Preparation
— parquet

Installing a wooden floor is a skill, but in most cases you can also successfully install your multi-layer floor yourself. Is installing your Lalegno floor a project you'd like to get started with yourself ? Or would you rather leave the installation to a professional installer? We give you a few handy tips to help you make your choice. After all, a good preparation is half the battle. As for any DIY project, it is also important to start installing a wooden floor with expert knowledge.

On what surface will you
— put your wooden floor?

The surface for your wooden floor is the starting point. The type of surface you have will determine the technique and the materials you will use to install your floor.

VINYL, CARPET, CORK, LAMINATE AND OTHER SOFT OR SEMI-SOFT SUBSTRATES

First remove these floor coverings and then follow the tips related to the layer underneath them.

Sandy clay

Installing a wooden floor directly on a sandy layer is not a good idea, as this will put it in direct contact with the damp substrate and make your wooden floor subject to the effects of soil moisture.

Therefore, excavate the sand surface deep enough and then lay a plastic foil that prevents moisture from penetrating. First lay a concrete base and then a screed, possibly with floor insulation or underfloor heating. Ask specialists for advice on this.

After installing the screed, follow the guidelines which apply.

Wooden grid

Make sure the grid is solid and completely levelled. To prevent the floor from bending too much, the maximum distance between the centers of two adjacent beams should not exceed 40 cm.

Wooden flooring of minimum 20mm thickness can then be placed perpendicular to the supporting beams (latticework) and nailed into the tongue. Thinner wooden floors are not eligible for this installation technique.

Wooden subfloor or OSB boards

Of course, you can also choose to install a subfloor on wooden grids first. OSB boards are often used for this purpose. It is very important that these are applied stably, firmly and are levelled to the joist structure.

An advantage of this technique is that you can now decide for yourself in which direction to lay the wooden flooring boards, as it is no longer necessary to lay the boards perpendicular to the grid. You can now also opt for a thinner wooden floor (15 or 10mm, depending on the thickness of the OSB board), giving you much more choice.

EXISTING WOODEN FLOOR

You can also install a new wooden floor on top of an old one. Just make sure the planks of the old floor are stable, levelled and plain, firmly attached and not affected by insects or showing signs of moisture or mold.

Place the new floorboards transversely on the old boards. In this case it doesn’t matter what thickness your new wooden floor is.

EXISTING TILED FLOOR

A multi-layer wooden floor can be installed on top of an existing tiled floor or other hard or glassy substrate (e.g. ceramic tiles, enamel tiles, polished marble, natural stone). This is an even better solution than removing the tiled floor first as you avoid the risk of damaging underlying pipes or the screed.

Make sure that all loose tiles are cemented in place first and are stable, even and levelled. It is best to apply a levelling layer.

If you want to glue your wooden floor onto the tiled floor, you can first roughen the tile surface so that the wooden floor glue adheres better to the tiles. This roughening can be done with a diamond grinding disc. You can also choose to use an adhesive promoter instead. This will save you a lot of work.

ANHYDRITE FLOOR SCREED

Anhydrite is a liquid screed, based on plaster. This screed technique is becoming increasingly common these days. To successfully install a wooden floor on this type of substrate, pay attention to a number of elements:

  • Determine the moisture content of the screed with an electronic hygrometer or a calcium carbide bottle. The anhydrite screed should have a maximum moisture content of 0.5%. (If the floor is combined with underfloor heating, there should also be a maximum of 05% moisture in the anhydrite screed). If that moisture content is higher, allow the subfloor to dry out further first.
  • If the substrate has dried out sufficiently and is in an optimal condition you can now install your wooden floor floating.
  • If you want to glue the floor to the substrate, take a few additional measures:
    • After the anhydrite screed cures, a thin layer of calcium sulphate sets on the surface of the screed, which is detrimental to glue adhesion and therefore needs to be sanded away. You can use a coarse sanding disc with titanium or diamond grain for this purpose.
    • The dust released after sanding the floor hinders good glue contact. Vacuum thoroughly after sanding
    • it is also advisable to further improve adhesive bonding with a primer suitable for anhydrite screeds.

SAND-CEMENT SCREED

Even if you are dealing with a sand-cement screed, you should make sure it is in good condition and properly dried out before you start laying your wooden floor. The exact determination of the moisture content should be done with an electronic hygrometer or a calcium carbide bottle. For cement screeds, the maximum moisture percentage is 2.5%. (If you combine the floor with underfloor heating, the maximum is 1%).

You can install your floor floating or gluing it to the screed.

How much wooden flooring do you need?

Calculating how much Lalegno wooden flooring you need to order is easy. Measure the floor area, so you have the full length (in metres) and the full width (in metres) and multiply those to obtain the m² of the room. Add 10% for cutting waste.

The technical sheet on our site shows for each floor how many m² are in a box. Divide your required number of m² by the volume of the box and round up the number you get. Now you know exactly how many boxes you need.

Are there any special circumstances
— that you need to consider?

Sometimes there are specific circumstances that make the installation of your floor require extra care. Underfloor heating, for example. In that case, carefully follow the advice of a professional. We too would like to give you some additional tips on installing flooring with underfloor heating.