Flooring Newbie

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Norfolk
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This is my first post and I'm a novice so please excuse me.

I live in a 1970s bungalow, the floor is concrete with plastic tiles stuck on top.

I have seen some flooring that I like the look of:

http://www.homebase.co.uk/webapp/wc...ay?langId=110&storeId=10151&partNumber=461183

1) Is this flooring any good?

2) Is it a good price?

3) What do I need to fit it - can it be stuck on top of the tiles or do I need an underlay type of thing?

Sorry, If the questions sound stupid, but I'm just starting out.
 
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The flooring you are looking at is a cheapish 14mm Engineered floating floor. You use no glue in it's installation, it clicks together and uses it's mass, weight and area to stay in place. It will expand and contract and you will need to allow an expansion gap around all edges of the room, you can cover this gap with matching beading and door profiles, or remove skirtings and re-fit them over the expansion gap. You will need to budget for DPM sheeting, Underlay, beading and door profiles as well as a basic install kit and spacers and pipe caps for radiators. Generally the fitting instructions are in the pack.

Tools you will need will be a install kit (tapping bar, tapping block, spacers) drill, jigsaw, mitre block, hand saw, although the proffesionals will carry considerably more gear to fit it to a high standard

It sounds easy to fit and the principles are straightforward, only your own DIY skills are known to you so the quality of job you make of the fitting is reliant upon yourself, your tools, and the quality of the product.

It is laid on an underlay, generally fibreboard underlay or heavy duty enginnered wood underlay like TimbermateXL will give the best results.

Like all natural wood products, it will mark, dent, fade and scratch, that's what happens to real wood.

If it's likely to be subject to heavy wear, then it would be worth considering a very good quality laminate floor such as Pergo, this will be much more resiliant to the above, it will also have a lower installed height, the fitting system used on Pergo is very simple and well engineered and flexible when it comes to tricky areas like door frames (ideally, you should cut the bottoms out of the door frames and slide the floor underneath, then tap back on itself to create a good fit and finish, in reality, alot of cheap floors don't allow this and you need to template the door frame and fill the gap which looks unsightly.

I know a number of proffessional fitters who will shy away from offers to fit laminates and engineered woods supplied by the big DIY chains simply because the product is often poorly stored resulting in many damaged/unusable boards in packs, and the fact that generally the quality of the engineering of the boards is a bit iffy and what should be a simple product to fit can often take alot longer with inferior results due to joints not lining up etc.

I would personally firstly consider the use the floor is going to get and armed with that info and your floor sizes, at least go speak to a good independent flooring shop and seek their advice, most shops will be happy to supply only and only to willing to answer fitting questions etc.

General guide to working out how much you need is to work out the m2 of the room, add 7% and round up to the nearest pack size to allow for wastage.
 

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