laying wood flooring under skirting.?

[Jaybee 45]

Hi all,

We are about to have oak flooring laid and I'm not keen on the edging strips that go along the skirting. Short of removing the 6" skirting boards, which would probably ruin them, is there a way of cutting the skirting in situ, to allow the flooring to be slotted underneath? ( if you know what I mean ).

We laid laminate flooring in the kitchen 9 years ago before we fixed the skirtings and it looks so much neater.

I have been told that there is a machine that could do this but I'd like your advice as to whether it is possible.

 

[Symptoms]

Blod - a couple of ways to do it with the skirting in situ:

Cost effective method (cheap) use an Arbortech Tuff Cut blade (£30ish) in an angle grinder (if you ain't got an AG there's loads of really cheapo ones available). Expect loads of dust and practice with the tool before you start for real. Works a treat.

There's kit the pros use but IMO not worth buying if you're only going to do one room.

Really do consider whipping the skirtings off - Stanley knife along the top to sever the paint at the wall (failure to do this will result in the decor coming away with the skirting) the carefully lever the skirt away (obviously remove any fixing screws). Taking the skirts off will make the floor install much easier and it'll look better. Also it's not too big a deal to remove them when weighed against all the cutting as above.

Finally, if you can't be ars*d to do any of this consider appying a profile to the skirt which reflects/compliments the skirt style. Plain skirt used rectangular strip, Torus use radius top strip, Ogee use small Ogee architrave; prime & undercoat before application then a finish coat over the top once on.

 

[Jaybee 45]

Thanks very much for the helpful info Symptoms. All good ideas but removing the skirting seems the best option. Thanks again Blod

 

[MrInteractive]

That is a brilliant idea about using a stanley knife to sever the paint from the board.

I was staring at the skirting board and cogitating on how firmly the paint was attached to it and thinking that the separation of the board from the wall was going to pull on the paint immediately attached and to it and more besides, including plaster, and of course the obvious answer is to cut between board and wall before any pulling .

 

[Robin66]

I just laid a oak T&G floor under existing skirting by cutting ~1 inch off the bottom of the skirting using a reciprocating saw and a chisel. I learnt quite early on that it was worth it to spend more time with the reciprocating saw and rely less on the chisel since the latter may split the wood above where you want the cut to be.

This was quicker than it would have been to remove the skirting, cut, and reattach touching up the paint. But it was a lot of work on my knees and was quite tiring. If I was going to do it again I would have started with a new sharp blade.

 

[foxhole]

Difficult to finish under final skirting , working to a doorway helps.
If you remove skirting you can get away with just doing it on the finishing edge of the floor rather than all round.

 

[Robin66]

Good point foxhole. I cut the underlay (which was 5mm) an inch short of the skirting, and since you'll have a gap from the wall (for expansion) there is enough room to slide the boards down into the gap and pull towards you and then across to meet the adjacent board. The very last board was difficult to lay. It was about 8" long, and I used duck tape to grab onto the upper surface and pull it towards me. Job done. But as you say, finish in a doorway if you can

 

[foxhole]

Good point foxhole. I cut the underlay (which was 5mm) an inch short of the skirting, and since you'll have a gap from the wall (for expansion) there is enough room to slide the boards down into the gap and pull towards you and then across to meet the adjacent board. The very last board was difficult to lay. It was about 8" long, and I used duck tape to grab onto the upper surface and pull it towards me. Job done. But as you say, finish in a doorway if you can

Wondered why you resurrect a 6 year old post?

 

[Diyisfun]

Laminate was laid 9yrs ago in another room.
There is no mention of laying laminate or engineered wood, that I can see

 

[foxhole]

Laminate was laid 9yrs ago in another room.
There is no mention of laying laminate or engineered wood, that I can see

My error miss read it.

 

[ladylola]

There's also the option of simply using a chisel to pare off the lower edge of the skirting. It's nowhere near as difficult as it sounds and in all honesty pretty quick to do and if you figure in the time spent removing , replacing and touching up the skirting probably much quicker.
Opps just noticed the OP is five years old so they've probably done it by now.

 

[bluekingfisher]

I once used a biscuit jointer and a chisel to pare the required section off the bottom of the skirting. It is a dusty job but I attached my jointer to a vac. Ijust set the depth of the blade and adjusted the height and ran the BJ along the floor which cuts the required amount of skirting off a leaves an exact profile of the floor.

A chisel touches up the internal corners and bits where you cant cut, such as around nails etc.