The ULTIMATE FLOORING HACK! | Installing Vinyl Plank Flooring

[Music] so now you're ready to lock your flooring together you got your wedge taped to your baseboard you think that's going to hold it nope dude that was three days of hard work yeah but look how amazing it looks [Music] hey gang i'm paul with stefan welcome back to our channel in our previous video you saw jordan and i brought this backsplash put up some led lights all that stuff came out great we loved the way it looked but you know what gang these are all small details i'm kind of tired working on small details i want to do something huge i want to make some big progress what's that going to be finally these fours guys we've been waiting forever for the floors let me take you back to when we first started this project and fill you in on what we had now over here in the foyer this was the original glue down oak parquet flooring in this area right here in the old dining room it was carpet that came out super quick over here in the kitchen and the laundry it was a saltillo tile and over here in the living room it was a glue down oak strip flooring now the original plan was to leave the oak strip flooring in the living room find a similar modern flooring to match so we'd have a transition strip right here under our beam and right across here under this beam but after we opened all this up the owner said you know what i think it would look a lot better if we ripped out the oak strip flooring in the living room and had one product across the whole thing and we agreed it says super so we ripped out this strip flooring it came up pretty easily we had a couple spots where they were glued down with like an epoxy and we did end up renting a floor machine with carbide teeth to help us get the glue up but this has been concrete like this for weeks and we are ready to put some florida out so let's talk about the flooring that we bought way back in april we decided on the color and the manufacture of the flooring that we wanted they said it'd be about 12 weeks out and we said that's a little longer than we want but we can wait well a couple weeks ago we get an email saying actually the delivery date is going to be end of september well we're not going to wait that long so we went back to the showroom we picked out a different color of the exact same product this is our new flooring right here it's going to look amazing once we put it down and it doesn't need a vapor barrier or a padding padding is built right in so that's going to be a lot easier for us but before we can lay that on the floor we got to rip up that old rope flooring in the hallway let's get it done [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] [Music] [Applause] all right guys we get a lot of comments to say hey stud pack how come you can't say that beautiful oak strip flooring whether it's this glue down stuff we pulled out of this house or some stuff that was nailed down in a previous demolition we did i guess if you had the means and the time you could scrape all this glue off and reuse it but we lost about a third of the product when it split when we pulled it up but you could if you had the means and the time like i said scrape that off put it back down on some wood or some concrete get the sander out and refinish it but look at your wear layer it's pretty thin you might have one sanding left so it's all up to you gang for us simply not worth it in the trash let's go finish that floor [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] this [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] all right all that oak strip flooring is done in the trash can we scraped all the glue off it looks great you see how clean it is we swept everything off the walls vacuumed the base opened these doors vacuumed in the bedrooms we are ready to go and what i'm looking for it needs to be smooth gang you have all that glue up you can see the ridges but it's pretty smooth right here and on the difficulty scale on a 0 to 10 i'd give that a solid two and we gauge that on how much energy we have after we finish ripping out four i got so much energy i can start putting in this four right now but actually we can't gang there's one more step we got to do let me show you what i'm talking about way back in the demo stage we use that same pneumatic scraper to remove the original 1981 parquet flooring from this concrete slab which was glued down to the concrete and as you can see this looks like the surface of the moon it's got all these craters in it well the glue from the parquet actually pulled that concrete up the pneumatic scraper didn't damage the concrete that glue pulled it up pretty amazing so we need to fill that in we need a nice smooth surface here just as we mentioned before for that vinyl flooring so i'm basically going to mix up some thinset and we're going to skim coat this whole thing i got my cement trowel here ready to go and while we're doing it we're going to come over here we have a few areas where these walls remember these three walls here they were fastened to the concrete well the concrete spalled out when we pulled those nails out so we got to fix that this is a perfect example right here if i don't fix that and put that six millimeter vinyl across there the leg of this stool could just punch right through it and we certainly want that to happen so we're going to do this whole section right here where these walls were check the whole floor make it smooth ready for flooring so let's head outside and mix up some thinset [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right guys that's all done well worth the expense of a 15 bag of thinset we're not gonna have any punctures in our flooring ever we've got a nice smooth flat floor with no voids in it we're gonna let that set up overnight come back tomorrow hit this floor hard get it done we'll see you then hey guys the next day that thinset we used yesterday to fill in the voyage and the holes in this concrete slab has all dried that was the perfect solution for this problem and before i went outside to clean the bucket i had a little bit left and i realized i might have a couple spots in this slab where i have a dip if you remember from the demo video in this living room where we scraped up this oak strip flooring and then in the beginning of this video where we scraped up the hull flooring we had a few spots where there was a different adhesive what i imagined happened was that the original adhesive bond broke here and over there and there was some springiness in the floor since it wasn't glued down anymore so they came back with a different adhesive that sticky stuff injected it under the floor to reattach it with some adhesive so i got my best tool straight edge put it across the slab on edge and sure enough i had a low spot here and a couple by that bathroom so i just got the rest of the thin set filled it in used a straight edge to double check it and it worked out great i did go around the whole slab and it's within spec what is the spec well this little sheet comes with each box of flooring and the spec is right here 3 16 and 10 feet so i'm well within that and then if you look right here vapor barrier it's not required and of course a pad is not required either because it's already on the product so we're getting close to putting this floor down but there's one more thing i want to do i want to give it a light scraping we've got some drywall compound who knows what else on here so i'm just going to have jordan go over the slab see all that stuff coming up we're going to get all that up make it perfect let's move this furniture and prep this slab [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] all righty dan that floor is clean and i'd venture to say we could eat our lunch off that floor what do you say jordan you want to put our turkey chili right on there and eat it off the floor you know that sounds really good you could make a strong argument that this floor is now cleaner than that table yep and you may be asking us why are you going all this trouble yes you want it flat yes you want it smooth but do you really need to scrape it and vacuum it if you've ever laid down any kind of laminate flooring or vinyl tile flooring that clicks together you know that this joint is machined and it's got to be perfect we had a case where we did a whole floor and we had a little bit of trash get in between two of these pieces we had seven people working it wasn't caught until we were done and it was right in the middle that's where it happened it's not going to happen under a couch or somewhere it's going to be where you see it every day so we want to minimize that happening to us so we wanted to vacuum this floor and get every little piece of paper and wire and uh drywall compound off of this floor so it's smooth so now that it's smooth let's talk about one more thing now we know we know you're like come on stud pack let's start laying some floor but this is an important step what i want to talk about is patterns now this is obviously not a wood product but it looks like wood what it is it is simply a picture of wood that is printed on the product now do they have millions of pictures that they use no they only have a few and every manufacturer is a little bit different let's check out what these guys did now we have two boxes on the floor here six here and six there and at first glance it might look like all these are different now one thing to note all the tongues are facing the same direction but let's take a look at these two boards and i'm going to grab this one and i'm going to spin it around 180 degrees and place it next to this one can you see these two knots right here those are exactly the same knot it's the same part of the same picture as well as this defect right here again it's the same picture but this manufacturer rotated that photo 180 degrees during the manufacturing process so it's going to make it less obvious that there's a pattern the other thing they did they shifted it right it doesn't line up this way left to right the pattern is always different that's going to make it a lot easier for us during the installation we can spend less time looking for a pattern and more time installing the floor now we are going to work out of multiple boxes at a time just like you do with any other flooring so let's go grab two more boxes get them lined up and start putting down some floor [Music] all right gang we're starting in the hallway but we started in the hallway for a couple of reasons number one it's the hardest because we got all these doorways to deal with and in this hallway it kind of establishes the direction we're gonna run our floor yes it does turn this way into the master but that's fine this is our main focal point right here so the first thing we did we got three planks put three rows together right here all the way through that hallway door behind jordan and then we centered them exactly in the hallway we then determined that we actually have enough room from the edge of this full one into this doorway and the gap will get covered by this transition strip so perfect we don't need a thin strip here after we determine that we slid those three planks this way and we cut and scribed this row around all the door frames so now we're gonna push this whole thing together away from us against that wall should fit like a glove let's do it all right man that looks great right there of course you don't want to see the concrete anywhere around here now of course this door jamb is cut a little bit higher because the original floor was thicker we're going to put quarter round or shoe right here that'll take care of that and just around here you're not talking much it'll be fine also and just like with a tile floor where you do your layout to avoid small slivers here and here we have full tile here and in that doorway perfect and the way we got that like we said just a few minutes ago we put in these three full planks first and got it centered between this space board and this baseboard the distance between the baseboard and the edge was seven and an eighth and we want to get that number back i'm a little strong i'm like 7 and 5 16. i actually want to move it this way i want that eighth back because i want to make sure this transition goes over the tile and over the floor so let's slide it back this way get it dialed in and finish this hallway all right all right the base is cut oh look at that dang i think i just i think i just ruined that man yep but you know what i use the duplicating function on my table saw check around the corner of that bathroom door that thing's got a copy button it does wow awesome and then well that's good and i would hate for you to do this all over again because i didn't use a sacrificial board i got you covered but appreciate it all right but i will be using sacrificial boards okay now all right all right guys this always been a killer by a killer i mean like two hours but that's okay we're gonna take our time in here because this hallway is gonna establish the success of the whole house as far as the floor is concerned now you saw us fit this piece one two three four rows and slide it underneath the baseboard and the door jambs on that side once that was done we had our line here we measured off of this line to the baseboard into this doorway and around that doorway and we cut and we fit these two pieces right here now the challenge is how are you ever going to fit those under and lock it in together at the same time so in order to accomplish that we took this row out they come apart very easy then we laid this one where it belongs and we pushed this piece in from this direction locking this piece together and this piece together it's easier than it sounds it is we use some soapy water on a sponge for lubricant and each tap with our stud pack ram i think we would like half an inch maybe more 13 millimeters maybe great great this is the metric system that's right so we're going to show you right now how we do that all right gang we're ready to slide this piece in right here and get out of this hallway let's show you how we do it got a soapy sponge here move up both sides that's all i need now i just got to get these two aligned just like that i'm just started here on the corner now jordan's going to guide this for me and i'm going to go to the other end i'm just going to tap this in with our block so that we don't damage that edge we have the mating piece from a drop right here we're going to put that on there and check this out one more good one i'm out of gas need one more perfect damn look at that hey that's pretty slick people are gonna be walking in here wondering how he ever did that now they know but we are officially out of this hallway yeah we got that little l to do but that's easy right so our next plan of attack now that we got those five rows started in the hallway we are going to continue five full rows all the way down all the way to this far wall that's going to establish our baseline and then we can start working that way towards the street and that way to the backyard i bet we can do this and half the time it took just to do that hallway i think we can floor this whole place in the same amount of time and we got your brother here to help us that's true let's get going [Music] even with all the planning gang sometimes that's inevitable no cat wow that's the easiest piece i put in because i cut it yeah all right that corner is there to stay we had a little trouble with it because it's such a small piece and i asked jordan how are we going to hold that piece in place he said dad just get the 2p10 it'll hold anything so we put a little bit on the tongue that thing worked great so now we've got the five rows of flooring all in from way in the back of the hall right down the gut of the house to that bay window in the kitchen so now we're ready to start working towards the street we got an issue gang from previous experience when we start tapping this this direction to lock those pieces into this section this is going to move we know it is we moved whole living rooms full with just a tap of a hammer and we didn't bring our pet elephant today so what are we going to do how are we going to keep this in place well you can see right here on the floor we had some off cuts we made some little blocks we put them at each joint right here and we're going to screw them to the slab and that's going to prevent it from moving towards the backyard that way so i've got my bosch roto hammer here that's the bulldog out we're going to drill a 5 16 hole right through the middle of each one into the concrete put an anchor and a screw that's going to lock it down tight and we can start laying this floor so how do we know that this floor that we already put down is exactly where we want it is it parallel to the front of the house did it drift right or left as he went from this doorway all the way to the bay window well we got our laser right here you can see it on our pole and we put it all the way down this floor and basically this seam between this piece and this piece that beam is splitting that joint it's also splitting it at the far end and we lined it up all the way down we got our blocks here ready to go so i said we fire up that roto hammer get this thing fastened start laying some floors let's do it [Music] [Music] [Applause] all right gang this is locked down with those blocks it's not going anywhere we can tap on that all day long and it's not going to move but we are ready to fly do this side of the house so we're going to throw you in a little bit of a time lapse while we work we're going to enjoy some boston while we rock and roll and you guys are going to enjoy a little non-copyrighted music [Music] yeah the saw is not happy these surprise rainstorms are killing me back in business [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right guys we are almost done with this side of the house i say almost because we couldn't quite finish right here that surprise thunderstorm got the blade on my saw stop wet the internal electronics said you're done for the day i'm gonna dry out overnight maybe i'll work tomorrow if you've ever installed this flooring you're halfway through it and you realize oh man it's starting to move on me because my joints are opening up you know how frustrating that is so try this method we're gonna go home shower get some rest and we'll be back at it tomorrow all right gang it's the next day we're showered we're rested but you know what i feel like i've been beat up i feel like i fought the floor i know and this is hard work i think what does it for me the most is you're up and down 100 times a day just getting down on the floor and getting back up getting on the floor getting back up shout out to the floor installers this is hard work man it is so it came in this morning man looks super looks fantastic we love it for right now we're gonna pull these blocks up get all that furniture moved over and prep that floor for day two [Music] so this floor is all prepped now let's finish this living room it starts with the first piece on the road sometimes the first piece is the drop from the last piece on the previous row and sometimes you have to measure it to break up the pattern and the next step is to come over here to our four flooring boxes we have four open to really randomize things i like this guy so we're gonna take it over here and set her down to be put in i'm gonna set it down first we're gonna make sure that our pattern is good it is so dad and i are going to put it in and then i come behind them with the tapping block and make sure the joints are tight [Music] where'd you find that kid i don't know he just wanted to come to work he was standing on the sidewalk yes i gave him a free hat and he wanted to come help us work awesome and once we put in our last full piece we're going to measure for the end piece so i've got about 12 and a half so let's come over here and cut it [Music] the beauty about this stuff is check this out no saw trips now we start the same process all over again until we knock it out [Music] all righty guys living room is done looks fantastic it went a lot quicker today remember yesterday we spent a lot of time establishing a perfectly laser straight edge to work off of we worked that way in the opposite direction from what the manufacturer intends so today was much quicker going this direction and when i say opposite the way the manufacturer recommends it doesn't mean it's wrong it's just how we decided to do it we got those five rows here like like you saw in the video we went that direction into the front door area into the dining room area and into the kitchen area but i'm done i'm gonna work my way into the hot tub area we'll catch you tomorrow hey gang welcome back to day three on our flooring installation we stayed very late last night and we actually did some staging for the homeowners they're going to come home in a couple of nights sunday night walk through that back door and instead of seeing concrete with drywall compound and paint all over it they're going to see their beautiful new floors and even is going to be some furniture in the room but before we cross the finish line on this flooring we want to talk about one of the aspects of the installation that always gives us trouble and i'm sure it's going to give you trouble if you've never done this before so you go to the home center or the flooring center you pick out your flooring and you buy an installation kit in the installation kit there's going to be knee pads there's going to be a z bar does it look like that z bar has been used check that out there's going to be a tapping block does it look like that's been used and it's going to come with some wedges do they look like they've been used nope they're still in the package so what's the purpose of these wedges why does it come with a kit and why do we choose not to use them let's head down to the floor and i'll show you why so a nine out of ten jobs we do when we put down flooring there is a gap between the bottom of the baseboard and the slab or the subfloor just like you see here so when you put the wedges there and put your flooring against it and put in your next row and tap boom that's what the wedges do they collapse over and if you keep working they're going to get jammed in there and they're very difficult to remove and you could even damage your baseboard the only way these wedges would ever work is if your baseboard is sitting on top of your slab just like that or on top of your subfloor or on top of your existing flooring in existing flooring i don't mean carpet better not be installing this stuff over carpet i've seen it so check this out we're going to put the wedges there put that against it and then when i tap it's solid right but like i said we hardly ever see this that's what we run into and that's why we choose not to use these so screwing a block to the subfloor is our preferred method and if you've got a wood subfloor plywood it's a no-brainer you gotta try it guys remember that we put our first five planks down and established a perfectly straight course with our laser locked it down with our blocks we went this direction towards the street not one opening not one joint came apart took the blocks out finished the floor came out fantastic we are moving we are grooving we are ready to finish this floor let's get our knee pads on and knock it out do it [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] doesn't feel real oh are we done oh that was rough yeah and we got the air conditioner going but i'm still soaking i'm still i feel like they're a part of me they were for three days all righty gang we are done with this flooring it is finally finished and it came out incredible check this out and this floor had a little bit of everything i think we had to start off by filling in low spots then we had to make sure our layout was perfectly straight all the way down this hallway to that far bay window we worked this way towards the front door we had walls to notch around thresholds to go under went under the dishwasher and the range even who does that and why don't people put flooring under dishwashers it's crazy you're only saving like a couple bucks yeah and then it's hard to get out so then we work this direction we hit the 45 degree angle over there the tile that we're going to put a transition strip on we went under thresholds we did over here wrapped around that 45 degree corner into the pantry into the laundry room and we had nine boxes left over we usually have one piece left over so good job on estimating and you know what this house doesn't feel like a construction site anymore for so long we've been on concrete floors with all the drywall compound and paint on it and now it feels so warm more like a home and it's really changed the way the lighting feels in here but we're not done yet remember we have this fireplace to finish that's going to be epic we're going to put a tv in here in this little niche so they can watch tv while they're cooking and don't forget over here on this peninsula where we have this stick we've come up with a solution that you're going to love so make sure you stay tuned for that get down below turn on those post notifications so you don't miss it and while you're down there put some blocks around your like button so it doesn't move smash it for us give us some of your own tips and tricks ask us some questions subscribe if you haven't already and we will see you on the next one [Music]

Channel: Stud Pack

Views: 2,927,593

Keywords: studpack, stud pack, vinyl, flooring, installing, how to install new floor, how to install vinyl plank flooring, DIY, renovation, diy floors, click lock, construction, remodel

Id: Kk-dQj2P0UQ

Length: 30min 1sec (1801 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 01 2021