Flooring

[Indywar]

I have installed a number of floating floors, both laminate and engineered wood.  I am about to do another one floating over a CONCRETE slab.  But the challenge I always have is going from 1 room to another (e.g. dining room to living room) through entry ways (e.g. no doors but just the opening between rooms).  Often I will continue the flooring between rooms, but once I get through the entryway, the next row (1st row in new room) does not seem to be square.  Is there a good solution for doing this?  Would it be better to install the flooring to the entryway, install the first couple of rows in 2nd room and then install the flooring in the entryway connecting the two rooms?  BTW, I really don't like the look of T-molding between the rooms in this situation, which is why I run it continuously between the rooms.  Also, on a concrete slab, what is the best way to keep the flooring square to the walls (in the past I have just used the spacers next to the wall and just start installing)?

Thanks,
Rob

[Jay_HD_CHI]

Hey there Indywar,

Thanks for joining us on the community!~

Sounds like your pretty knowledgeable with flooring from the amount of installs you've done. Hopefully you'll be able to share some of your knowledge with other members on here in the future. = )

With that said, let's do a bit of brainstorming on your current situation. I'm going to start with your last question, since it's pretty much the first step in the entire project.

When starting the install, you're spot on with putting the spacers along the walls to begin with. However what I'll do after that, is scribe the first row to makes sure that it's even, since this will set the pace for the rest of the floor. When you have the flooring up against the spacers, check to see if there are areas where the space between it and the floor is a bit larger or smaller... in most cases you won't be so lucky as to have your walls 100% square.

Since I do a lot of art and fabric work on the side, I always have a compass handy. This Empire Compass/Scriber will do the job if you don't have one already (however I prefer using one with a built in measuring arc.) Put the compass to size of the largest gap, and then add anywhere from 1/4" to 1/2" to the measurement. Use your compass to pull a scribe line down the length of the row and use this line as your cut line. This will then ensure that your floor is level against the wall to begin with, and you won't end up offset towards the end.

As far as the entryway, t-molds are usually my go to piece for this but we'll work around it for your job here. In your case, I'd recommend using a wood spline to join your floors. This connects the floor from groove edge to groove edge, and is commonly used in situations like the one you're facing. While we don't sell the spline itself in stores, it's something easily made from scrap wood or material. Cut it so that it fits snugly into the groove, and is about as wide enough to fit into one sides groove, and halfway through the other. Using this to join the floors will leave you with a transition achieved and a t-molding not needed = ) a win-win I would say.

Hopefully this helps address your problem. Let me know if we need to come up with some other ideas for it and we'll see what else we can come up with!~

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