Why You Need Underlayment For Your Floors

in this video i'm going to answer the big question jeff what's your favorite product to put under a floor here it is this is called apotec this is an underlayment for underneath any kind of floating floor and it has 11 specific benefits i'm going to go through them real quick and then i'm going to show you where to get it how much it cost and why you might want to consider using this for your next project first of all the reason i love it is because it lays flat it doesn't curl up and roll on you right you've all seen me struggling with those other ones before it's kind of a mess you know you roll out your three millimeter eva which is another product i've used a lot and you roll it out and you have to put weights on it or it rolls right back up on you it's like working in between the two ends of a scroll it drives you nuts right so this product solves that problem right amazing now the other major problems we have in flooring generally speaking with floating floors this is where we're using this so we're talking about luxury vinyl or or laminated plank or floating engineered hardwood okay all those types of products spc wpc doesn't make a difference whenever you're installing this one of the biggest problems we have in older houses especially is if there's a slope on the floor because we have to install those types of floorings with gaps around the outside for expansion and contraction those floors tend to all slide to one area over time with all the traffic and then there's a huge gap at the other end of the room this product here actually has like a slip resistant layer so the flooring doesn't slide it's amazing and that's one of the reasons why i love it in my old farmhouse i'm just going to show you how easy this is to cut all right you just work with the utility knife you're not going to fight with it it's very thin which is another benefit it's not going to add a lot of thickness to the floor but it does a couple of really amazing things because it's two different products laminated together here okay let's go through the benefits so one of the benefits is because it has the measure grid on it a half by half inch it's really easy to identify and measure and cut this to fit a weird space the next benefit supports the locking system okay this is a dense enough product and it's thin enough that when you put pressure here you're not getting that deflection that happens with thicker products that don't have the density so one of the reasons why a lot of the vinyl flooring products out there have been preaching for years don't use an underlayment is because the underlayments in the market were too thick and then when you step on it the joints would disengage all right with this product you don't have that because it is so thin all right now i know it seems kind of silly but one of the next benefits that it has it smooths out the subfloor imperfection okay so it has the ability to literally transfer over a ridge from subfloor so when you put your floor leveling down and you travel off the edge okay you're still going to have a bit of a ridge this actually supports that transition so you're not going to have an issue with a lot of movement so let's go through this you got something that's easy to install easy to cut and measure that supports all the interlocking systems of the floor and helps keep the floor in place long-term the other benefit is what it does to the quality of the room now we've done videos on our channel where we talk about some sound proofing okay and we're going to talk about all those little benefits right now about this subfloor before i go into the rest of the information on this over my shoulder here yeah that's my master bathroom it's the last project of this 1880 farmhouse rebuild we're doing a whole series of remodeling projects in there and everything we're using in there you can buy from your local home depot and it's going to make it really convenient for you i know nobody's sponsoring this i just decided that since everybody's going to the box store to buy their stuff i usually preach you know they go and source up materials for lesser price and other stores but since it's so convenient people continue to go there i figured i might as well do a series using those products some of the projects we're doing in here we're doing tile over tile in the shower we're going from a single vanity to a double vanity so we're showing you how to do all the wiring and plumbing and all that sort of stuff we're adding a heated engineered hardwood floor on the bathroom all right we're also going to redo the whole jetted tub surround area if you have a remodeling project and you want to be able to make some upgrades this video series is going to be spectacular for you because all of these things are things you can do yourself at a store that's around the corner from where you live don't forget to hit this video give it a thumbs up subscribe to the channel because these videos are coming up next okay you don't miss out on that so in regards to comfort there's three things we're looking at okay one thing that we're looking at is the sound rating so that impact the iic impact rating so it has an impact rating of 72 which is just as good as any other three millimeter eva and it has an stc which is sound transmission control of 66 which is still really really good it's way above minimum code for sound transmission between two townhouse units okay that's fantastic so when you step on it the noise is absorbed into the underpad when you're talking in a room that has this pad it keeps that noise from traveling to the room beneath you so you get privacy and on top of all of that because of the density of this material you get a bit of a cushioning effect okay so it's not hard to walk on anybody who's been spent all day long working in retail and all those commercial units they're all concrete your legs get exhausted because you're standing on concrete has no give if you have a house with concrete floors and you put this down underneath your flooring it'll make it a lot more comfortable to walk on let's talk about where you should use this and when you should use this the answer is if you're using any floating floor at all my recommendation is to always have an under bed there's just no excuse because of the the sound transmission and impact noise absorption alone i always recommended it and there's always information on the internet people get confused and ask questions and here's some of the most popular questions i get about the subject is a can i install this flooring and then put my kitchen cabinets on top the answer is this this product is rated for 65 pounds per square inch that means i can put more weight on this floating floor then i can put on the tires on my car because they're only at 35 psi so if a car with four tires with just a few inches of each tire on the road can support the engine block trust me this flooring here can support your kitchen counter even if you're going with natural stone countertops one of the benefits this has over the three millimeter eva that i've used in the past is that the eva it stinks right this has got no voc it's not toxic at all so when you put it down your first reaction isn't going to be somebody's going to not have to drive home after this one this is safe to use all right the next advantage that you have here is there's lots of folks who are doing work in their basements okay or you have an old house that's slab on grade and that was built back in the day before they used vapor barrier underneath the concrete this also acts as a vapor barrier okay the transmission of moisture through this is so low it qualifies as a vapor barrier you just got to make sure that you use the blue tape to tape all the seams and now you've got a vapor barrier so if you're putting it in your basement and you're not putting in a subfloor you can get away with it it has a bit of a thermal rating so you do get a thermal break on the floor as well as a vapor barrier and then you can install your your flooring on top of it or if you're slab on grade and you have an older house you can use this use the tape if it's newer house you don't need the tape you can still put it right on the concrete and then put any floor right on top so if you're installing any kind of floating floor you can use this you can use this anywhere in your home you can put it underneath cabinets you can put it underneath furniture nothing's going to cause you a problem it can be a moisture barrier if you need it all you got to do is add tape and there's one more place where you can use it we haven't talked about yet you can install this on top of heating flooring systems right big bonus so now let's say you want to do a bathroom like we're doing behind us i'm remodeling so my tile has already got a heated floor system i'm going right over top of this with engineered hardwood bingo that's possible with this product and if you're doing it you're on your own you're going to add a dimpled membrane you put the heating cable just add a little floor leveler on there and then you put this right on top of your floor leveler and then you can add your vinyl plank or whatever else you're going to use and you can have a heated floor system no problems okay they make this claim themselves so don't worry about what everybody else is saying take it from me if you want to have the sexiest flooring around get a good underpad that's all you got to do you can save a lot of money on your flooring product if you buy a quality underpad and of course one more reason you should buy this flooring all right look at the bottom of the product literature made in the usa that's right you can buy products and not have to support overseas businesses that is very cool the good news is this stuff is i just checked online it's available in united states at home depot so hats off to you finally carrying some good product it's only 50 american for 100 square feet which is still a little expensive but it's not anything crazier than some of the other products you're selling in the store but it outperforms every other product i've seen on the market to date now up in canada we don't sell it at home depot but i do have access to it through my the corner supplier put a link in the video description and if you're doing a major renovation you want to have good underbelly then i would suggest you contact them and they'll get you a great price all right okay well there you go guys if you like to dispel the myths you want to get the truth about products are on the market you're in the right place make sure you subscribe to the channel and if you want to see we did a video about vinyl plank flooring okay spc core and we did myth busting on it but what happens when it gets hot and cold can we put it underneath furniture and underneath cabinets is it going to expand and contract all of the lies that are all over the internet about that product we debunk you can click the link right here and we got a video that shows you all about the ins and outs of vinyl floor the heat and the cold and what happens to it in real life and why you can trust that stuff to go underneath your kitchen cabinets and in any other room in your house we'll see you again soon

Channel: Home RenoVision DIY

Views: 220,520

Keywords: homerenovision, renovision, jeff thorman, homerenovisiondiy, vinyl plank flooring, waterproof flooring, underlayment, underpad, which underlayment is best, luxury vinyl plank flooring, best way to install flooring, floating floors, in floor heating, floor buying guide, soundproofing, how to renovate your floors, diy flooring remodel, how to remodel my floors, heated floors, laminate flooring, hardwood flooring, click-lock flooring, affordable, home improvement

Id: 3PedEZ8pZOk

Length: 10min 3sec (603 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021