull it out and re-trim it let's put it back in to see exactly where the problem is well my cut is square but the door jamb is slightly angled and i chipped this end so i'll re-trim it here that's a lot better you can use wood putty sparingly on a laminate floor if you need to use putty keep it clean and blended in if you make a mess with the glue you can pull the transition back and clean the adhesive out then when you push it back you won't get glue oozing back up through a couple of pieces of painters tape will hold it in place until the glue sets as you can see there is no unsightly lining up of end joints when using the staggering power of three thank you for watching please like share and subscribe [Music] oh

Channel: Elbow Shots

Views: 134,220

Keywords: laminate flooring, laminate floor, laminate, plank floor, laminate plank flooring, elbow shots

Id: h8P6XvBAXiM

Length: 17min 51sec (1071 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 02 2020