I’m doing my first floating floor. All the installation instructions I’ve seen cover the basics nicely. But I need help with a couple of details:
— How to handle the transition where the floating floor meets other surfaces, such as tile and linoleum (I’ve got both.)
— How to handle the transition at the top of a staircase.
— How to deal with the fact that I’ve got one of these challenges on one side of the room, and another of them at the other side of the room.
I believe the flooring will have to be fastened down where it meets other types of flooring. But if there’s tile on one side of the room, and lineoleum on the other, doesn’t this defeat the purpose of floating the floor? It’s going to be trapped between these two transitions unless the transitions are built to allow movement. Does one use some sort of rabetted threshold to make the transition?
Thanks,
Scott
Replies
most manufacturers sell transition strips for all the situations you describe, and yes, they allow for movement
check back where you bought the flooring for the transition pieces
there is a transition piece to go from floating floor to tile, carpet, linoleum, etc.The ones you buy are thin and well made and you will not trip walking over them.make the transition in the middle of the doorway.There is a different transition piece for the floor to stairway.It's my understanding you do NOT nail the floor down.The floor needs to be able to move as it expands, contracts, etc.Good luck!^^^^^^
S N A F U (Situation Normal: All Fouled Up)
Thanks for your responses. The reason this is confusing is that the flooring was purchased as an odd lot -- no manuf, no instructionis. No one one I've talked to (including on these forums) has ever seen anything like it. It is 7" wide, 3 ply engineered flooring with a pine top layer. Perfect for our rustic ski house with radiant heat below a standard plywood subfloor.
After more research, I've detereminined that I need transition strips at each transition to allow the floor to float. I'll make these from similar pine.
At the stair, there seem to be two ways (I found these in a catalogue of floor moldings, with specific instructions for floating floors:)
-- overlap transition nosing, which lets the floor float like the other transition strips
-- "standard" nosing, like one would use for a nail-down floor, that would be glued to the floor boards. This eliminates the small bump up that an overlap nosing would necessarily have.
Does anyone have any experience using a standard nosing with a floating floor