Parquet board is one of the most popular coatings for walls and floors at the moment. However, it is worth considering: in order for the result to really be worth the effort and money, it is necessary not only to purchase good material, but also to perform high-quality work on its installation. Further in the article we will consider several ways to install a parquet board with your own hands.
Styling features
Before you begin to work, it is worth paying attention to some important points:
- After purchasing a parquet board, it should be laid down in the room in which it is planned to be installed. This must be done due to a possible difference in temperature. For this, it is also recommended to remove the boards from the package.
- Before preparing the work surface and starting work, it is necessary to sketch out an approximate diagram of how the boards will be located, taking into account their length and width. This will help much faster and easier to navigate in the course of work.
- When drawing up the above scheme, be sure to consider the approximate width of the boards that will be reported last in rows. Due to the fact that most often they need to be trimmed, it is worth taking as a basis a width of not less than 60 millimeters. Otherwise, you will also have to cut the boards in the front row.
- It is necessary to lay parquet boards with an offset of 0.5 parts of the length relative to the first row.
- The location of the floorboard is determined taking into account the features of the room.
How to prepare the base for the flooring?
The choice of surface for laying parquet boards is not limited. It can be either a concrete coating, or a plank or plywood floor. The most important thing is to prepare to prepare a site for work:
- First you need to inspect the place for installing the floorboard with your own hands. Look for various cracks, indentations, and protrusions. All these signs must be eliminated before starting work. So, the cracks need to be slightly expanded and repaired with concrete repair mortar. By analogy, process and recesses. And the protrusions need to be knocked down.
- It is also necessary to check the floor or walls (depending on the installation location) using the building level. You must make sure that the bumps do not exceed 2 / 2.5 millimeters per meter.
- If the check revealed an error greater than allowed, then the surface will have to be further leveled. To do this, you can use screeds.
- In the case of a large number of not too significant problems, you can fix the plywood sheets to the floor by screwing them or gluing them to concrete.
- Before you start installing your parquet board yourself or placing plywood sheets, you must properly ground the floor. Or a wall.
- If you plan to place the board directly on a concrete base, then before mounting it is necessary to install a substrate.
What tools are needed to work?
This is also one of the most important nuances of preparing for the installation of floors with a parquet board. In order to complete the work without any problems, it is necessary to prepare such tools as:
- circular saw or hacksaw, electric jigsaw;
- rubber mallet;
- screwdriver;
- building level and rule;
- roulette and square;
- spatulas: serrated and ordinary;
- bracket for tightening boards;
- pad block;
- expansion wedges.
Now you can begin to study how to properly install a parquet board.
Wall cladding
It’s worth starting with this type of work, as it will be presented in this article only once. Nevertheless, the preparatory work for him does not differ from those that are necessary for the floor. So, we will consider the technology of mounting a parquet board on a wall:
- Suppose that you have already completed the calculation of the required amount of materials, made a work plan, processed the surface and prepared the tools. Now you need to set the level at the starting point.
- You need to start on the left side of the wall. The same rule will be relevant for floor work.
- Next, you should mark the line, the width of which will be equal to one board.
- Now you need to start applying glue to each of the boards. This is done in zigzags. It is also recommended to apply glue in the same way to the installation site of the parquet board.
- Next, carefully install the board, make sure that it sits tight. Then check with the building level that it is positioned correctly.
- After that, install the remaining boards. To do this, insert them into the lock until they fit snugly. Then hit and fix with brackets.
- As soon as you finish installing the massive parquet board on the walls, install the skirting boards and corners. This action is unlikely to cause you any difficulties, so we will not focus on it.
- After that, inspect the finished surface for any defects that may have occurred during the work. If you did everything correctly, not forgetting to check the evenness, then you should not have problems.
Next, we consider the first option for installing a parquet board on the floor.
Floating masonry
This is a fairly simple way to cover floors. Its main feature is the laying technology, in which the coating is not attached in any way to the base. The solidity of the layer with this method of placement will be achieved only due to the good fastening of the boards in the area of the castle joints, which are located at the edges.
This method is quite relevant in cases where the calculation is performed on a completely flat floor without any physical defects. The algorithm for installing a parquet board using this technology looks like this:
- A waterproofing material is applied to the prepared floor.
- After that, a substrate sheet is laid out along the wall. From here, laying work will begin.
- Next, you need to attach one of the boards to the wall to check the evenness of the position.
- Then it is necessary to make a compensation gap between the wall and the boards. To do this, install spacer wedges on all sides of the board (which touch the wall), the pitch between which should be approximately 500 millimeters. Next, a board is pressed tightly against them.
- Now you should apply a second board for the first row and fasten them with a butt lock until they click.
- Further, it is required to ensure that each of the subsequent parquet boards is mounted exactly the width of the previous one. In the event of a shift to the outside, a docking problem will arise.
- Before you put the last board of the first row, use a tape measure to measure the distance from the wall to the end of the lying board.
- Now attach a whole board to the end of the row and on its wrong side mark the length by which you need to cut the necessary piece.
- Then it needs to be docked with the rest of the boards, before setting wedges against the wall, as with the first board.
- If the length allows, then the remaining piece can be used to start a new row, docking with the previous one using the lock.
- Then carefully stack the rest of the parts, fastening them with the neighboring and previous ones.
- When you get to the nut, make cuts at the bottom of the door frame so that the board fits into it. After that, designate the location of the nut and put it there.
- Now along it, from the side of the parquet, cut the substrate with a knife.
- Then marks are made through the holes and the sub-piers are removed. Drill holes, install plastic dowel plugs there and put the sub-supports in place, fix it with self-tapping screws.
- Now use a chisel to remove part of the castle from the planks around the nut along their length and width.
- Next, you need to apply carpentry glue to the slices and first put the board under the opening, and then attach it to the glue. If necessary, they can be knocked out. Next, the remaining boards for the threshold are laid and from above they are pressed by the threshold.
The advantages of floating masonry
Next, it is worth considering the points due to which it is worth paying attention to this technology of installing a parquet board on plywood or concrete. Among them:
- quite simple and fast stacking algorithm;
- mistakes made during installation can be corrected;
- individual boards can be replaced;
- it is very easy to dismantle and reuse the material;
- the coating is resistant to temperature fluctuations;
- no need to buy a lot of glue;
- can be used immediately after installation.
Technology disadvantages
Do not forget about the negative sides. Among them:
- not suitable for placement in a room whose area exceeds 50 square meters;
- not recommended for use in rooms with a large floor load;
- great sensitivity even to small irregularities.
Installation of a parquet board on glue
The name of the technology speaks for itself. When selling, you need to lay the boards on a base covered with special glue. Moreover, the glue must be selected depending on the type of boards.
Consider now the technology implementation algorithm:
- First of all, it is necessary to properly ground the coating on which the boards will be laid.
- Now along one of the walls you need to put a board and between them install plastic inserts, at a distance of 500 millimeters from each other.
- After you adjust the length of the last board in the row, you can apply glue with a spatula. The width should be 100 millimeters wider than the outer line of the board. As soon as the adhesive is applied, it must be evenly distributed with a notched trowel.
- Next, you need to lay out the boards on the glue, immediately immediately locking them with a lock.
- As soon as you lay out the first row, apply a new portion of glue to the concrete and distribute in the same way as for the first time. Then lay out the second row, with a shift of one third of the length or half of the board from the first row. Moreover, they must first be docked along the length, and then connected with a lock. Thus, the entire coating is laid out.
- When the installation work is completed, the coating must be left to dry for three days, while any loads must be avoided.
- After the glue has dried, the joints must be treated with sealant. When it hardens, you can remove the inserts from the walls and install skirting boards.
Technology benefits
As in other options, there are positive aspects to this method of installing a parquet board. Among them:
- unlike the previous installation method, this allows you to process rooms with an area of more than 50 square meters;
- such floors are more resistant to increased loads;
- This mounting option for boards can be used for installation above a screed covering warm water floors.
Minuses
There are more disadvantages than advantages. Among them:
- To implement this method, you must use a decent amount of construction glue. In this regard, you will have to spend money not only on the purchase of high-quality coating, but also on the material for fastening.
- Unlike floating installation, this method requires working with substances, the period of complete drying of which should be no less than two days. In this regard, the operation of the premises is unacceptable immediately after installation. It is also necessary to ensure that no one accidentally gets into the room until the glue and subsequently the sealant have completely dried, so that the boards do not move.
- The installation process of the coating with glue is very difficult to implement. It must be done carefully so as not to stain the front side of the board, and at the same time quickly and accurately so as not to run into various problems.
- Unlike floating masonry of a parquet board, installation on glue is performed with the expectation of the absence of any interference with the integrity of the structure. And therefore, if during the installation of the coating some mistakes were made that were discovered after the completion of the work, it will be impossible to fix them.
- If during operation you damaged one or several boards, then replacing them will turn out to be a rather complicated procedure, during which you can accidentally damage entire elements of the coating.
Now you should consider the last option for laying the coating.
Installation of a parquet board on nails
This method is also quite common under a different name. Maybe you heard such a term as "laying the floorboard on the logs"? Actually, before you start work, you need to decide whether you will lay the coating on plywood sheets or directly on the logs themselves. In the second case, you will need to pick up such boards so that they withstand loads and do not bend in empty places. Preferably, their thickness should be no less than 22 millimeters.
Now to the installation procedure itself:
- Before proceeding with the installation, it is necessary to prepare the surface. It must be cleaned of dust and exfoliating particles.
- Next, it should be strengthened with deep impregnation soil and the cracks should be repaired with the repair mixture, having previously expanded them.
- After this, it is also worth waterproofing the floor. For this, both coating solutions and impregnations, and roofing material are suitable.
- As soon as the surface dries, lags are installed in the room. If you do not want to greatly change the height of the floors, then they can be attached to a concrete base. In another case, they can be raised and aligned using special studs.
- Between the lags, it is necessary to lay insulation material, drawn in by a film, which serves as protection against dust.
- Next (if you chose the first option), plywood sheets are laid on top of the lags. They must be fixed with self-tapping screws twisted into the logs in increments of 180 millimeters. It is important to ensure that the edge of each leaf is in the middle of the lag.
- After any of the previously presented methods, a parquet board is laid.
- If you chose the second option, then before attaching the coating to the logs (without plywood boards), you need to take care of purchasing special nails that are equipped with an anti-corrosion coating. Their size should be selected depending on the thickness of the parquet board used.
- Next, you need to lay out the coating across the lags.
- Each board is laid out across the lags. Further, from the crest side, nails are hammered. Drive them in at an angle of 45 degrees. The same rule applies to the use of screws. But only from the side of the groove.
- All that remains is to install the remaining flooring in the same way.
As you can see, self-assembly of a parquet board does not involve complex manipulations. Good luck!