Buy laminate online - Floor coverings

The most important properties of this floor covering at a glance

• very good price-performance ratio
• can perfectly imitate wood or stone flooring
• many different decors possible
• robust and easy to clean
• easy to install
• can be installed in rooms with underfloor heating

Which laminate flooring suits you best?

There are countless versions of laminate flooring. So the choice can be difficult at times. The first considerations will always revolve around appearance. What colour should the floor have so that it matches the interior perfectly

Should it look like a stone or wooden floor? Or do you prefer a plain, smooth design or a coloured pattern? Should the floor appear more elegant, rustic or playful? The next decision is about the size of the planks, boards or tiles

With large elements the laying is faster, smaller elements offer more design possibilities.

The advantages of a laminate floor compared to parquet:

• This floor covering is cheaper than parquet, but looks just as good.
• It is less sensitive than parquet flooring.
• This floor is less demanding in maintenance.
• The floor covering is water-repellent and therefore more suitable for kitchens.
• Small quirks and traces of use can be repaired by yourself.

The service classes for laminate floors

The service classes (NK) consist of two digits. The first digit indicates whether it is a private household (2), a commercial enterprise (3) or an industrial enterprise (4). The second digit indicates the intensity of use - e.g. load class 31.

The 1 stands for low usage, the 2 for normal and the 3 for heavy usage. A low usage is usually in the bedroom, a normal one in the living room and your heavy usage in the children's room or hallway. In case of doubt, select the floor covering designed for heavier loads. The NK23 is therefore recommended for private homes.

How much material do you need to buy?

If the room is rectangular and not angled, you can quickly calculate the necessary number of square metres. You can divide an angled room into several rectangles or triangles, calculate the area in each case and finally add the individual results

But you should buy 10% more material in any case, because you will certainly have waste. The laminate packages indicate how many elements and how many square metres the box contains

You will also need skirting boards. For their quantity the circumference of the room, not the area, is decisive! You determine the circumference by adding the lengths of all sides. You should also calculate with waste for the skirting boards and therefore buy approx. 10 % more than calculated.

The right substrate

To ensure that you can enjoy your new floor covering for a long time, it must be laid on a suitable subfloor. In general, this substrate should be clean, dry, firm and even

An old wooden floor, linoleum, fully glued PVC or a ceramic floor can be used as a substrate if they meet these criteria. Cement screeds with a maximum residual moisture content of 2 %, as well as anhydrite screeds or magnesia screeds with a maximum residual moisture content of 3 % are also suitable. Minor unevenness can be compensated by an impact sound insulation mat. Unevenness of more than 3 mm must be sanded down.

What you need for the installation of the laminate floor

• Pencil
• Angle and Folding Rule
• Laminate cutter or saw
• a sufficient number of spacers
• Cutter knife and adhesive tape
• possibly PE foil and/or insulating mat
• Skirting boards, possibly transition profiles

How to install laminate flooring correctly

1.Before laying, the laminate material must be left in the room for at least 48 hours to acclimatise. The room temperature should be at least 18 °C and the relative humidity between 50 % and 60 %

2. Ensure that these environmental conditions are maintained for three days after installation

3.Start laying in a corner of a room and continue working parallel to the incidence of light. For optical reasons and for better durability of the click connections, plan a joint offset of approx. 40 cm

4. There must be a distance of approx. 10 mm from the walls on all sides. This expansion joint allows the laminate to expand or contract depending on the relative humidity. It is covered with skirting boards as the last step in the process.

5.Before laying the laminate floor, install the vapour barrier and/or insulation mat, if required. A vapour barrier is a 0.2 mm thick PE film that keeps moisture away from the underside of the laminate. This film is spread over the clean, dry surface, leaving a 3 cm projection on the walls. Fix the film to the wall with adhesive tape. If you have to lay several strips of the film, let them overlap a few centimetres and stick them on with the adhesive tape.

6.The next step is to install the footfall sound insulation. It may contain a vapour barrier. Then you can save the previous point. Impact sound insulation is available in various designs with different thicknesses, which dampen the sound more or less well. These are usually 1.5 mm to 3 mm thick yard goods sold on rolls. Lay the impact sound insulation at a 90° angle to the laminate elements. The footfall sound insulation is laid up to the wall. If it has an integrated vapour barrier, it is raised 3 cm up the wall.

7.When laying the laminate, start in one corner of the room and lay the long sides parallel to the wall. Click the front sides in. To lay the next row, place the laminate piece at an acute angle to the existing row. Then press it down until it clicks into place. If you need to mark something to cut the elements, do so on the back.

What should be observed when laying over underfloor heating?

If the floor is laid over underfloor heating, a vapour barrier is required in any case. In this case, however, you must ensure that the thermal resistance of the laminate elements, any impact sound insulation and the vapour barrier together do not exceed the value of 0.15 m²K/W

The higher this value is, the better the thermal insulation. However, in this case this is undesirable and must therefore be kept small. The underfloor heating should have a stepwise temperature control. Please ensure that the surface temperature of the laminate flooring does not exceed 26 °C.

High-quality laminate - The right care for your laminate floor

This floor covering is extremely easy to clean. Most of the time, you just have to sweep it off or vacuum it up. You can also wipe it with a damp cloth. If clear water is not sufficient for cleaning, you can add a special laminate cleaner to the water. Please use no aggressive cleaning agents or those containing wax, soft or curd soap. The former would attack the ground, the latter would produce unsightly streaks on the ground.

Especially in the (pre-)Christmas season, wax or resin can sometimes drip onto the floor. Please let it cool down completely and dry before you start removing it

You then take a blunt object and scrape off most of the wax or resin with it. Heat wax residues with a hair dryer until they soften. Then dab them with a kitchen towel. For resin residues you need nail polish remover and a cotton wool pad. Then wipe the floor clean with a soft cloth.

Shoes often produce an unsightly, dark abrasion on light laminate floors. In most cases, however, you can remove this with an eraser. If this does not work or if the areas to be treated are too large, you can buy special stain removers from specialist dealers.

Repairing small defects in laminate flooring

Small scratches, such as those caused by moving furniture, can often be removed with baby or olive oil

To do this, spread a small amount of oil on the affected areas of the clean floor. Afterwards - because of the danger of slipping - you must wipe off the excess oil

If the scratches are deeper, use wax sticks in matching colours, which you can obtain from our online shop. The wax is heated and filled into the scratches. After it has dried out, the surface must be sanded down or smoothed with a plane.