Laminate Floor Expansion Joint size

[StephenW]

I've been asked to help lay a tile-effect laminate floor in a kitchen, covering previous vinyl tiles which are well stuck down. The kitchen is about 4 x 2.5 metres with the units along one long wall and down the sides of the short walls about 1.4 metres.
All instructions talk about a 10mm expansion gap all round. Where the units are I intend the floor to go beneath the kickboards maybe 50mm then stop. Other places it will go up to the skirting.
For this size room, is 10mm necessary? I laminated my hall several years ago with a 10mm cork-filled gap all round and even in the hottest weather it hasn't really expanded any noticeable amount.
A smaller expansion gap could mean a smaller quadrant (taking off skirting is not an option) and instructions don't really say a 10mm gap applies to a particular size of room. Any comments from professional fitters?

 

[A Civil Engineer]

The following website gives the coefficient of thermal expansion for MDF as 12µm/m-K (http://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Medium-Density-Fiberboard-MDF)
That means a 10metre long board will expand 0.12mm for every degree Celsius (or Kelvin) change in temperature. If the temperature of the board increase 40 degrees, the total change in length is only 5mm. That is 2.5 mm at each end. So a 10mm gap all round is excessive unless you are likely to get an awful lot of swelling due to moisture.