Any one here live in a newer (2000 and newer) modular home (ours is a Silvercrest) that is on jacks that has laminate floors? I HATE my carpet with a passion and want to put in laminate but am afraid that it will warp or split or something. The ground here is rather soft and we tend to shift from season to season. Could we do a floating floor method of installation? Anyone have suggestions for us? I get SO jealous :grin: seeing other folks beautiful wood or laminate. Any advice?
I'm just guessing here but I don't see a problem with putting in a laminate floor. They are also called "floating floors" because they aren't actually tacked, glued or nailed down to the subfloor because they expand and contract according to the temperature. To install a floating floor you'd tear out all the old carpet and matting. Then you lay down a layer of special undermatting/insulation and start laying down the laminate flooring about 1/4 of an inch way from the walls. This allows the floor to expand and contract with being pinched by the innner walls so that the floor won't bind and kink. So I would imagine that when your house settles in anyway that the laminate will follow that settling and be Ok.
I'd just call someone at Lowe's or home depot and comfirm but I'm pretty sure thats the way it works. I have laminate flooring in my house.
I think they would work just fine. We live in an older home so the floors aren't the most even. The laminates work fine. My advice for laminates is this. Buy the best quality you can afford. The thickness of the laminate will make a difference and pay attention to the thickness of the foam underlayer. The thicker the underlayer is, the more sound it absorbs. That is one thing I don't like about ours. They are loud if you drop anything on them. The ones we have aren't the best quality, but Randy was trading a job out for them so you take what you are given. I do wish I had known that we could have gotten thicker padding and I would have gladly paid for the difference! They do look beautiful, and that I wouldn't trade at all.
Sorry give me nice warm carpet any day no cold wood floors for me just my thoughts on it.Papbouv
Being in construction I can certainly answer this one.
The big thing with houses on jacks/stilts is temperature if you're in a northern clime.Unlike trailers,mod homes usually have nothing of the underneath exposed to the outside elements and the only real need is pipe insulation because of the open space underneath the home.
Back to the floors.Floating floors are fantastic in the respect that if the subfloor is not perfectly level its not an issue unless its WAY out of level.The #1 thing is to make sure a vapor barrier is laid down.The VB allows for no movement of moisture either way and this extremely important.Over the VB is a basic layer of thin foam insulation that the floor will "float" on,this provides three purposes:1)Keeps the floor from moving but allows for minor shifting as things expand/contract..2)Reduces or eliminates noise(creaking) and lastly provides a small amount of insulation so that the floor doesn't get ice cold.
Thank you all and especially Basswipe. MOST encouraging. Now there's a matter of budget. Hmmmm, if I start saving now, maybe in 5 years......LOL. Who knows? We would not attempt to do this ourselves, as my motto is: If you want a professional job done, hire a professional. It would be a mess if we did it....believe me on this. :crazyeyes: We're in sunny CA, land of no money in the State Budget so we need to take a "wait and see" for now since Mark WORKS for the State and it's kinda iffy on his job right now.
The prices aren't too bad on laminate and saving for it is a great idea. Who knows the price may be even better by the time you are ready to do it!
:thinik: One reason I decided against laminate flooring and went with ceramic tile instead is because it is not leakproof. (Check previous postings about the urine "containment" issue here at the corral!) My friend, whose husband is a general contractor, has a son who left a garbage bag leaking fluid on the laminate floor just before the family went away for a week. The floor was damaged as a result. This was some years ago, and I don't know if this is still an issue, but when you've got a dachshund named Leaky, you gotta watch out! :wink:
Auntie Karen :heart: :heart:
Quote from: Madderoos Mom on January 17, 2009, 01:20:17 PM
Thank you all and especially Basswipe. MOST encouraging. Now there's a matter of budget. Hmmmm, if I start saving now, maybe in 5 years......LOL. Who knows? We would not attempt to do this ourselves, as my motto is: If you want a professional job done, hire a professional. It would be a mess if we did it....believe me on this. :crazyeyes: We're in sunny CA, land of no money in the State Budget so we need to take a "wait and see" for now since Mark WORKS for the State and it's kinda iffy on his job right now.
Laying these floors down is much easier than you think.Many floating floors are simple snap and click,no glue or nailing required.The only tools needed are a chop saw,utility
knife and your hands.Measure the sq. footage and buy the appropriate amount.The only "trick" is stagger the seams by using different lengths of board.
If you've never done it before it can take some time and be rough on your knees.The flip side to a pro doing it is he can have it done in few hours or a day depending on the sq. footage.
Quote from: basswipe on January 18, 2009, 09:06:31 AM
Laying these floors down is much easier than you think.Many floating floors are simple snap and click,no glue or nailing required.The only tools needed are a chop saw,utility
knife and your hands.Measure the sq. footage and buy the appropriate amount.The only "trick" is stagger the seams by using different lengths of board.
If you've never done it before it can take some time and be rough on your knees.The flip side to a pro doing it is he can have it done in few hours or a day depending on the sq. footage.
You are right about that. We didn't have to put ours down, but the people we know many people that have. They are all quite glad they didn't spend the extra to have someone do it. You can always try to do one smaller room and see how it goes then decide on whether you want to do the rest. That is what my coworker did and it helped them decide to do it all.