Laminate is one of the most beautiful, demanded, modern and high quality floor coverings. Laminate is suitable both for residential apartments and for offices and other buildings of administrative and public purposes. Laminate floors delight the owners with an extremely aesthetic appearance, durability and strength. In addition, it is very pleasant to walk on the laminate barefoot. But before you can lay the laminate, you need to perform some preliminary procedures. It's about leveling the floor.

Leveling the floor: what is it for

Laminate is very demanding on the flatness of the surface on which it will be laid. The specificity of laminate boards is such that a completely flat floor is required for their correct connection and long-term quality service.

For all its advantages, laminate flooring has one drawback: it does not smooth out the existing unevenness in the floor, it needs a completely prepared and even field.

And if you nevertheless neglect this stage and lay the laminate on the floor that is available, what will happen? In this case, no matter how high-quality the laminate is and no matter how carefully you lay it, it will not please you with its beautiful appearance for a long time.

• Laminate panels will begin to sag under the weight of human weight if there are voids underneath as a result of laying on an embossed surface.
• The interpanel seams will begin to disperse to the sides, the inner surface of the laminate will be unprotected and thus moisture can freely penetrate to it. This will soon lead to delamination on the inside of the panel.
• The latching grip of laminate panels will not be able to cope with the unbearable load. Over time, the locks of the laminate will loosen, in severe cases they can crack.
• In particularly critical situations, if the laminate is laid on a floor that has very serious irregularities, it may swell or the panels themselves may crack.
• The panels will squeak when walking on the laminate.

All these signs can appear together or separately, but in any case, the appearance of the room and the laminate itself will be hopelessly damaged.

Therefore, the answer to the question whether it is really necessary to level the floor under the laminate flooring is unambiguous - only to level it and nothing else. There are many ways to accomplish this task.

The maximum permissible deviation from a perfectly flat surface is 2 millimeters.

Application of different materials

You can level the floor with different materials. The choice of material depends on several factors. Let's consider what properties the most popular leveling materials have and on what coatings they are recommended to be used.

This material can be used if you need to level a wooden floor. A good and uncomplicated option for budget repairs. The disadvantage of this method is that the putty often has to be applied in several layers, when the irregularities are deep and one layer is not enough. As a result, it is necessary to thoroughly dry each layer before applying the next one, which means a lot of time.

Putty is a budget option, but the leveling process using this material takes longer

A very popular material for leveling wooden floors. It is inexpensive, fits quickly and easily, covers all existing defects. You need to pay attention to a couple of nuances - do not use plywood sheets with exfoliated edges in your work and ensure the same level of humidity in the sheets and in the room itself.

Plywood is the most popular material for leveling wood floors.

It is used on concrete floors. It is good for initial leveling when it is required to close significant cracks, potholes, depressions in concrete and other noticeable flaws, but it is completely unsuitable for a finished floor, therefore another layer of mortar is poured over the screed - a thin one, which gives a smooth and perfectly flat surface. It has low thermal insulation properties, therefore, to make the concrete floor warm, you need to lay a substrate over the finishing coating. The disadvantages include the fact that the screed is very heavy and creates a large load on the concrete slabs.

Floor screed

It is used on concrete floors when final leveling work is to be done. Spills on its own over the entire surface of the floor, eliminates all minor flaws, and after drying gives a perfectly even coating. However, it is completely unsuitable for use on a very uneven concrete base, since it spreads out in a very thin layer, which will not be enough to fill all more or less noticeable irregularities.

A very popular material with many useful qualities. Expanded clay is very light, therefore, when using it, the load on the supporting and supporting structures will be minimal. At the same time, it has high strength and is able to serve for many years. Provides good sound insulation, does not support combustion (fireproof), environmentally friendly, chemically inert (does not enter into chemical reactions with other substances and materials, does not release anything into the environment). The floor, covered with expanded clay, is distinguished by heat-retaining qualities, with it you will never freeze. In addition, it is not afraid of rotting, fungus or mold, is universally available in any hardware store and has a low cost.

Expanded clay has excellent heat-retaining properties

Substrate

Used to level the floor and a material such as a substrate. The use of this material is advisable if the irregularities are no more than 4 millimeters. In this situation, it is impossible to lay the laminate directly on the floor, but at the same time it is too costly to carry out more thorough leveling work. In this case, the use of a substrate will be quite sufficient to achieve the required degree of relief leveling. Substrates come in several varieties:

• Cork;
• Cork-bituminous;
• Polyurethane foam;
• Polyethylene;
• Polypropylene foam.

For greater evenness, you can also lay the underlay on an already leveled floor. It is inexpensive and will not damage the owner's pocket, but it will provide a more reliable safety of the underside of the laminate panels.

Comparison table of materials

Material	pros	Minuses	What floors is used on
Inexpensive Simple workflow	Time consuming You need to dry each layer	Wooden
	Cheapness Ease and speed of laying Reliable concealment of all existing defects, regardless of their severity Environmentally friendly	Subject to burning Rotting Afraid of moisture	Wooden Concrete
	Fills large and deep floor imperfections well Inexpensive	Does not allow fine alignment Very heavy Poor heat retention	Concrete
	Perfectly smoothes small defects It is used for the final leveling of the floor. Uncomplicated workflow	Not suitable for leveling large depressions and drops in the floor	Concrete
	Very light Durable Good sound insulation Good thermal insulation Fireproof Environmentally friendly Chemically inert Does not give in to decay Low price		Concrete
Substrate	Cheapness (except for cork) Versatility (can be used on any kind of floor) Soundproofing Waterproofing	High cost of cork; Loss of elasticity over time in polyethylene Flammability, toxicity and limited service life of polypropylene foam (up to 10 years)	Any kind of floor

Step by step instructions

Concrete floor

Concrete flooring is very common in our homes and public buildings. And almost always, such a floor has more or less serious irregularities and other defects, including chips, cracks, flat drops, depressions in the form of shells, concrete influxes, potholes, crumbled and exfoliated areas. All of these defects must be corrected if you intend to install laminate flooring.

Leveling a concrete floor is carried out in two stages: first, the elimination of rough and large irregularities is done with the help of a cement-sand mortar (screed), and then a fine leveling is performed with a self-leveling mixture that fills all the smallest cracks, smoothes the slight relief resulting from the application of the previous solution, and gives semi-final perfect evenness.

If your floor is level enough, you can immediately use a self-leveling compound. But in this case, the original flooring should have minimal unevenness, since the layer of such a mixture is thin and does not eliminate serious defects.

Cement-sand screed

This is what the sequential workflow looks like when leveling a concrete base:

1. First of all, we remove all traces left from the previous coating from the concrete floor. We remove paint stains with solvents or drying oil, oil must be annealed.
2. To fill potholes and cracks, a cement-based working composition is used. Concrete build-ups are eliminated by means of a perforator, small ones can be left - they will be hidden with a screed.
3. The entire concrete surface is treated with a soil solution.
4. Then you need to decide on the height of the future screed layer. For this, a level is used, marks are made on the walls around the entire perimeter. In accordance with the level, we place the beacons (we use the slats for this), fixing them with a solution.
5. Next, a screed mortar is prepared, consisting of 75% sifted sand and 25% of cement grade M 400. The consistency of the mortar should be such as not to allow it to spread ahead of time.
6. The resulting solution is poured onto the floor and leveled in accordance with the beacons.
7. When the screed grabs, we remove the beacons-slats. The resulting holes are also filled with a solution, we give time to fully seize.

This completes the rough leveling of the floor.

When mixing the screed, pour the dry ingredient into the water, not pour it over with water.

If the solution has thickened, it must be discarded. A solution diluted with water loses its properties, such a screed becomes of poor quality.

Video: leveling the floor with a cement screed

Now comes the turn of the "jewelry" leveling of the concrete floor. Self-leveling mixture is a special solution that spreads over the floor and is optimally distributed so that the result is a completely flat and smooth surface.

Otherwise, such mixtures are called self-leveling, self-leveling floors, floor levelers, seamless polymer floors.

1. The mixture is prepared in strict accordance with the instructions, and then mixed with a construction mixer.
2. The concrete floor is poured with the prepared mixture.
3. If the room has a large area, the floor is divided into sections and each is poured in turn, but at the same time the whole room must be filled with the mixture at one time, that is, part of the room cannot be put off for the evening or the next day.
4. After pouring through the solution, you need to walk with a toothed roller so that no air bubbles remain in it.

Self-leveling mixtures look dry after an hour, but further work should be started after at least three days. It is prohibited to change the proportions of dry composition and water at your own discretion. Self-leveling mixes dry quickly, so you need to be precise and quick without rushing. The mixture should have a temperature of +10 degrees and above, and the same should be the temperature in the room.

Your floor is now ready for laminate installation, but you can also add underlayment for more comfort and safety of your laminate panels.

Video: leveling the floor with a self-leveling mixture

This method is quite simple to implement, but it cannot be called cheap. Expanded clay has many attractive properties, therefore, it is often preferred from all leveling materials. If you decide to level the floor under the expanded clay laminate, the sequence of your actions will be as follows.

1. Before laying expanded clay, the entire floor surface is covered with a film that provides a waterproofing effect. The film should be at least 10-15 centimeters on the walls.
2. Further, along the entire perimeter, an edging tape is placed, whose width should be equal to the height of the future expanded clay layer or exceed it.
3. Then sheets of superfloor, gypsum fiber board, chipboard or plywood are laid on expanded clay distributed over the area of ​​the entire room.
4. Each new sheet is attached to the already laid with special glue and self-tapping screws. It is necessary to observe a step of 10 to 15 centimeters.
5. It is also necessary to ensure that there are no cross seams, for which the sheets are stacked in a checkerboard pattern.
6. Superfloor sheets (gypsum fiber board, plywood) located near the walls should have a cut rebate. This is necessary in order to provide a double layer of material near the wall.
7. After the entire area of ​​the room is covered with a super floor, the substrate is laid, and a laminate is laid on it.

Video: leveling the floor with expanded clay

Wooden floor

Leveling a wooden floor under a laminate is both easier and more difficult than a concrete floor. It is easier because a wooden base is much easier to process than a concrete one; and it is more difficult because to date, no single universal method of leveling wooden floors has yet been invented. Different methods are used depending on the nuances of a particular wood flooring.

Leveling the floor with plywood before installing the laminate is a very good solution in terms of financial costs. This method is used when the wood floor has many different defects. When choosing this leveling method, keep in mind that the moisture level in the plywood sheets and in the room where the laminate is planned to be laid should be the same. This is achieved by wetting the plywood with plain water, after which you need to leave the sheets to dry in this room.

Before starting work on leveling, it is necessary to carefully check the condition of utilities running under the floor; at the same time, the insulation also needs to be checked. These works are carried out in advance, because after the laminate is laid, it will be very difficult to get to the communications. Also, do not forget that air must circulate freely under the laminate boards. Plywood sheets intended for leveling should be no more than 50 mm thick.

To successfully level the floor with plywood, you should have a screwdriver, self-tapping screws, a laser level, PVA glue and plywood sheets at hand.

First of all, you need to install beacons, for which simple self-tapping screws are used. We screw them all over the floor, observing the required height. The frequency of the beacons depends on the thickness of the plywood: the thinner the sheets, the more often beacons should be installed, and vice versa.

Further steps:

1. To install the lags, you will need plywood strips, slats or boards, whose thickness is about 3 cm. They are fastened with a special glue for wooden parts or self-tapping screws. Sometimes there are gaps between the logs and the old flooring, they need to be filled with pieces of plywood, smeared with glue. Pieces are prepared in advance.
2. For greater convenience, it is better to cut plywood into square sheets of 60 square meters. centimeters. At the same time, try not to allow delamination of the edges of the resulting squares. If the edge is delaminated, it is not recommended to use this square, it is better to take another one.
3. Then the entire surface should be cleaned of dust and dirt - both that have already been here before, and that formed as a result of these manipulations.
4. Plywood squares should be placed on the logs only after all the glue is completely dry. When laying plywood, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that the sheets are joined strictly on the logs, and also to prevent the simultaneous joining of four sheets at the seams.
5. After that, all the necessary protrusions, arches and other holes are cut.
6. Now comes the turn of self-tapping screws with an invisible head - with their help, plywood sheets are fixed on the logs.

To avoid bulging self-tapping caps, you need to take care of this in advance. To do this, we drill and countersink the places of their future location.

Please note that the plywood sheets should not be placed close to each other. There should be a distance of several millimeters between them so that temperature fluctuations do not cause their deformations.

Putty

Another budget way to level the floor for laying laminate flooring. Using a mixture of sawdust and PVA-based putty, you can level a room with a fairly large footage, spending very little.

First of all, you need to prepare the floor by cleaning it. The sawdust that will be involved in the leveling process should be moistened so that they do not dry out too quickly, otherwise they will draw moisture from the putty. The sequence of actions when leveling the floor with a putty compound mixed with sawdust looks like this.

1. Using a level on the floor, you need to fill beacons - ordinary wooden slats.
2. Then the space between the slats is filled with a mixture of PVA putty and sawdust. In the event that one layer is not enough to level the existing depressions, several layers are applied, each of which must be given time to dry completely. The thickness of each such layer is a maximum of 20 millimeters. In no case should a new layer be poured if the old one is not completely dry.
3. In the process of work, the horizontalness of the resulting surface must be constantly checked with a level.

For all its economy and simplicity of execution, this method takes a lot of time, which is associated with the obligatory drying of each layer.

A wooden sub-floor can also be looped, a quick and easy way. Cycling works are carried out using a scraper, but hard-to-reach places can be processed with a manual scraper. They resort to scraping when the condition of the original floor is good enough and the boards do not have serious irregularities. The scraper is not able to remove the pronounced relief of the floor, but it will cope with minor defects perfectly. This method is suitable for both hardwood and hardwood floors.

Before starting the shuffling process, all furniture, paintings, a chandelier and other interior elements are removed from the room. If something cannot be taken out, these items are covered with a film, the edges of the film are fixed with tape. The entrance door to the premises is removed, because the floor on this site also needs repair. To prevent debris from getting into the corridor or adjacent rooms, you need to seal the doorway with plastic. Remember to open windows to ensure adequate ventilation.

The floor is examined for various defects. Found chips, cracks are putty. The empty spaces between the floorboards are also putty or filled with sawdust. If individual boards are in very poor condition, they must be replaced with new ones. You should also make sure the nails are deep enough into the floor. If the hats do protrude, you need to use a doboiner and deepen them.

A wire brush will help remove old varnish or paint. After brushing, the floor is roughened with a roughing machine to consolidate the effect and permanently remove paint and varnish residues. You can also wipe the floors with mineral spirits. Then the floor must be thoroughly washed. This can be done with plain water or alcohol solution. Do not skimp on water - all garbage to the last speck must be removed. Allow the boards to dry after washing, so do not start the following work if the floor is not completely dry.

Take care of personal protective equipment. Cycling produces a lot of dust and noise, so you will need a respirator (there will be little use from an ordinary cotton-gauze bandage), goggles, tight clothing with a closed collar and long sleeves is also desirable. Good construction headphones or at least earplugs will help with noise. In addition, the scraper produces quite perceptible vibrations, which will require special gloves to damp. However, you can use regular thick mittens instead.

Handling the cycler requires some skill: it has a lot of power, and during operation you will constantly feel that the machine is trying to break out of your hands.

So, all the preparatory activities have been completed, and now you go directly to the looping. The sequence of work looks like this:

1. Load the scraper with coarse sandpaper and turn it on. The cycle process is started by filling the machine with coarse-grained belts; before each successive layer, the graininess decreases.
2. Start looping from a corner, gently working your way in a straight line towards the opposite wall.
3. When you reach the wall, turn around and start moving back. You must shift in such a way as to capture the untreated space. Your movements around the room will resemble a snake.
4. Each new strip of flooring is processed slightly overlapping the already treated area.
5. It is best to keep the cord from the machine on your shoulder during looping - this way you will prevent it from falling under the machine.
6. In the process, do not forget to follow the sandpaper. If the area is large, then the tape will probably wear off before the room has been passed to the end, and it will have to be changed.
7. Also, sandpaper needs to be cleaned during scrapping. You can clean it by brushing it with a broom or rag. The dust container also needs to be checked and cleaned.
8. Having completely passed the entire area of ​​the room and are going to start cycling a new layer, keep in mind that each time the layers are executed perpendicular to the previous one.
9. During the last stage, move parallel to the laid boards.

If the belts at the beginning of work roughly smooth out uneven areas and remove the remaining paint, then the fine-grained belts carefully grind the surface before the end of the scraping process, giving it a smoothness and shine.

After completion, the floor needs to be thoroughly swept or, even better, use a vacuum cleaner. The final touch is the processing with white spirit. The scrapped floor has sufficient flatness and allows you to safely cover it with laminate. But for greater evenness, softness and neutralization of possible microroughnesses, it will not be superfluous to additionally lay a substrate under the laminate.

Video: leveling the floor by scraping

So, as we can see, it is by no means possible to neglect the leveling of the floors before starting to lay the laminate. The service life of your laminate flooring will depend on the quality of the procedure and the correctly selected materials, which means your nerves, cleanliness and comfort in the house, ideal evenness of floors and good mood of all household members. Spend a couple of days doing this and enjoy a great renovation for many years!

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The floor covering made of laminated pressed panels can last for ten years, even without cosmetic maintenance and repairs, but on one condition - the base for the laminate must be properly aligned in the horizontal plane with the highest possible accuracy before the installation process begins. Leveling the floor under the laminate will take several days, but you should not rush, in this case the rush can be much more expensive.

Methods for leveling the base for laying laminate

Leveling or leveling the plane of the floor, in fact, is one of the most time-consuming and painstaking stages of laying a laminate. Before deciding how to level the floor under the laminate, it should be remembered that the laminate itself is just thin laminated fiber boards, it depends on how accurately the load is transferred to the concrete or wooden base, whether the locks disperse and whether gaps appear. in freshly laid flooring.

You can level the floor for laying the laminate in one of the classic ways:

• Laying an auxiliary or sub-floor made of gypsum fiber boards, plywood or OSB;
• Execution of a concrete or dry screed on the treated surface of the base;
• With the help of a self-leveling self-leveling compound.

For your information! The main task of leveling the floor is to eliminate the trim or slope of the base for the installation of the future laminate.

Otherwise, the floor covering from the laid laminate will gradually slide under one side over time, which will lead to the opening of the locks and swelling of the lamellas. Large cones and humps on the concrete surface or plank floor must be cut off, the small change is partially compensated by the soft substrate.

The leveling technology largely depends on the type of floor on which the coating is supposed to be installed. The most time consuming process is the preparation of a wooden plank floor. Sometimes it takes more time to find the best way of how to level a wooden floor under a laminate than it takes to lay the coating itself.

An easy way to level the surface of a wooden floor

In very rare cases, the surface of the plank floor can be used directly for laying laminate boards. Even a freshly laid wooden floor always "plays" on the logs, has an imperfectly flat surface, and most often, in the process of recruiting natural moisture, the logs and boards were deformed, which led to a deviation from the original position.

The easiest way to level a wooden floor is in the following sequence:

1. The gaps between the boards are closed so that none of the boards is suspended;
2. The surface is trimmed and sanded so as to remove the curvature and bring it as close as possible to the horizontal position;
3. The subfloor is laid from OSB boards or plywood.

Advice! Many craftsmen try to level the wooden floor by continuous grinding of the surface in the manner of parquet scraping, without further laying the subfloor.

In this way, you can level a good quality plank floor with an ideal horizon, while for trimming the surface you need a professional sander with in-line horizontal level control. In addition, in such cases it will be necessary to install a special leveling underlay under the cork laminate flooring.

Conventional grinding will still not work perfectly to align the boards horizontally, therefore, in order not to weaken the floor, the most protruding edges of the joints and parts adjacent to the walls are cut off with a grinder. Next, the sanded parts are painted with a protective compound, and the sub-floor slabs are laid.

Ways to level a concrete floor for laying laminate

The technology for laying laminate flooring was originally developed exclusively for laying on a prepared concrete surface. Therefore, if the concrete does not have obvious defects in the form of a littered horizon, it is easiest to level such a floor by grinding, pouring or laying rough and intermediate coatings. But, before leveling the floor under the laminate without screed, it is necessary to carry out a control measurement to make sure the exact geometry of the concrete surface.

Pre-concrete is carefully trimmed and cleaned of humps and bumps visible to the eye, debris and dust are removed. After that, the highest point of the surface is determined, and a horizon line is drawn from it with the help of a building level along the perimeter of the side walls. If the difference in the height of the sanded floor does not exceed 2 mm, you can lay the self-leveling underlay and proceed with the installation of the laminate.

Otherwise, the floor under the laminate will have to be leveled with a screed, filling or filling with insulation.

Leveling the floor by pouring a barrier layer

It is easier and faster to level a concrete floor under a laminate using a concrete screed or pouring with self-leveling mixtures. Alignment technologies are similar in many ways, but there are nuances and peculiarities. The most difficult stage in both cases is the installation of beacons or profiles, along which the top layer of filling or screed is formed under the laminate.

Before arranging the screed, the concrete floor is laid with rolled waterproofing, with an overlap of the panels by at least 10-12 cm. The joints are glued with mastic, and the edges of the insulation around the perimeter of the room are lifted and overlapped onto the wall, to a height equal to the double thickness of the future screed. The perimeter of the room and the concrete surface under the waterproofing overlaps can be additionally primed.

After waterproofing, you will need to install, level on the walls and fix the profile beacons with alabaster. To prevent cracking of the surface, the screed is always reinforced with a thin reinforcing mesh. For the screed, concrete is prepared based on M500 cement with washed sand, in a ratio of 1: 3 and the addition of surfactants in an amount of 20 g per 10 liters of water.

When forming the screed, the concrete mixture is gradually poured onto the moistened floor and pulled out with a rail - usually from the far corner towards the entrance to the room. The first layer of concrete is rough, after laying it is lightly tamped to improve adhesion to the base of the floor. The second layer is more liquid, a polyvinyl acetate emulsion is added to the concrete so that the surface on which the laminate will be laid is as smooth and even as possible.

Self-leveling solutions are poured in two layers. The first layer is required in order to level and compensate for all defects and gaps in the concrete floor. Before pouring, beacons are installed in the form of pin chips.

The dry mixture is diluted with water according to the recipe and mixed intensively using an electric mixer. It is necessary to mix quickly and efficiently, as the water binds, the mass of the solution gains a large number of air bubbles, becomes quite liquid and fluid. The surface is poured with a self-leveling mixture and promptly leveled with a special tool in order to quickly remove the bulk of the near-surface bubbles.

The solution has the consistency of a thick jelly, but hardens rather quickly. Filling with the second layer must be carried out with a time interval of no more than 10 minutes, otherwise the separation of the base under the laminate cannot be avoided, even with a small load.

The self-leveling material gains its final working strength after two days. At this time, the floor under the future laminate must be covered with a film from drafts and sunlight.

Backfill screed for laying laminate

You can level the floor for the installation of the laminate using a subfloor made of OSB or gypsum fiber boards laid on a layer of expanded clay. The technology allows you to get a leveled floor under the laminate in just one working day.

Initially, you will need to lay the waterproofing and install the mounting profile rails, which will serve as beacons. The distance between the slats is maintained within 35-40 cm. The space between the profiles is covered with expanded clay, leveling the filled layer. Next, two layers of OSB boards are laid on the glue so that the joints of the layers are spaced to the maximum distance. Thus, you get a warm and hard floor under the laminate. The joints between the slabs are sealed with acrylic putty for wood and after 3-4 hours they are smoothed with an emery cloth.

You can also level the surface for laying the laminate using thick sheets of plywood and wooden logs, laid directly on the primed concrete floor. In this case, the distance between the lag beams is reduced to 15-20 cm, and each of the lags must be leveled and fixed with self-tapping screws to a board stuffed along the perimeter of the wall.

Conclusion

The best way to level the floor for installing laminate flooring is to use self-leveling and bulk bases. In this case, the subfloor is light and strong, and the supporting surface has the ability to redistribute the load, which only increases the durability of the laminate flooring.

Laminate is one of the most popular floor coverings today. It is not cheap. Therefore, it is a shame when the new coating cracks or squeaks unpleasantly or locks disperse. And the reason for this trouble can be an uneven floor. In this article we will tell you about the laminate flooring in the apartment with our own hands.

When laying laminate flooring, you need to level it carefully. If you are in doubt about whether you need to level the floor in your apartment, we advise you to take some measurements. Take a ruler and walk with it the area of ​​your room, checking for a gap between the ruler and the floor. If the gap is more than 2 mm, alignment is necessary. Also, if, while checking with a building level, you see height differences of more than 2 mm, this floor also requires leveling.

In the event that you and it are supposed to, you need to check the strength of the floor. Rotten and sagging boards will need to be replaced. The laminate surface must be perfectly smooth. Therefore, you still need to process it with a grinder so that there are no protrusions and irregularities left. If you intend to leave old linoleum under the laminate, you do not have to do anything.

Advice! It is advisable not to use chipboard sheets for leveling. It must be remembered that this material does not have a sufficient level of environmental friendliness and, during operation, emits formaldehydes.

Concrete floor

To level an uneven concrete floor, you will need to make a screed. The works are carried out in the following order.

1. First, you need to remove all the coating to clean concrete.
2. We check how wet the floor is, examine it for irregularities, voids, cracks. Only after that we purchase materials.
3. We are priming.
4. We prepare a rough base - we seal cracks and holes with a dry mixture.
5. With the help we give the floor horizontality. We install special beacons that indicate the level of the screed height. Then we make a cement-sand mortar and apply it, leveling it using a building level. For a standard room with a wall length of 3-4 meters, two beacons are enough (the main thing is that there are enough rules for leveling the solution between them). The thickness of the layer at the thinnest point should not be less than 7 mm.
6. After the layer of cement mortar has dried, the primer is repeated.
7. Fill in the self-leveling mixture. After that, the room is closed until completely dry for at least a day.
8. We do hydro and.

You can use only concrete screed or only. In this case, the thickness of the layer must correspond to the requirement of a perfectly flat surface. Laminate screed is a common way to level the floor.

Note! Beacons can serve as drywall guides, which are sold in a hardware store. They are spaced 60-80 cm apart. If it is necessary to correct their position, pieces of plywood and boards are placed.

It is not recommended to put fiberboard or other moisture-absorbing materials under the beacons for leveling, otherwise there is a risk of concrete destruction. It is best to use metal or plastic.

Features of a wooden floor

A wooden floor, the boards of which have been repaired, replaced with unusable floorboards, sanded, as mentioned above, does not require special preparation, if it is sufficiently flat. If he still needs to carry out such work, you can put additional sheets of plywood.

How to level a plank floor that is badly damaged or rotted is not worth thinking up. The best option would be to rip it off altogether and make a thorough leveling with a concrete screed or dry screed.

To level the wooden floor with your own hands under the laminate, you can use special cement-bonded particle boards (DSP), which greatly simplify the procedure. In this case, there is no need to install beacons, since there is already a wooden base for the floor. DSP is laid out on it, cut to fit the size of the room, and fastened to wooden planks with self-tapping screws. The cracks are sealed with a rotband. The level checks how flat the base is.

Advice! Remember that when making a tie, you raise the floor level and you will have to change the position of the doors. Therefore, calculate in advance the height of the screed and provide for changes in the doorway.

Modern materials for leveling

Floor leveling mortar can be made using the old proven method by mixing cement and sand. However, modern building technologies have brought into our everyday life comfortable mixtures that have not only remarkable bonding properties, but also heat-insulating and sound-insulating ones. Laying the leveling floor from a ready-made special mixture is greatly facilitated.

Before deciding what is the best way to level the floor, you need to familiarize yourself with the list of commercially available building mixes and choose the right one. Basically, the main dry mixes are made from cement, quartz sand, modifying additives. There are special leveling compounds for wood floors and concrete surfaces. In addition to them, the mixture is:

• priming - for the preparation of a concrete surface,
• repair - for sealing serious defects,
• sealing - a leveling compound for sealing cracks and holes.

If you want to speed up the hardening process of the solution and improve its properties, you can purchase a special plasticizer at the store.

Leveling the floor with your own hands

At first glance, this seems like a complex process that only professionals can perform. In fact, knowing the basic rules of how to level the floor in an apartment, it is quite possible to do such work yourself. To do this, you need to have some knowledge of the modern range of building materials, tools and desire. The main skills you will need:

• place beacons for the screed,
• be able to prepare the correct mixture.

From the tools for creating a concrete screed, you need to buy:

• construction beacons,
• level,
• usually
• mixer for mixing solution,
• utensils for kneading.

If you are interested in how to level quickly, it should be said that it depends on the size of the surface irregularities. Small irregularities: if the distortions are not more than 1-2 cm, only a self-leveling mixture can be used for the concrete floor. This will turn out faster than a full-fledged screed.

And if a floating method of fastening is chosen for laying the laminate and floor differences are less than 5 mm, it is enough to lay a film for vapor barrier and a soft substrate. This will be the fastest way.

Having identified large irregularities, put a laser level on the highest point of the floor and mark the alignment line along which the mortar is to be poured. If there is no laser level, but there is a construction level, another method is used. We mark from the highest point of the floor 5-6 cm up the wall.

Then, parallel to the floor, we apply a rail to the mark, level it with a level and transfer the mark to the parallel wall. We do this around the entire perimeter of the room. We stretch the ropes along the marks, we get the plane along which the alignment should take place. Then, according to the instructions above, perform floor leveling work in one of the ways.

Before carrying out work on leveling the floor, it is advisable to enlist help, since it is difficult for one to prepare a concrete floor for a laminate.

How to prepare a solution

1. Take a container for mixing the solution of at least 20 liters.
2. The mixture is poured at the rate of 5 kg of the mixture 1 liter of water.
3. The solution is mixed with a mixer or spatula for 5-7 minutes.
4. Let the solution stand for 1-2 minutes and stir again.

To get a good homogeneous mixture, it is necessary to pour the dry part into the water, and not vice versa. Thus, using the above recommendations, you can independently carry out expensive floor leveling work. As you can see, they do not require special skills, but only your physical strength and desire.

Hard, clean, dry and necessarily even - these are the requirements that apply to the substrate for laying laminate flooring. Unfortunately, despite the numerous efforts of manufacturers, many craftsmen still do not know how much it is necessary to level the floor under the laminate.

According to the requirements of all manufacturers of hard flooring, including laminate and parquet board, the bearing layer must comply with the instructions and SP 29.13330.2011 / SNiP 2.03.13-88. In particular, the basis must be:

• Tough and durable. That is, the floor should not bend or collapse with an effort of 15 MPa or more.
• Clean - dust-free, free from traces of bitumen, glue, old paint and varnish and other coatings, soot, etc.
• Dry. For cement-sand and concrete screeds, the residual moisture coefficient should not exceed 5%, anhydrite - 1.5%, wood and wood-containing - 12%. Subject to the above indicators, changes in the geometric dimensions of the subfloors are minimal. Even with sudden changes in temperature and humidity.
• Smooth and monolithic. The permissible level of unevenness is no more than 2 mm for every 2 meters of the surface. The base must be virtually smooth, without pits or bumps, sagging or cracks.

Checking the flatness of the base.

As practice shows, it is the last condition that is most often violated. It is not difficult to check the evenness of mineral and wood floors. It is much more difficult to correct the flaw. But why level the floor in an apartment, house, office or store under the laminate? The answer is simple - for a durable coating. Any defects under the flooring are a source of constant squeaking, crunching and crackling, as well as the rapid destruction of locks and slabs.

Manufacturers of building and finishing materials have developed many optimal schemes for eliminating irregularities, dips, drops, distortions, cracks and other defects in the base. Namely:

The advantage of mineral screeds is high compressive and shear strength, improved density. In addition, they can be used in rooms with normal and high humidity in combination with waterproofing materials. The layer thickness varies from 1 to 100 mm, that is, this series is suitable for eliminating both minor irregularities and significant differences. The disadvantages are a decent mass (with the exception of perlite-based, etc.), a laborious process and a long drying period - from 7 to 28 days.

Prefabricated bearing layers allow you to level the floor under the laminate with your own hands in 1-3 days. This is the most convenient and fastest way to eliminate the imperfections of the base with a layer of 20 mm or more. The finished dry screed weighs much less than the mineral one, and the finishing material can be laid immediately, without a technological break of 2-5 weeks. The downside is that this type of roughing is not recommended for wet rooms, moreover, the strength does not exceed 15 MPa.

It would be useful to mention sound insulation. The laminated flooring is laid in a "floating" way, that is, without bonding to the base. For this and some other reasons, floor material resonates with shock and airborne (sound) noises. Therefore, it is recommended to lay a noise-scattering or noise-suppressing layer of vibroacoustic membranes, elastic polymer plates, fibrous mats, frame systems with gypsum fiber board and other similar materials under a solid or prefabricated screed. The range of such products for the floor is wide; it is better to entrust the selection of the optimal option to a specialist.

Leveling the concrete floor

The concrete base is universal. You can work on it with any existing composition or complex. Therefore, depending on the type of defects, the following alignment techniques are used:

Grinding

If the surface has slight bumps, sagging, drops, then you can choose the fastest but dusty way of smoothing - grinding. To do this, use sandpaper on a hand grater or professional grinders, often complete with construction vacuum cleaners.

The units can be rented, but the components (abrasive wheels, nozzle cups for stone and concrete, a respirator, goggles) will have to be bought. Or hire specialists with their own equipment.

Partial leveling with repair mortars

To seal cracks, potholes, local recesses, as well as to create slopes on balconies or terraces, it is not necessary to re-form a thin or medium-layer screed. Use a special compound called repair. These are dry mixes based on cement / gypsum binder, ready-made pastes or polymer filling compounds, the main difference of which is in the following properties:

• fast set of strength;
• small processing area or layer thickness;
• short drying time - from 1 hour to 3 days.

When choosing products, keep in mind that the compositions are universal (for indoor and outdoor use) and are intended exclusively for indoor use. According to manufacturers, they are suitable for any topcoat in residential and commercial buildings.

Concrete screed

Under the screed layer is meant the upper part of the subfloor structure, on which absolutely any topcoat is mounted, from ceramics to laminate. The screed is designed for:

• creating an even, as smooth surface as possible;
• ensuring the static and dynamic strength of the structure;
• uniform distribution of deformation loads on the underlying layers or supports;
• formation of the required slopes.

Mineral screeds are characterized by the same density of the entire layer and compressive strength from 150 kg / cm² and more. The surface should not have cracks, sagging, chips and other defects. The thickness varies from 3 to 10 cm, depending on specific conditions (type of base base, availability of communications or floor heating systems, type of reinforcement, etc.).

Screed layers are made from:

• industrial dry mixes. Convenient to use ready-made DSP, packaged in bags of 25-50 kg. Can be closed with water or polymer dispersions.
• self-made cement-sand mortar. To do this, you will need cement of a brand not lower than M400, fine-grained quartz sand in an approximate proportion of 1: 3 (by weight). Pure water is added to the composition, approximately 0.45 or 0.55 liters per 1 kg of binder. The finished mass should be homogeneous, gray, grade not less than 150-200.
• concrete. Foam concretes of a category not lower than B3.5 (ρ = 600-1000 kg / m³) are used, light masses like expanded clay concrete, perlite concrete of a class not lower than 5.0 (ρ≥1300 kg / m³), ​​as well as standard concrete of class B15 (corresponds to M200) ... Screeds made of cellular and lightweight concrete masses are distinguished by their porosity and high thermal insulation properties. In contrast, classic concrete gives less shrinkage and a more durable layer.

Mineral floor screed is formed in 5 stages:

The optimum drying time for the screed is at least 28 days, regardless of the layer thickness.

Self-leveling floors

They are dry industrial mixtures consisting of a binder, fillers, modifying additives. They are produced in a wide range and include:

• Thin-layer equalizers, working in a layer from 0 to 30 mm. They are characterized by a high degree of spreading and a minimum drying time - up to 5 days;
• Finishing thin and medium-layer compounds designed to form a smooth and even floor up to 60 mm thick for laying laminate, parquet, linoleum. Drying period - up to 14 days;
• Basic or universal mixtures for primary leveling up to 100 mm. They are used both indoors and outdoors. After 14-21 days, the surface is ready for laminate installation.

For weak load-bearing structures, lightweight mixtures are produced in which the quartz filler is replaced by crushed perlite, expanded clay, etc.

It is not difficult to form a floor from self-leveling compounds: the mixture must be sealed with water, applied as quickly as possible manually or mechanically on the prepared base, slightly leveled and rolled with a needle roller for deaeration.

Rough self-leveling mixtures are often confused with self-leveling decorative floors. The former are dry compositions based on cement or gypsum, the latter are polymer (polyurethane, epoxy, methyl methacrylate) liquid or semi-liquid compositions intended for the formation of so-called 3D coatings.

In fact, this is a prefabricated flooring made of durable sheet materials, fixed to the concrete floor with self-tapping screws or on a frame support. Such constructions are irreplaceable if:

• Avoid wet processes;
• It is necessary to speed up the production of work;
• It is required to significantly raise the level of the carrier layer (adjustable floors) or smooth out the drops.

There are many design options. Let's list the main ones:

Bulk

This is a structure, the lower layer of which is a backfill of expanded clay, expanded perlite mass, quartz or silica sand, fine-grained slag and other inorganic bulk materials with a maximum modulus of grain size of 2-5 mm, moisture content no more than 1%. Instead of a nonmetallic filler, you can use tightly packed EPS boards, mineral wool or foam (PSB-35 or 50).

Dry screed on a loose basis.

The top layer is formed from durable sheets of gypsum fiber board, chipboard, OSB or plywood. It is best to use Knauf-Superfloor with a 50 mm mounting rebate, QuickDeck tongue-and-groove chipboard, etc.

The minimum thickness of the backfill screed is 40 mm, and the maximum thickness is 100 mm. This type of sub-floor is suitable for both slab and joist floors (monolithic, prefabricated, etc.).

Wireframe

In fact, this is the well-known floor on the logs. On the concrete base, wooden slats or metal profiles are installed at the level with an interval of no more than 40-50 cm, insulation is placed in the "windows" if desired. Sheets of plywood, chipboard and other similar materials are fixed on top of the frame.

Adjustable

The floor is laborious in execution, but useful for new construction or renovation. Wooden logs or plywood sheets rest on threaded fastening and supporting elements screwed into them: rack rods, rack bolts, anchors, etc. The position of the supports in height varies due to the rotation of the bolt around its axis. The level of the rack is fixed with a dowel-nail or a special stop that does not allow the structure setting to go astray.

Adjustable floor principle.

Hard

This is the simplest carrier layer in execution, allowing to level the concrete base and increase its thermal insulation properties. On the cleaned and primed floor, using hardware, "liquid nails" or polymer glue, sheets of plywood, gypsum fiber board, chipboard and other similar materials are fixed in 1-2 layers. The optimum thickness of the flooring is 12-24 mm.

The choice of the method depends on the financial capabilities and the condition of the base concrete base. It is best to invite a specialist who will determine the necessary parameters and propose options for eliminating deficiencies with a detailed cost estimate.

How to level a wooden floor

If you plan to install laminated parquet on a boardwalk, then you need to check each plank. Floor elements must sit firmly, evenly and tightly to each other. A foundation that meets these criteria does not need additional preparation.

But if there are noticeable differences, irregularities and other disadvantages, then the following technologies are used for alignment:

Any of the above leveling methods allows you to create a flat, strong and reliable base under the laminate flooring. Of course, some skills and knowledge are required to work, so if you are not confident in your abilities, contact the professionals.

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Laminate is an unpretentious material, and it can be laid on almost any surface. The main thing is that it is prepared - the floor must be flat so that the laminate does not deform during operation. Thus, the preparation of the floor for the laminate is precise.

How to level a concrete floor under a laminate

It can be arranged in apartments, the floors of which are made of reinforced concrete slabs. It allows you to get an almost perfectly flat surface. The leveling of the concrete floor is carried out in two main stages. At the moment, the development of building technologies is truly rapid, and therefore today, instead of the traditional screed device, surface preparation and leveling is carried out using special mixtures called self-leveling floors. Despite this, the laying technologies have remained practically the same.

Instructions

Let's consider the process of preparing a floor for a laminate in more detail.

Stage one

At the first stage, a rough, so to speak, rough alignment is carried out. The mixture applied at this stage makes up most of the thickness of the entire screed. To carry out this procedure, mixtures with large fractions of components are used. If there is peeling or weak concrete, cement or carpet glue, remnants of previous coatings on the floor surface, then they must be removed and the surface cleaned. Otherwise, the prepared floor will have air bubbles, which will significantly impair the adhesion of the base mixture and leveling mixtures.

The work on rough alignment itself is carried out as follows:

Mark the desired thickness of the screed using a level

The required thickness of the screed is marked along the perimeter of the room to be prepared, using a level.

Making bases for beacon rails

Slides of concrete mortar are created. A system of lighthouse rails is installed on these slides according to the level.

Installation of lighthouse rails

After that, the cement slurry is prepared. It consists of seventy-five percent of sifted sand and twenty-five percent of M-400 grade cement. Using a drill, which is equipped with a special nozzle, the solution is mixed in a suitable clean container.

We mix the cement mortar for the screed

Please note that when preparing a self-leveling mixture, the dry component is poured into the water. We recommend using the prepared mixture immediately, as dilution of the thickened mixture with water is unacceptable. We also recommend paying attention to the shelf life of the mixture intended for arranging the screed. It can be limited.

Focusing on the lighthouse slats, we fill the screed.

Pouring solution

After that, we level it, relying on the ends of the rule on the lighthouse rails.

Beacon alignment

When mixing and pouring a cement mixture, air bubbles are often formed in it. They need to be removed. For this, the screed is rolled with a needle roller.

Needle roller for self-leveling floor

If the floors are made of in-situ concrete, be aware that they are very absorbent. Therefore, it is recommended to treat such floors two times. To obtain a level surface, be sure to mark a horizontal level. The base is poured only after the installation of the beacons.

Stage two

After the rough leveling, the final leveling of the floor is carried out. To do this, the sub-layer must dry completely. Fine-grained mixtures are used for finishing leveling. These mixtures have a liquid consistency and are applied in extremely thin layers, spreading almost evenly over the floor surface and creating an almost perfectly smooth and even surface.

Finishing leveling of the concrete floor

Leveling wooden floors under laminate

Wooden base

Leveling old wooden floors is somewhat more laborious than leveling concrete floors. One solution is to completely remove the old wood flooring, but this process will be quite laborious and expensive. As a rule, in some places the boards protrude, in others, on the contrary, they sag. Read about here. Let's consider other methods.

Cycling

This method will not completely solve the problem, but if you need to quickly level the floor, it is quite acceptable. Scraping is carried out by means of a scraper and a hand scraper (in hard-to-reach places).

Scraping the wood floor

The scraper quickly cuts off the top layer of the wooden floor, and allows you to get a fairly even coating in a short period of time. As a rule of thumb, when scraping, no new coating is applied to the old floor; instead, the floor is covered with several coats of varnish on top.

Use of plywood and chipboard

This option is practically optimal and inexpensive. Chipboard or plywood is laid on the old wooden floor. The optimum thickness is twelve millimeters. To improve the thermal insulation properties, we recommend placing them under the layer of these materials. Since plywood or chipboard can sag, a good, reliable support system will need to be set up. Beacons are installed on self-tapping screws, lags are installed on beacons.

Self-tapping screws with a countersunk head are used to fix the plywood. This technology has one drawback - it will raise the floor. But this is not so scary, since the maximum lifting height is only three centimeters.

If the room has high ceilings, it is possible to use special floor systems equipped with adjustable joists. In this case, the floor can rise up to ten centimeters.

Laying of the polyethylene foam underlay under the laminate.

Now you know how to level the floor under the laminate. If you follow all the instructions in this article, you will get an excellent laminate flooring that will last a very long time.