Flooring people

[TOMS97ZJ]

We are finally going to be moving from our little condo to our Mfg House in the mountains. Awesome little chunk of land away from the city.

Currently it has carpet and vinyl flooring throughout. We want to pull all of that out and put in laminate wood flooring.

I plan to do all the work myself and were planning to have the same stuff through the whole house and put rugs in areas that need them.

Few questions, How important are underlayments. I am planning to spend extra to put them in but a lot seem to mention concrete floors as a reason to use them. This obviously won’t be concrete since it’s a mfg home.

The house itself is only about 20yrs old and has never had any flooding or damage to it. Is it as simple as rip out the old stuff, put in the underlayment then put down the flooring?

I already own a compound miter saw so that should be good enough for cutting the flooring.

Tips?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Gtrplyr78]

Not a pro by any means, we are redoing our upstairs and going from carpet to vinyl flooring.
Bought our flooring at Costco, Mohawk brand with pad already attached to the plank. So in our case it will be yank the carpet and lay down new stuff.

Also for cutting forget the saw, it will make a lot of saw dust.
I am planning on renting/maybe buying a manual vinyl floor cutter.
A lot less messy and plan on having it in the area I am working in, versus mitter saw and having to go back and forth.

Take your time, leave a bit of space when you start the first row (same at the finished end), YouTube has some decent how to videos as well. You will be surprised how quickly it goes together once you get the hang of it.

 

[Clb]

Ul (underlayment) unless called for in your situation should not be needed....
Usually used under vinyl to stop telegraphing patterns.
I would contact the mfg. Of your choice in materials, and run 20 questions.
Many use a foam type pad to both quiet, and smooth slight imperfections.
Depending on the product floating vs nail down .

 

[dave_dj1]

Define "underlayment" If you are talking about the thin foam/plastic UL then yes you should use it. If you are talking 1/4" UL then no, you probably don't need it unless your sub-floors are in bad shape (uneven) The foam/plastic stuff is to let the floor float and move. I've never seen it installed without it. I have seen it attached to each plank as stated above.

 

[larboc]

I recently pulled all the carpet up in my house and put down traditional sand+finish in place 3/4" birdseye hard maple flooring. I underestimated the work by 1/2 because of the amount of work it took to get the sub floor level. Carpet hides a LOT of settling and unevenness. Had one spot in the floor that was low by almost 2" because a header was cut in the basement by the knuckle dragger that installed the HVAC ducts. Never noticed it till the carpet was up and I started dragging a level/straightedge around. I've not done laminate but I can't imagine it's very forgiving. No idea how square things will be in a 20 year old double wide, just be ready for subfloor work once you get the carpet up. If you're not putting a nail through it you can use the self leveling compound, it works pretty well and is fairly cheap. Used it before doing tile, WAY easier that shimming the subfloor up from floor joists, sistering, etc.