Laminate vapour barrier?

Joined
13 Sep 2013
Messages
8
Reaction score
0
Location
Edinburgh
Country
United Kingdom
i’m putting laminate flooring down in my kitchen on top of ceramic tiles which are on a concrete floor (about 15 year old flooring). Using wood fibre underlay and the instructions say a concrete floor needs a vapour barrier. Do I need to do that with the tiles in place?
 
Sponsored Links
A number of things -

1) Laying a floor over an old floor without taken it up is a botch.

2) Laminate is dreadful stuff.

3) Laminate in a kitchen is more dreadful than using the dreadful stuff.

Solution, remove the floors tiles, SBR, self level and then get a decent floor covering down.
 
1 , you don’t have to take ceramics up if they are solid, flat and level.

2 , no it’s not. Laminate has come along way in the last 10 years. Quickstep do some ranges which look as good real wood.

3, laminate is fine in a kitchen but I’d suggest Quickstep impressive as it has a waterproof top layer.

On the underlay you be best using one with vapour Barrier built in like timbermate excel.
 
1) That's it, raise the floor covering even more and trim the doors. Further down the line, a new owner will do the job right and have nice big gaps under the doors.

2) Laminate is tippy tappy under foot

3) No matter what the manufacturer states, wooden and laminate floors suffer. Anyone insisting on the dreadful stuff, get the plastic version. Still tippy tappy.

I hope you're not in the trade as a qualified tradesman.
 
Sponsored Links
Tippy tippy lol . Use the correct underlay and you won’t hear a sound.

Plastic version ??

You mean vinyl click, a Diy product which has loads of problems.

£15 to cut a door.
approx £250-300 or uplift, remove ceramics and lay a 5mm coat of smoothing compound.
 
You definitely need a vapour barrier of some sort- sheet of polythene will do fine. If you can take the skirtings off and refix so the expansion gap is under them then do it, looks so much better than those nasty scotia fillets. If you've got fitted units, pull the kickboard off the legs & trim it so the laminate goes under it (rather than messing about having a flush fit and more poxy scotia)-you might not even need to trim it, there's often a 20mm gap at the top of the kickboard which you can only see when you look for it! Be careful with fridges, freezers, washing machines etc on laminate- it can make them very noisy or start them dancing around (if you have an uneven floor)
 

DIYnot Local

Staff member

If you need to find a tradesperson to get your job done, please try our local search below, or if you are doing it yourself you can find suppliers local to you.

Select the supplier or trade you require, enter your location to begin your search.


Are you a trade or supplier? You can create your listing free at DIYnot Local

 
Back
Top