Preparing floors for vinyl

Press, 22 April 1986, Page 15

Preparing floors for vinyl

As a stone, the size of a pin-head can look ten times worse with vinyl laid on top of it, it is of the utmost importance to prepare the sub-floor of a kitchen perfectly before you even begin to lay vinyl. The most common problem related to subfloors is that few know the correct procedure of sub-floor preparation. The “tongue and groove” timber floor, whether old or new, must

first be machine sanded and the flooring overlaid with 4.75 mm thick chipboard. This should be fixed, in the centre, every 100 m and, around the perimeter, every 50mm. Joints are then sanded over and, once this is complete, the floor is ready for a vinyl covering. Chip-board or customwood floors pose no problem for floor covering at all. They only need sand-

ing over the joints, or, if you are really energetic, a light sanding over the entire floor. Following that, the floor is ready to lay vinyl on. With concrete floors, these must be clean and free from dust, oil, and so on. The surface must be very smooth, and any depression or high spots attended to befor laying the new vinyl flooring.