I want to replace all the hideous carpeting in my house with laminate flooring (the snap together kind, not the glued type). My house is on a concrete slab. Lurking under the butt-ugly carpet , I have found that there’s a layer of hideous-er vinyl flooring. It appears to be glued down. I don’t want to go through the expense of removing it.
Would I still need to put down a vapor barrier and underlayment or could I get away with just the underlayment?
Check with the manufacturer regarding surface prep. I’d do a patch test to make sure there’s no water vapor coming through the slab, although if the existing sheet goods are well bonded (assuming full spread and not perimeter), you’re likely safe. Be careful about the wear layer thickness and backer warranties-not all HPL floors are created equal. Good luck.
Check the floor manufacturer but you should be able to put the underlayment right on top of the vinyl. Just make sure to seal any holes or seams in it. We did that at our last house and it worked fine.
If the special underlayment for over concrete is made to insulate the floor from the coldness of the slab then I would do it anyway. Laminate floors are pretty cold on your feet even over a heated lower level. I can’t imagine how cold they would be on a slab even with the vinyl.
And just one other comment, they say laminate floors don’t scratch, they do. Not enough to get a warranty replacement, not even enough to go through to the wood look part but enough to be very noticable in sunlight. it’s just very slight scratches on the top of the clear part. Dog claws, hot wheel cars, just about anything.
All you furniture will have to be on rugs or have foot protectors, it’s slipperier than wood and sitting down even a little hard in a chair or sofa will make it move and mark the floor. I would never do it again, laminate’s way harder to maintain than sealed wood.
The “2-in-1” type of underlayment includes both the padding and and a moisture barrier. You should get that. The extra expense should be negligible.
As danceswithcats says, if the vinyl floor is sound, there is no reason at all to remove it. One of the benefits of laminate is that you can “float” it right over existing hard flooring.
I’m not sure that SP’s experience is typical. Of course you can scratch laminate. Anybody who says otherwise is lying to you. But normal wear and tear should not mar the floor.
SP: What type of laminate do you have on the floor?
Mr. Blue: Some questions:
–Why are you thinking laminate?
–What brands/types are you looking at?
–Will you be installing it yourself?
–How flat are your floors?
Less expensive than real hardwood.
Just started looking. Possibly Armstrong.
Yes.
Resonably so in the one room where I have removed the carpet. I won’t really know until I rip up the rest.
We had Pergo Laminate. It didn’t actually scratch the floor so much as make light marks on the surface, just enough so it looked scratched in the sun. In regular light it looked fine. It was in a sunny room and we could see where the dog always walked and where the kid drove his cars, until we noticed the problem and stopped him.
Another thing to remember is to vacuum under the edge of rugs all the time because any sand or dirt under the edge or the rug will realllly scratch the floor.
Not personal experience here, but I have had several people tell me that the snap-together floors squeak, much more so than glued ones. Might be something to research.
Did you have any problems with warpage? I have heard some stories of Pergo floors warping due to high humidity.
Was the Pergo from a reputable floor store, or was it from Home Depot? They make a separate line for Home Depot, and it is mostly crap.
Mr. Blue: There are some engineered hardwood floors out there that are surprisingly inexpensive, and some laminates that are surprisingly expensive. Wood might well be an option for you, if that’s what you want.
That said, many of the “value priced” laminates are excellent, and certainly way cheaper than any wood floor could be. Installing it yourself is a good way to save money. Another way to economize is to forego the quarter-round molding that is made to match the floor, and use regular quarter-round, painted.
Armstrong is decent enough stuff, but IMHO, doesn’t necessarily represent the best value out there. Unless you find a really great deal or something. Go to a real flooring store and see if you can find someone knowledgeable to help you.
I was out at Home Depot today and found a brand (whose name I forget to write down :smack: ) that had the foam underlayment attached to each piece. I wonder how much it would squeak?
I don’t know. They didn’t say.
That Pergo question was directed at SP.
The stuff with the attached underlayment might well squeak less, but it will have no moisture blocking properties.
And do not buy the material from Home Depot. Buy it from a reputable flooring store. It won’t cost any more.
Real wood would be nice, but I wonder about the gluing it to the vinyl flooring. I really want to do this myself and save money. I am confident (despite previous Homer Simpson-like adventures with tools) that I can do this. A co-worker had several rooms in her house done and the labor was $2-3k (and that was from a friend of hers!)
The Pergo was from a flooring store.
The only times the floor warped were when the dog threw up under a table and we didn’t notice right away because it was the same color as the floor (country oak). Once I washed the barf up the edges were a little warped but dried out to almost flat.
It also warped under the refrigerator when the ice maker hose leaked. It never warped from just humidity.
I think there are some wood floors that are installed in a similar manner to laminate.
Engineered wood? I don’t want to have to worry about sanding & refinishing.
If you’d like real honest-to-John hardwood, but would still like a floating floor, Junckers may be the ticket. They use a clip system to hold courses together, as well as furnishing standard installation methods. I don’t know if the clip system is sold to DIY guys, though. There may be others-that name just stuck in my head.
Ours came from Home Depot; We also contracted the installation through Home Depot. We had one slight problem and they corrected it immediately with no questions asked. For that matter, we recently replaced the carpet on our stairs with Home Depot carpet and installation: No problems at all.
We have Pergo thoughout most of our home. One bathroom and the laundry still have vinyl, master bedroom has laminate flooring, but another brand.
We bought our Pergo at Home Depot and have had no problems with it. Can’t tell a different between the glued and the snap together stuff, except it was way easier to install. The other stuff we also bought at HD, but I can’t remember the brand. It was snap together and it squeaks! It’s very frustrating.
We have a cement slab foundation and used the vapor barrier everywhere. We didn’t use separate underlayment (padding, slilencing stuff) where there was already vinyl.
We’ve had out family room/kitchen Pergo for 8 years now, it still looks great. We have a few scratches and dings, but mostly from stuff like fogetting to put those pads on the underside of chair legs and dropping cast iron pans.