Laying linoleum with your own hands is a hard work that needs to be performed in a proper order – here is the useful information on the operations.
In case you wonder how to install linoleum flooring properly, the information below will be quite important for you to know. Installing linoleum flooring is quite a hard and complicated process, so you need a quide.
You will need:
- a knife with a short blade
- a pencil
- scissors
- roulette
- flat rack
- a level
Linoleum flooring installation
Step 1
Roll the material and see if some “waves” are visible. Put the sheets of linoleum almost right next to one of the walls – the gap between them should be from 3 to 5 millimeters. As for the other three walls of the room, put the linoleum so that it has a small overlap. If the room has uneven distances between the walls, the overlap should be done for every wall.
Step 2
How to put down linoleum flooring in the room with a large area where there will be several joints between the sheets? First, you need to ensure it fits the joints in a very neat way, and only then you may put the pieces of linoleum on the perimeter (again, with some overlaps). If linoleum has a pattern, there is a need for additional operations – combining drawings. Try to combine the pattern at all the joints between the sheets in the middle of the room. If in the next room this pattern is repeated, it is necessary to keep doing it in the doorway to maximize matching ornament. To do this, move the linoleum sheet to another until, until you get the desired result. Quite often a pattern imitates flooring or tiles being made up of straight lines. For the flooring to look nice, keep in mind that these lines do not have to cross the walls of the room at an angle. If they are parallel to the walls of the room, the picture is really pleasing to the eye. Try to achieve this, slightly turning sheets of linoleum, either clockwise or counterclockwise.
Step 3
Fit the linoleum to different niches or ledges of they room, if there are any. Almost every apartment of house has a niche near the front door. Before you start trimming the material, it is necessary to accurately measure the depth of the niche to make an appropriate overlap. For the front door, the overlap size should match the depth of the niche. Just wrap and measure the material, then add the necessary piece of linoleum, and then cut it. Similarly, the trimming is performed for a niche under the window. First and foremost, you should always begin laying and trimming at these sites.
Step 4
Now you may cut the rest of the material in a circle. Before the trimming, bend the sheet linoleum along the wall, so it to come closer to the wall. Arm it with a knife carefully, rail it or even just cut the material near the wall. Trimming near the wall is highly recommended, especially if the linoleum is laid in the apartments with uneven walls and corners – it will become a part of the curve of the walls (we all know that corners in the state apartments are not perfect 90 °. The main thing is do not overdo it and do not cut too much! It is best to perform this several times, very slowly.
Step 5
To provide a good seal between two pieces of linoleum, use double-sided tape. Mark the straight lines. Then – exactly in the middle of the line – paste adhesive tape. After that, remove the protective paper from the adhesive tape and glue it, first one, and then another sheet.
Step 6
Now you throw away the old boards of linoleum to mount the new ones. In most cases it should not be glued. Of course, if you plan to constantly move heavy furniture around the room, perhaps, it is better to be glued. Although, even the glued linoleum can not withstand some super heavy loads.
How to lay linoleum flooring using mastics?
In various residential areas it is much better for the linoleum to be stuck, even if it is very small space. In the apartments and houses with an area of the room where you play to lay the linoleum being more than 80 square feet, you must use adhesive. In this case you first need to clean the base very well. Before starting applying the adhesive, the sheet of linoleum is rolled – but not completely – in the middle of the room. This is done with one and the other side. Mastics and adhesives for such material as linoleum are available in any construction market – there is a variety of them. Try to choose the adhesive correctly. For example, if you are planning to lay the linoleum on insulated basis, you should buy appropriate adhesive mass – the one for materials having a lint-free basis. On the package of the glue it is usually specified if it should be applied in layers. In this case it is better to do it with a notched trowel – the higher its teeth, the higher the layer of glue is needed. Glue is applied to the base in the direction from the center of the room to the walls.
Laying linoleum flooring – the final stage
- Apply the adhesive with a spatula for bonding linoleum.
- Next, begin to roll out slowly. Take your time and be very careful. Once it is unrolled, it is necessary to make the entire length of rolling sheets – it is necessary to move them from the room center to the walls. With these actions, all the excess air is squeezed between the base and the floor covering – so the adhesive weight is distributed evenly.
- When two or more sheets of linoleum are to be laid, the welding method is used, which can be both cold and hot. Which one to choose depends on the parameters of the works, such as the complexity of the surface and the type of linoleum.
Let’s look at these two methods in detail.
Welding of the hot type is more reliable and provides durable bonding. It is advisable to apply it when the floor is assumed to have heavy loads. For it you will need a torch for welding, compressor rods and a variety of profiles (melted burner) to fill the joints.- Welding of the cold type requires no special equipment, it is perfect for everyday needs. It requires only glue. If linoleum is quite thin, then take TYPE A liquid adhesive. In order to repair the flooring which had been laid for a long time, apply TYPE C adhesive (it has thick consistency). If there is a large gap between the sheets of linoleum (a few millimeters), the liquid adhesive will not work.
We hope this information on linoleum flooring installation will help you to perform your work.
