How to level the floor under the laminate with their own hands

There is a lot of flooring on sale. You can arrange the floor in an apartment or house using ceramic tiles, linoleum, parquet or carpet. But among all the materials there is one that deservedly enjoys a good reputation - this is laminate. It combines many positive qualities, and therefore enjoys great popularity.

Before you purchase and install laminate, you must properly prepare the base. It should be smooth and durable. Only in this case, the material will last a long time. Before leveling the floor under the laminate we recommend that you read the instructions presented in this article.

We level concrete floor

Concrete floors are often found in apartments and houses. These include any coating made using cement. This may be concrete, reinforced concrete or sand-cement screed. In any case, such floors are rarely of sufficient evenness, and therefore they need special work.

A screed in need of repair

Leveling the floor must be done in several steps. But in the beginning it should be clarified what kind of irregularities are found on similar grounds. These can be:

• all kinds of chips and hollows;
• cracks of various depths and widths;
• crumbling surfaces and delaminations;
• concrete flows;
• plane tilts;
• swings. If they are more than 2 mm, they require correction.

All of these irregularities must be removed before the laminate is installed. To do this, you must perform the following work:

We pass through a vacuum cleaner

1. First of all, remove all garbage from the surface. In this case, large items are collected manually, and then you need to work with a vacuum cleaner. This is necessary to remove dust and sand. Also remove (if possible) the old coating. If there are spots of contaminants and paint coating, then they also need to get rid of.
2. Now take up major cracks and irregularities. The first ones are filled with sand-cement mortar. Floods, if they have a large height difference, you need to knock down with a punch.
3. The next step is laying the tie. Prior to this, you must walk the entire surface of the primer. Such a coating will prevent the rapid absorption of water from the applied solution. Then we pour a sand-cement mixture along the beacon profiles.
4. Very often, the resulting rough floor has sufficient evenness. If the surface still has irregularities, then it should be covered with a self-leveling solution. To do this, the surface is ground, ground and filled with the desired mixture.

Before filling the leveling mortar, wait between 14 and 28 days. During this time, the screed is completely dry.

Coating with self-leveling solution

The layer of self-leveling mixture solidifies within 3-5 days. These deadlines must be kept. Otherwise, the laminate will quickly become unusable due to excessive moisture.

Wood floor

When installing laminate on wooden floor, carefully inspect the base. If the boards are rotten, you need to replace them. Also carefully examine the lags, they should be strong and not have signs of rotting. Before installation, you must additionally secure all the boards with self-tapping screws.

The hats of old nails (and new screws) must be "drowned". If this is not done, the substrate and the laminate itself will suffer.

Aligning with a scraper

You can level a wooden floor using several methods. The choice will depend on the magnitude of the irregularities on the surface. If the boards are even and deviations from the horizontal plane are not more than 5 mm, then you can do with laying the substrate. Also, if you have the right tool, it makes sense to do a tsilirovanie. If there are significant bumps, it is necessary to work with a plane.

We use chipboard

Plywood floor

Methods for leveling the floor can be different. But if chipboard is used, then any foundation can be made even. This method is suitable for both wood and concrete floor. Its meaning is that sheets of chipboard (or thick plywood) are laid over the entire area.

Only large bulges are removed based on. Then sheets are laid on the floor.

If you use plywood for leveling, it is advisable to apply a multi-layer construction. In this case, the sheets are stacked so that the seams in different layers do not match.

Chipboard can also be used for leveling the base with a raised floor. This method is perfect in any situation (highly uneven concrete floor, behavior boards, etc.).

Raised Floor

Wooden logs are used to create the raised floor. They are mounted on special racks that are attached to the base with bolts.Then the sheets are laid sheets of chipboard (or plywood).

Attaching the sheathing to the floor

This method has both advantages and disadvantages. The first can be attributed to a perfectly flat surface, dry and fast installation method (water-diluted construction mixtures are not used, which means that there is no need to wait for drying, there is no dirt). The disadvantages include a decrease in free space. When installing a raised floor, you need to raise the logs a few centimeters above the base.

Use of other bases

Laying on linoleum

If linoleum is laid in the room then this is a great option for installing laminate. On such a basis, the coating falls without any preliminary preparation. Of course, if the floor has no differences in more than 2 mm. The main thing is that the linoleum was glued to the floor over the entire area. Otherwise, when installing the laminate it may crumple.

In the presence of a coating of ceramic tiles, you should also monitor the presence of irregularities. If not, then the laminate will lie securely. If the tile is old, then the appearance of cracks on the surface. In this case, they need to be sealed with putty.

If there was carpet covering in the room, then it is necessary to get rid of it. This base is too soft. When laying the laminate, it will begin to sag, which means it will quickly fail. Also in the villi of carpet will accumulate moisture and dirt. In such an environment, microorganisms reproduce perfectly, the appearance of an unpleasant odor in this case cannot be avoided.

Video: filler floor technology