Floating wood floor

Hi. Me and my husband have bought a real wood floor for my dining area, but being nervous DIYers, there never seems to be enough information provided with these things. The biggest problem we have is that the planks fit together with a locking system that requires you to slot it together at a 45 degree angle then push flat. What happens when you get to the second (and subsequent) row and you have to fit the plank at both the short end and the long side? We can only do it by fitting the whole row together end-to-end then fitting the row into the previous one. However, this can't be the right way to do it - we only have a small area requiring 2-3 planks but a whole living room would be impossible this way. If anyone knows how to do this, especially if there are online tutorials or videos, I would be grateful. I have googled without success. The instructions provided (it's from Wickes) are incomprehensible, and their online tutorials only deal with flat tongue and groove systems. Thanks, Emma

Hi EJ and welcome. I've installed a lot of this interlocking stuff and the way I've worked it is to install the long tongue using the 45 degree method, push it flat, and then use a pull bar or tapping block and hammer to tap the short tongue into the short groove. Get a good pull bar and tapping block, because you will need one or the other for every board.

Also, take a look at the instructions provided by Pergo for their floors. Different material but same locking system I daresay.

[Can't paste the link for some reason: www.pergo.com and click on installation.]

Hope this may help. Perhaps some others will chime in.