Comments on: Laminate flooring sucks

By: kirt

kirt — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 06:54:08 +0000

Laminate floors suck. I did not have any problems installing it by myself. One word of WARNING for anyone thinking of using it. If it is being used in a room you know will NEVER have any kind of liquids or drinks spilled on it then good. But ounce you spill anything on it your screwed. I have several places were it is rotting and falling apart because water got underneath it. It’s like particle board on the bottom side. The top is fairly durable but if water gets in the grooves it’s over. Really sucks when the spill was in the middle of the floor because you have to pull up all the flooring to get to the bad section to fix. Wish I had saved for real wood floors now. Never again will I own a laminate floor. I’m done with them. Way overrated stuff.

By: Rick Atkins

Rick Atkins — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:44:45 +0000

I’ve been installing laminate professionally forever, from the glue together technique to the clics of today. Think clics are tough? Ha!Ha! I will admit not all are the same, usually the higher the price, the better the construction, including “installability” ease. I agree Tarkett should consider another market other than laminates. I’ve done two of their laminates, the first a while back, but spent an hour in a tiny closet before it finally fit! The second I did yesterday. It had a beveled edge and was supposed to be done by the drop together technique, although the install sheet indicated sliding the width joints together before doing the length. Not possible!
Tarkett was called and said 30 degree a length, slide next to adjacent width and drop. This worked fairly well, but tongues broke like toothpicks, lots of no color splotches on several boards and last row had to remove door jamb and casing for fit. Never had this problem with any other laminate(you could lower the board and still “snap it in”) Add to this a know it all helper, and I was ready to commit murder by days end! Vent over! Try Costco or Sam’s club for two products with great quality, low price, and easy fit!

By: Billy

Billy — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:26:38 +0000

I am trying to install Swiftlock from Lowe’s in a 12′ x 10′ room. I have not made it past the first row so far.

I have followed the instructions that I had to track down on the internet, since there were no instructions in nine boxes of material.

None of the pieces fit together. If I had only opened one of the boxes and realized how this stuff just will not fit together, I would have returned all of it. But now I have rifled through all the boxes, used material from each box, desperately trying to find any two that are in some way the same. This is so poorly manufactured that pieces are flaking off the top and crumbling in the box.

I have to finish this, since I have already torn up the carpet and cannot afford to buy new material. But this has ended my days of shopping at Lowe’s. I will not return to that place for a nail. There is no excuse for peddling this worthless material.

By: James Gurney

James Gurney — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:59:35 +0000

i too am having the say problems as Geoff. Tarkett seems like a poor quality laminate flooring. I laid down the first room , fine. then i laid down the secound, as the instruction, and the problem started. the tarkett flooring system kepted on seperating. I tried 4 times, with and out a block, the same result.
I have used other brands, not a problems. i have done 3 bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen, used the uniclick system – good results.

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 15:13:20 +0000

After another day I was able to finish the floor, but a number of times I had to pull up the previous row or two and reset them. Also, using the tapping blocks made from scraps of the floor is essential. Way too much challenge compared to what is advertised. I’d try Pergo next time as they have a strong reputation.

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 19:21:16 +0000

I also found the Swiftlock flooring from Lowes is crap! I’m on my third day of trying to lay a 12′x16′ room in my basement. I’m an experienced handyman, and this should have been a day’s job. My problem has been once I get a few rows into it I end up with the leading edge of the floor bowed outward (not upward) such that the next row will not snap in becasue of the curved leading edge. Drawing a chalk line along the edge shows the bow (proud in the middle of the floor) to be at least 1/4″ by the time you go from one end to another. The instructions are brief, and no website shown on the box or instructions, just an 1-800 number for Clarion Laminates, the licensee of the Swiftlock technology who makes the floors for Lowe’s. They are only there from 8-5 M-F, not convenient for us weekenders. They didn’t have much to help me, except to say to remove the whole floor, inspect the boards, and start again. As I tore it up I realized some of the joints were not fully snapped – you can tell because the joint will be like a hinge, where the tight joints will not flex and make the two rows feel like one board. They did say it is key to put the whole row together end to end first, then use a helper to put them in at a 45 degree angle and bang them in with your hands. The hand part doesn’t work, so like on another post above, I’ve been taking a scrap, snapping it into the outside edge of the new board, then tapping it to seat the board while it is tilted up between 30 and 45 degrees. I find then it goes almost flat, and a little more gentle tapping will cause it to lay down. I am staloled about again as I have 9′ of the floor laid, and again have a bow in the floor, so I need to start dissasembling to see where I didn’t get a perfect joint. I WILL NEVER BUY SWIFTLOCK AGAIN!!!!

By: Ken

Ken — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 20:53:34 +0000

I forgot to add, it took me four days to complete. The area was approximately 1200 sq ft. and no I am not a professional, but I have always done woodworking as a pastime. I can’t understand why so many people have such trouble. I guess they don’t bother to follow the installation instructions.

By: Ken

Ken — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 20:49:26 +0000

I did our whole house, in 2007. I had never put down laminate before. It went in easier than the self stick floor tile in the kitchen! Yes I had a few problems in the first hour or two, but I quickly got the knack and it all went smoothly. That was four years ago, and the floor still looks good. BTW I used the cheapest one that Lowe’s had at the time. Only problem I had was around doorsills. In a few places I cut the boards too short and there is a gap. I filled them in with wood putty and after the moulding went in, you hardly notice it. Only con I have is the noise it makes when something is dropped on it, and the dogs nails when running across it.

By: Bud

Bud — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 16:33:38 +0000

It may not be the fault of installation!

I installed 1600 sqft of Tarkett in my house. Different “lots” of this flooring seem to have different rates of expansion, so I have pieces that expand faster than the piece next to it and it buckles.

By: Lesley

Lesley — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 04:29:57 +0000

Laminate Floating Flooring – D.I.Y – should come with a Mental Health Warning. “This product is hazardous to your mental health. You will require long term psychological treatment and medication for extreme anxiety, anger and post traumatic stress disorder, if you ‘ever’ successfully complete installation”.

I can relate so well with all the other comments on this thread about the difficulties encountered in laying laminate floating flooring. What ‘should’ have taken a couple of hours, took more than 2 weeks. Eventually my partner and myself enlisted the help and assistance of my father-in-law, who is a retired master builder – and it still took him 2 days. And mind you, we were only doing one room 16 m2. Thank God we did not take on a more ambitious project and do more than this one room. Any more than that one room and I would have voluntarily packed my bags and admitted myself to a psychiatric facility for permanent care.

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 11:42:03 +0000

I’m putting in Mohawk laminate flooring myself in my house and it’s easy. Most boards snap in on the long side. A few have to be knocked in horizontally with a tapping bar. Once a board is locked in on the long side, it then must be joined on the short side to another board with a tapping bar or – for the last piece in a row – with a pull bar. That’s it.

Actually, most of the work is not installing the laminate flooring, but rather: removing existing flooring material; cleaning and prepping subfloor; removing, cleaning, and repainting baseboards; cutting door jambs; measuring and cutting the laminate boards at the end of rows, along walls, along angled walls, under door jambs; measuring and installing the base for the transition pieces; and reinstalling the baseboards.

The flooring looks phenomenal, truly like real wood. These are not the cheap-looking wide pieces with fake plank lines running through it, but rather 6 1/4 inch individual planks, each “roughened” and designed to look like an individual plank of wood. If I didn’t know it was laminate I would think it’s wood.

The one thing I wasn’t too sure about was whether I should remove the baseboards and install the boards under them, or leave the baseboards in, install the boards to 5/16 inch from the baseboards, and use quarter-round trim to cover the gap between the boards and the baseboards.

I’m glad I decided to remove the baseboards. Yes, it’s more work to remove, clean, paint, and reinstall the baseboards. But the baseboards will fit OVER the new flooring and give you a far better, cleaner, more professional finish than those cheap-looking quarter-rounds. Best of all, though, when you remove the baseboards, you will find that there is plenty of space behind them running to the wood framing that runs along the subfloor. This extra space allows you to run the boards farther under the wall, to, say, 1/2 inch from the wood framing, which is plenty of expansion gap. When the baseboards are installed they will overlap the laminate boards by a good 1 inch, far more than the 1/4 inch or 1/2 inch overlap you get if you use quarter-round. Plus, because there will be so much overlap of the new boards by the baseboards, you don’t have to worry so much about the precision of the expansion gap against the wood framing. There’s plenty of room under that wall!

By: Guy Grotke

Guy Grotke — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 20:59:08 +0000

My wife and I have done two large bedrooms and our dining room with Harmonics from Costco. It does take a little while to get the feel for assembling the rows, especially a long row. Other than that, all of the installations went very well. It has held up very well, with no bubbles, gaps, or pop-outs anywhere.

One thing I think is absolutely critical: You need a perfectly level floor. The padding underlayment can add a little bit of forgiveness, but if the laid area is bowed it may be impossible to get additional rows to lock without a lot of force. I wouldn’t even bother trying on a floor that isn’t flat.

Makes sure you pay attention to the maximum run length requirement. Big rooms may need to be laid as two sections (with a joiner molding strip) so each row is not too long. Short rows (like say three planks) are very easy to add. Longer rows are more difficult, especially without helpers who know exactly what to do.

By: Tom Mohelski

Tom Mohelski — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 22:33:17 +0000

Tarkett is crap, stay as far away from it as you can. I put down about 20 boxes of it, and it only took me 2 weeks. This was one of the most difficult projects I have ever undertaken. , and I do alot of home improvement jobs. I can’t add much more that has not been written already. Wish I had found this site earlier. Oh yeah, just try to get tarkett to warranty it. We had some small spills that caused this crap to swell on the edges. Rep. came out to look and said it was a instalation problem. ??????????? So now , the only recourse I have is to try to steer as many people away from ths shi- as I possibly can. good luck!

By: Jamie Blair

Jamie Blair — Tue, 24 May 2011 08:42:58 +0000

I’ve fitted old school, T&G, laminate with no problems, so I thought the “click” stuff would be a doddle. The first problem is that you have to make a continuous strip by slotting the planks together end to end. You need a fair bit of force to slot the ends together, and it has to be an exact line up, or your next plank wont slot into the grooves. The joint is tight and hard to line up, but paradoxically, comes apart rather easily with lateral force. The type of force you almost inevitably exert laying the joined strips. The snap joints themselves are hit and miss, sometimes you get lucky, many times the joint will gap, come apart, or simply not click together. Often you will get several strips laid, and it will come apart further back. I was fitting it in a kitchen and it’s actually impossible to fit up to (or under) the kick plate of kitchen units, because the planks cannot be raised more than four inches to click because of the overhang of the units. It’s extremely difficult and frustrating to fit the product in ideal conditions, and the slightest obstacle creates an insurmountable problem, added to this is the fact that the flooring itself is constructed on the cheap from sub-standard materials (it looks like cardboard and epoxy). The edges are fragile and easilly damaged. The slightest chip renders the product useless. Basically the product does not work in normal domestic applications, maybe in a pristine new build with a dead level concrete floor, but not in a normal house or shop. I really considered reporting the manufacturers to the advertising standards authority. A lot of people like doing DIY, but many, many people, people like me, go down the DIY route because they are, frankly, poor. I now have a plywood kitchen floor, which I can no longer afford to floor properly, sore knees, bruised hands and a pile of useless wood veneered cardboard. Please don’t buy this horrible, rip-off product.

By: twinfish

twinfish — Sat, 14 May 2011 23:59:10 +0000

We had given up on that tarkett laminate flooring. We were going to just return the unopened boxes and cut our losses. I googled “laminate sucks”, read these posts, and decided to try the “zipper” method. We were taking apart the bad rows to try zipping them up and discovered that we could not easily take apart the first two rows which we had glued. So now we are going to try glueing and zipping two rows then let the glue set. Then do two more. Wish us luck!

By: JIMMY

JIMMY — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 19:03:56 +0000

I layed laminate click floating hardwood floor thru the entire house 850 sq ft. the only problem i am having is the last row will not stay in place. no matter what i do, it pops up. I am so frustrated with it. thought about nailing too, but the floor is concrete and nails wont stay down. Any suggestions would be great. other than the last row, I have no complaints, love the floor and how it looks.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 10:23:31 +0000

I am so glad I’m not the only one. I hate the stuff. It shifted when we were laying it and there was nothing we could do about it. We had several people here with us when we were installing, and we couldn’t get enough weight on the plank to keep it from shifting when we were tapping. The boards wouldn’t lock from end to end on some boards. The manufacturer suggest we go back and tap them back in place and it will be fine, it shifted other boards when we were putting it together. Then they said after it’s laid if we tap it then it will fall right into place. We tried and it won’t budge. Now after the floor has been down 1 week we have some gaps(that are getting bigger), and some chips where the corners of the board are popping up. There’s also a few scratches on the surface of it from a chair, it’s not as durable as the companies say. Does anyone have any suggestions on how we can possibly keep it from chipping more, how to fill in the gaps, and keep the corners of the planks from buckling?

By: bob

bob — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:40:58 +0000

Roger, you say go to Sams Club for the laminate but don’t they carry different brands? If so what brand did you install?

By: Roger Reeves

Roger Reeves — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:35:54 +0000

GO TO SAM’S CLUB AND GET Lock’n Seal Laminate Flooring-Brazilian Cherry. I’m a pro and this floor is so easy to install a caveman can bucking do it. IT NEVER POPS OUT. It’s tongue and groove so you’ll need a hammer and a special tapping block. Don’t buy those little black tapping blocks. They suck. Mine is a white foot long tapping block. It looks like a 2′ x 4′ that’s hard plastic.

I wouldn’t lay the OP floor for $10,000. IF YOUR LAMINATE FLOOR EVER POPS OUT SAY ON ROW 2 PIECE 2 AND SO ON TAKE THAT *HIT BACK. I’ve installed several companies and Sam’s Lock’n Seal is the Cadillac and it looks great. IMO. Shaw is hard to lay too. What becomes a nightmare with the OP is not only after you start row 2 but going down tight halls and with the floor he had it want pop in without this special back tapping block thing.

By: priffer flooring

priffer flooring — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:28:29 +0000

Some laminates are just crap. I’ve been installing laminates from all comanies since they first came out. I am on a job right now that should have taken 4 or 5 hours. 9 hours later, we need to go back tomorrow and finish it. It is a thicker Tarkett laminate. It is the type that is supposed to be installed without the use of a tap block, but that is not possible. Tell me how I’m supposed to tilt my piece in at a 45 when it has to go under a door jamb or toe kick.
Like I said, I have a ridiculous amount of experience installing laminates and know all of the tricks (invented quite a few of them myself). Tarkett can be ok, but this particular product is complete crap and i will not be installing it again.
Mohawk is decent, Pergo has always been good. No substitue for hardwood.