Nflocals

If you have recently started to think about redoing your floors and are wondering whether or not you should consider interlocking engineered flooring, then you might also be wondering how difficult it is to install.  The truth is that it is a relatively simple process, but there are a few things that you will want to make sure you do correctly or your flooring could end up buckled and warped in just a few short years.  

One of the first things that you will need to do is to make sure that the engineered flooring you choose is one that has a thick enough surface to resist the problems that it will encounter with everyday wear and tear.  If you pick one with a thin surface, and it goes in a high traffic area, then there is a good chance that the surface will wear thin in a short period of time and will need to be replaced sooner.  

Therefore, it may be a little bit more upfront, but it is a good idea to make sure that your surface thickness matches up with the requirements of the floor.  Also, check to see if the boards come with an underlayment built in, if they don’t you will need to buy one to go under the flooring.  Sometimes these are also called weather barriers.  When you get the boxes of flooring to the house, let them sit in the room where you intend to use them for a day so they can acclimate to the house.

Next, make sure that you lay the flooring so that the boards run down the longest section of the floor.  This is because if the engineered flooring is laid down correctly it will have a lot of long pieces where the breaks are at completely different sections.  Think of it like putting together blocks, if the breaks come in different sections, then the whole is stronger overall.  The best way to achieve the differences in the breaks is by cutting different lengths of the engineered flooring to start at the wall and go down from there.  

When you are putting the boards down, you also need to make sure that there is a half inch gap between the flooring and the walls.  This is because the engineered flooring will swell and change with the weather, and if it is up against the wall and it swells, then you could see buckling in your flooring prematurely.  Don’t worry there is trim you can buy to cover these gaps that match your flooring.

Follow these few simple tips when installing engineered flooring and you will help to increase the life of your floors.