Recommendations for leveling the floor for a laminate

Very topical question - how to level the floor for a laminate?

To cover the floor in an apartment with a laminate is preferred by an increasing number of people.

But this cover is purchased for a lot of money.

The funds spent will be a pity if the laminate will creak under your feet or even worse - it will crack.

The reason for such trouble is the uneven floor.

To correct the shortcomings, which may complicate the process of exploitation of the floor in the future, it is quite possible with your own hands.

It is better to lay the laminate on a flat surface. If there is no certainty that the floor needs to be leveled, several tests are carried out.

Armed with a ruler length of a meter( or a building level) and is carried across the floor, looking for whether there is a gap between the ruler and the floor.

If the gap does not fit into two millimeters, you need to take on the alignment.

Recommendation! Do not advise to take as a leveling material DSP.It is not suitable for leveling the floor, because it is characterized by inadequate environmental compatibility and throws dangerous substances into the air.

Materials designed for leveling

An ancient and proven method of leveling the floor - cover it with a mixture of sand and cement. But now other modern technologies are common.

They are very convenient to use, have unique properties of adhesion, thermal insulation and sound insulation.

Apply the already prepared mixture to the floor much easier and faster. Of course, there is a huge variety of leveling mixtures on sale, so you need to get acquainted with their spectrum.

Many are made on the basis of cement, quartz sand and modifiers. There are mixtures exclusively for the wooden floor. And there is for concrete.

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Kinds of mixtures:

• repair - to mask highly visible errors;
• primers - especially for coating concrete;
• sealing - a leveling mass for covering the slots.

If you want to quickly get hard and improve the quality of the solution, buy the plasticizer needed for this.

How to prepare a concrete floor for laying a laminate?

How to level a concrete floor under a laminate - are interested often. For this procedure, you will need to make a screed. The concrete screed must be filled in rooms with reinforced concrete ceilings.

If the surface is already covered with peeling glue or concrete, then they must be removed. Otherwise, the floor will bubble, and its performance will deteriorate.

Beforehand, you need to remove the floor covering to the very bottom. Then check to see how wet the concrete that was under the floor. We inspect the surface for cracks and irregularities.

Only after this test, the surface is covered with soil. Then, on the rough platform, seal all the existing voids with dry composition.

Level the floor horizontally with a concrete screed. At the height of the screed set special signs - beacons. Then they switch to a mixture of sand and cement.

The finished solution is applied to the platform, leveling it by means of a building level or a rule. In a room of ordinary size( walls 3 or 4 meters in length), there are two pointers.

The thickness of the concrete layer at the thinnest point should be more than 7 millimeters.

Once the applied layer hardens, additional priming is carried out. Then fill in the self-leveling solution.

Then the room in the apartment is not used until the absolute hardening of concrete. This result is achieved every other day. Next, they create isolation from water and noise.

Doing a coupler is the most popular method of adjusting the floor. But you can take note of other ways how to properly level the base:

When leveling the floor, you can use only the leveling solution. But the thickness of the made layer should be such in different places of a floor that there were no hillocks and pits.

Properly making a self-leveling mixture, it should be poured into the water. It is bred from 75 percent of sand and 25 percent of cement. Stirring is carried out with a drill with a special nozzle.

The composition is used immediately after preparation, since then it will not be possible to dilute the thick mixture with water.

It is advised to pay attention to the shelf life of the dry product, it is limited. The mixture is spread with a thin layer, which spreads to form a mirror-like surface.

When mixing and pouring a cement leveling mixture, bubbles often form on its surface. They must be removed, eliminating the risk of poor adhesion to the platform. This is done by needle roller.

A simple way to level - make it a tile adhesive. This method will help to eliminate slots and errors. In addition, alignment with glue will be cheap.

To level the screed with tile adhesive, you need to use a wedge in 3 m length. He is sent diagonally. Such glue ideally hides the holes formed in the screed.

Flooring with tile adhesive is not recommended in small quantities. Otherwise there will be emptiness.

It is advised to level the floor with a tile adhesive when there are small cracks and bumps. It is not difficult even for a beginner to perform this work with a tile adhesive.

Important! Do not forget that the floor level rises due to the screed. So you must be ready to lift the doors. It's better to think in advance.

Instead of lighthouses, you can take plasterboard guides, available for sale. They put at a distance of 60 to 80 cm. Substrate under the signs can serve as small pieces of plywood or plastic.

Fibreboard in this situation it is better not to take instead of a substrate, as it absorbs moisture, thereby destroying concrete.

The floors of monolithic concrete have a high absorption index, so these surfaces are recommended to be processed more than once.

To maintain a straight and smooth surface, use a horizontal level. The concrete is poured only after mounting the guides.

Learn the technology of leveling the concrete floor with your hands on video.

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How do I prepare the floor for the laminate flooring from wood?

When the floor is wooden and you are going to lay a laminate on it, it is important to test the strength of the floor.

If the floor is partially damaged, the boards that have undergone rotting and deflection must be dismantled and put in others. The wooden floor must be cleaned of bumps with a special tool.

But if you do not remove the old linoleum from the surface, then you will not need to correct the surface from unevenness.

Alignment methods:

• You can completely remove the wooden floor and replace it with a new one. But such a method is expensive;
• When the wooden floor has been properly repaired and corrected, serious preparation of the base is no longer necessary. But if it seems that there are still uneven surfaces on the floor, the surface should be covered with plywood. And if you find that the floor is very rotten, it is better to make a full leveling with a screed;
• It is possible to make the wooden floor even with your own hands with special DSP slabs. This will allow you to quickly adjust the surface. Here do without the construction of guides, because the base of wood on the floor is already there. Down lay the cement-chipboards, cutting them, proceeding from the area of ​​the room. To the plates of the plate are fixed with screws. Enlightenments are perfectly covered with a mouthwash. After installation, a check is made to see how smooth the coating was;
• Also pits and bumps on the floor can be eliminated by cycling. Cycle machine quickly cuts the mounds, allowing to make an operative leveling of the floor. But after applying this method, the base is not put an updated coating, then it is varnished several times;
• An acceptable option is laying the floorboard. Suitable thickness of these materials is 12 mm. To heat does not leave the house, under them recommend to put a heater. Since plywood sheets and chipboard have the property of sagging, you need to install supports - lags. They are attached to the lighthouses, which are kept on self-tapping screws. For the strength of the system between the logs, a distance of 10 to 25 cm is left. The logs are fixed with a tile adhesive. Then the cover is made for a laminate - put foam polyethylene;
• Equally beneficial at a price is the method of leveling the floor with plywood. Pre-cut strata are imposed on the lag system. The floor is paved with plywood, shifting the seams, as when laying bricks. For fastening sheets of plywood take self-tapping screws. As in the case of chipboard, make a polyethylene substrate.

The latest ways, related to the installation of chipboard and leveling plywood, have a drawback. During the operation, the floor can rise. But it's not as scary as it seems. The maximum height of a possible lift is 3 cm.

It is possible to get acquainted with the methods of leveling a wooden floor with your own hands on video.

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