What laminate should I choose for the room?

• Admin
• March 13, 2024

Laminate is a suitable flooring for any room or interior pillars. In the modern times we live in, we can use it everywhere. You are not limited to placing it on the floor. You can decorate the wall with it and even use it as a worktops. It has excellent thermal insulation properties and looks beautiful and cozy. It is an ecological and noise-insulating material, which in most cases successfully imitates real wood. However, there are many things you need to know before buying laminate flooring. You have to ask yourself a lot of questions and you have to know the answer to every one of them. We are here to help you, so read this article to the end.

To begin with, we need to determine what the durability of the laminate will be, i.e. will it be installed in our home or in a public building? Thickness is directly related to all the comforts it has. The thicker the board, the better thermal insulation and sound insulation properties you will have. Conversely, the thinner it is, the more its durability decreases. However, i advise you to choose as thick a parquet as possible, sometimes this is impossible, because if there is already a door added to the room, you will have to consider the distance between the doors and the floor. Remember that a pad is also placed under the laminate, which will increase the thickness by another 0.5 cm. In some cases, you can save yourself from putting this pad, but I do not recommend do it, because it has your important function, like this to soften the installation and smooth out the unevenness of the floor, which is of utmost importance for the correct installation of the laminate. (When the irregularities are too big, however, it is necessary to make an additional plaster of the room.) The thickness can be changed. Usually the cheapest options have a thickness of 6-7 mm, and the more expensive ones have a thickness of 10-12 mm and more. The middle class laminate is 8-9 mm thick. You probably think that's all you need to know and you're probably already getting in your car on the way to the store, but there you see every package labeled AC and you start to wonder what it is. This is actually an important indicator of how easily the surface of the laminate is scratched. Abrasion resistance according to European standards can be AC1 , AC2 , AC3 , AC4 and AC5 , with the last class being the most resistant and strong, and AC1 being the most vulnerable to scratches and other mechanical impacts. AC1 is recommended for a room where you will not "use" the laminate so much, such as a bedroom. AC5 is a class of laminate that is ready to enter a "real battle" with pebbles and glass stuck in the soles of the hundreds of visitors of public building, such as a mall or a restaurant. Waterproofing is also important here because people don't have to dry their shoes before going inside. While no laminate is completely waterproof, you should choose one that has the highest resistance rating to ensure a longer service life. Otherwise, you will soon notice the swelling and deformation of the laminate as a result of moisture.

After we have familiarized ourselves with the technical characteristics, it is time to choose a color. Here you have the opportunity to have countless many, but you have to be extremely careful, because the laminate is the first interior element that you place. This means that you should already have an idea of the overall vision, i.e. the design and the flowers of everything else in the room that you are about to buy, such as furniture, wall colors, carpet, etc. Strive for everything in the room to be in one color scheme - cold or warm. Personally, I advise you to choose warm colors for the laminate, because there is less chance of making a mistake. Cold shades are extremely difficult to combine and if you overdo it with "dark" you can get a gloomy and depressing room. If you already have a door added, it is good to choose a color that is identical to the color of the door. This will create a balanced and beautiful look. The contrast with the door would also be possible. With the first ones, the case is the same, only the contrast will not be appropriate here. When you get the furniture, it is good that it is one or two tones darker or lighter than the laminate. This will create a harmonious look. Let's now see what colors the market offers. The most popular colors are brown and gray, but this is very general. The classic brown range with golden-brown, honey-brown and others. Among the gray tones, we can mention white oak, granite-gray, silver-gray and others. Shades of white are also among the preferred colors for laminate, such as platinum-white, limestone or others. Vinyl laminate flooring can also find a place in our ranking of the most modern floor coverings. From popular models that imitate wood or tiles to laminate that imitates natural stone, the choice is huge.

After you are already better acquainted with all the characteristics of the laminate, it is time to move on to its installation. Before proceeding to the installation, however, we need to secure suitable tools, such as an electric saw for cutting laminate, a rubber hammer, a roller and a pencil. There are generally two ways to lay laminate on your floor.
1. Assembly . Assembling is a quick and easy way to install. It can be standard or herringbone mounting. In the first variant, each element is attached to the other with the so-called click system. If you have chosen laminate with a joint, then assembly is even easier. Installation must be done from left to right. You place the first board and by hooking you start adding the rest of the boards. Here, however, it is important to remember that when you reach the end of the row and you have to cut the last board, you should not start the row of the second row with the rest of this board, because you will get a "zig zag", which is a prerequisite for the appearance of cracks later. It is enough to get a new and whole board, which you cut in half and thus start laying the second row. The diagram below shows it clearly. (I hope so, because I'm not a good artist) Another important thing we should mention is that the laminate is never stacked tightly, i.e. it must remain at least 1 cm from both ends of the wall. This distance will help us when we have what is called "temperature expansion" from the room below ours. The herringbone assembly is indeed a very beautiful and elegant way of laying laminate, but unfortunately I can't tell you much about it, because I have not assembled such a shape myself. If you still decide to try to make this herringbone yourself bone it is better to study this matter more thoroughly.
2. Bonding. Gluing is a more complicated way to install laminate. Here, each element is attached to the other by means of quick-drying glue. The glue is applied on the underside of the board. The advantage here is that the laminate becomes much more resistant to moisture, but if you decide to replace a scratched or broken board with a new one, you will have serious difficulties. If you have not glued laminate before, I advise you to contact a specialist.

With or without joint?
Both options are equally beautiful. In a laminate without a joint, the elements touch closely to each other, while in a laminate with a joint, the outlines of each individual element are clearly visible. In fact, the decorative V-joint is intended to imitate natural parquet even better.

What should we use to clean laminate flooring?
Laminate cleaning is done in two stages
1. Dry cleaning. Before proceeding to the second step, it is imperative to collect all the sand or small pebbles from the laminate, because otherwise you risk scratching the surface. The vacuum cleaner is quite sufficient here. 2. Wet cleaning. You have to be more careful here. Use products that are not so aggressive to surfaces. Look for special cleaners that have parquet or wood painted on them. They will both clean your laminate well and disinfect. When wiping with a rag, you must be careful with the water and then wipe with a dry sponge to collect the residual liquid that has remained on the surface of the laminate, because it can deform the boards.