Install floating parquet

Glued or floating?

The glued installation is mainly used for mosaic tiles - as well as for 15 mm thick planks. It requires a flat, rigid and healthy support. The glue can be applied either on the floor or as a backing for tiles. Floating installation is faster - only the grooves and tabs being glued - and allows the installation of an insulating layer. It is suitable for slats, long or short, and certain mosaic tiles.

Two types of parquet

For floating laying, there are essentially two types of parquet. The veneered laminates consist of a solid wood facing glued on a medium or chipboard support. The more expensive and better laminated laminates have a lower layer of pine, a central layer of pine or fir strips and a solid wood siding; they exhibit remarkable resistance to swelling and deformation.

Tools & materials

• Drill
Handsaw
Counter saw
Rule
Carpenter's square
False-square
Hammer
Screwdriver
Coating knife -
Fast setting wood glue
Smoothing product
Filling mortar

The dimensions of the blades

Short planks, used for laying with broken sticks or Hungarian stitching, are generally 50 cm long and 12.5 cm wide. The thickness can be 9.5 mm or 14 mm. There are also shorter blades (42 cm). For the long ones (laying in the English style) or with stone cutting, the most usual lengths are 120 cm, 132 cm and 139 cm. They are packaged in packages generally covering an area of ​​around 1 m². The price per m² is lower if you buy by 25 m².

The poses

1 / In the installation with broken sticks, retained here, the blades are of equal length and the ends are cut at right angles: the joints form a regular broken line. 2 / For laying Hungarian joints (we also say "fern"), the friezes are of equal length and regularly inclined, their ends being cut off in a miter: the joints form a straight line. 3 / The English laying is more economical since all the boards are parallel, the joints being placed as they come (but never aligned from one row to the other). 4 / In laying stone cutting, blades of equal length are used and the joints are regularly alternated as in masonry in ashlar.

Expansion joint

Laminate laminate floors have great dimensional stability. However, it is necessary to provide, over the entire perimeter of the parquet, an expansion joint - which can be much narrower than for the installation of traditional solid wood boards. There should be a gap of about 10 mm between the ends of the boards and the masonry, on all sides. This void will then be concealed by the plinths, or even by quarter-round strips.

Threshold bar

To make up for the difference in level at the threshold of the door - the parquet floor must be interrupted in the middle of the rebate of the frame - you put in place a threshold bar made of wood or aluminum, which must be cut with a handsaw and screw. Know-how © La maison rustique - éditions Flammarion, 2005