Laying floating floor Uniclic

Hi

Interested in any stories on self install of floating timber flooring onto concrete slab. There was some discussion on another thread of using full 19mm tongue and groove flooring on battens/ply.

This system has caught my eye and is a non glue style that click together.

Recommendations experiences of laying timber floors appreciated.

cheers

dazzler

This is from the company site;

http://www.uniclic.com/

The Uniclic profile has been designed so that during installation the laminate flooring panels can be slotted together either angled or horizontally and without damage. This is very important in areas where angling is either difficult or impossible (under door frames or radiators, for example).

The ingenious UNICLIC-system has a special shape of tongue and groove. Their sophisticated and very accurate milled shape makes it possible to create a very tight connection during the installation.

You can use two simple techniques to make an UNICLIC connection.

http://www.uniclic.com/images/method1.gif

If you have ever walked on such a floor you will realise that they sound drummie when you do, they are cheap and sound it too. :doh:

I wouldnt use a "floating" floor in a mad fit.

Al :)

I have recently laid floating floor in a new room with concrete floor, We are reasonably happy with it but had quality issues with the supplied boards both broken corners and a production scratch. After some discussion the boards were replaced but I have a failure in the boards to fix as yet

Although not stated in the instructions the person I saw suggested the end joins be joined with 3 drops of "D3" glue this could be a good idea. we laid it under benches in a kitchen/family room

happy to discuss further if you like

doug

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ozwinner

If you have ever walked on such a floor you will realise that they sound drummie when you do, they are cheap and sound it too. :doh:

I wouldnt use a "floating" floor in a mad fit.

Al :)

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At $130 a square meter cheap is the last word I have for it. :D

hi Doug

did you lay the uniclic style?:?

No we laid Kronotex

You should consider whether you need it repairable after you finish it. I laid mine the wrong way round and so is not easily repaired I believe.

doug

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ozwinner

If you have ever walked on such a floor you will
realise that they sound drummie when you do,
they are cheap and sound it too.

---

I have uniclic floors in most rooms of my house. They don't sound "drummie"
at all. On the contrary, they are quiet and feel softer underfoot than hardwood
(i.e: more pleasant to walk on). The laminate finish on top is extremely tough
and resilient, requiring no maintenance. My floors neither look nor sound cheap.

However, I've heard a less good story from another person, disappointed
with the quality of the result (end gaps opening up over time). I think
this might be because their floors were laid by carper layers who don't
specialize in uniclic laying. Mine were laid by Pro-Flooring in Sydney,
whose layer contractors are indeed experienced specialists. I have no
complaints whatsoever with the job they did.

They did pour quite a lot of special leveling compound first. Maybe a
"drummie" sound is caused by the supporting floor underneath not being
prepared sufficiently level?

Noisy floating laminate floors are caused by using cheap undelay, like everything else you get what you pay for. Do not skimp on the undelay. With quality underlay there is no noise when the floor is walked on.

For a concrete slab, you will need to lay a plastic film first, overlap the joints by about 200 mm and seal the joint with Gaffa tape. Take the plastic film up the wall about 50mm. Trim it after you have finiished laying the floor.
Then lay the foam underlay, butt jointing the edges. Use short strips of Gaffa tape to keep underlay joints together while you lay the flooring.

If you have skirting boards then remove them, lay the floor, then refit them. I think it looks much nicer than leaving the skirting boards and then using quad to cover the expansion joint.

The packs come with full instructions.

Bunnings sell a laminate floor laying kit. It has a block for tapping the boards together. a flat piece of metal with hooks on each end for tapping in the last board in the row closest to the wall and lots of adjustable spacers for setting the expansion joint gap as you lay the boards.

This flooring is easy to lay and you see a pleasing result very quickly.
I used Formica flooring, very similar to Uni-clic.
Videos here http://www.formicaflooring.com/video/

Uniclick is a MDF base with a very thin synthetic layer on top that looks like timber. It will let you down and cost you that much again in a few short years . It will breakdown quickly . WARNING

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Larry McCully

Uniclick is a MDF base with a very thin synthetic layer on top that looks like timber. It will let you down and cost you that much again in a few short years . It will breakdown quickly . WARNING

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hi larry

the uniclic i looked at had a 4mm timber layer on top and the base looked like birch or pine stuff definately not mdf.


could there be more than one style?

Hi daz, Their could be more than one. The last uniclic i saw was mdf and it distorted very quickly with little moisture. I had to replace aprox 20m2 in a unit in brisbane, it was about 6mm thick.

thanks larry

i will triple chech it :2tsup:

Afloater with 4mm wear layer is worth looking at. Check for base structure. A good engineered floater is made from struct ply to prevent possible distortion. But any thing will distort when water is present except if it is :no: plastic:oo:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Larry McCully

Uniclick is a MDF base with a very thin synthetic layer on top that looks like timber. It will let you down and cost you that much again in a few short years . It will breakdown quickly . WARNING

---

Hi Larry,
Apparently some people neglect the manufacturer's warning about not using steam cleaners, or they slosh vast amounts of water on it when mopping. There have been some court cases about that, so I hear. However, mine has been down for over 7 years. In a couple of places it has even been punished with water occasionally by a leaking roof, and yet those particular areas remain indistinguishable from the rest. The whole floor still looks good, and has not let me down at all.

I had another look at some of my old spare boards, and they do indeed look similar to Dazzler's description, i.e: not MDF.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sprog

Noisy floating laminate floors are caused by using cheap undelay, like everything else you get what you pay for. Do not skimp on the undelay. With quality underlay there is no noise when the floor is walked on.

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Sprog, I'm toying with the idea of a floating floor. Could you please explain / expand on what you mean by a "quality underlay".

Thanks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rod1949

Sprog, I'm toying with the idea of a floating floor. Could you please explain / expand on what you mean by a "quality underlay".

Thanks

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I'm not Sprog, but maybe I can answer your question.
The g/f and I laid a 'click lock' floating floor about 5yrs ago throughout our downstairs area over concrete, tiles and old floorboards (the boards were too far gone & i didnt want to rip em all up and relay with new).
On top of all the floors;
- first orange plastic, joins taped and enough left at the wall edges to turn up
- second a foam underlay about 8-10mm thick to provide some sound deadening, to reduce 'jarring' when walking on and to take up any small imperfections.
We have not had any problems with the floor in 5yrs.
We did use commercial grade over domestic, with a thicker veneer that can be sanded & resealed when needed.
The laying of the floor presented no major hassles, just the amount of time to finish off the edges was bit of a chore.
We love the look of the finished job and cleaning it beats vacuuming hands down.
Here's some (not very good) pictures..


The one BIG DOWNSIDE was that the boards being being 2.4 mtrs you need 2 people, one at each end, to 'stamp' them together in unison.
The g/f being smaller and lighter did start to complain about a sore knee but continued on.
BIG mistake she ended up with avascular necrosis, basically killed off the end of the 'shin' bone at the knee joint. Took a few years for her to recover and for the bone to regenerate fortunately if it had not a knee replacement would have been needed.

Thanks for that Batcat. 8-10mm foam, big difference to the 2-3mm foam that I've seen appears to be supplied by some mobs.