carpet up, now what?

[dhe9]

hello,

have pulled the carpet up in my bambi. removed staples that affixed the carpet to the floor. my question is this, i still have staples that seem to be holding the plywood sheets side by side. staples are about 1 inch long and are stapled into both pieces of plywood. also i have large screw heads that i assume are holding the plywood to the frame. if i use glue down tiles won't the staples eventually come up through the vynal tiles?

looking for advice. also if i go with pergo floating floor, how do i cut the planks to fit around 90 degree angles?

as you can tell i know nothing of what i am doing.

thanks,
david
socal

[DEITZ645]

dhe9,
I cannot speak to your question about the self adhesive tiles, but I can provide advice on the floating floor. Take a look at this thread...

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f461...ter-41785.html

You can also do a google search like...

"floating floor site:www.airforums.com"

and you will find many threads.

Cutting and ripping planks to go around 90 degree corners is just a matter of making measurements and adding the necessary 3/8" to allow for expansion and contraction of the flooring material. Measure the distance you need to rip a plank and the distance you need to cross-cut it and lay it out in the plank. Make your cuts cloes to the intersection with a circular saw and finish the cut with a sabre saw. It is all pretty simple. You just need to take your time. And as my dear old dad always said..."measure twice...cut once." You could also make a tar paper template to get you close and trim in small increments until you get the plank to fit the way you want to.

[HowieE]

I can not think of any reason to install glue down tile in you trailer. Yes the staples and screw heads will show through. The tile will pop up in no time. You will see gaps between the tiles after a winter or 2.

If you install a floating floor it will be put down over a matting that will protect against the staples and screws.

[Ganglin]

An adhesive tile floor can be put down if your willing to properly prep the surface. You should not just put peel and stick tile down on raw wood and count on the tiles own adhesive only. I did them and they have held up fine because of the prep work.

With that said, I can't think of a good reason to put them down today either as Howie said (unless your after a strict vintage look). A few months after we put our flooring in Allure came out. I'm getting ready to install a large area of our house with it. The best part of Allure is when you get tired of it comes up easily and goes down the same.

[dhe9]

well allure it is then. having read some of these post it seems i need to put an underlayment on the floor. i assume home depot sells this and what should i look for in the underlayment? is there a brand or type i should use?

thanks again,

david
socal

[Ganglin]

In a trailer I wouldn't do underlayment (but that's me). I'd use premixed floor leveler from Home Depot, etc. - fill in the bolt head dents - skin over the large staples - fill in any large imperfections in the ply. Just make sure to pound down any staples you can feel above the floor surface.

This is their installation instructions:

[EarlRice]

I cannot stress how important it is to make sure there are no nails or staples protruding above the surface if you choose vinyl. Being that you had carpet installed you will need to be very tedious in making sure you get all of these out or pounded below the surface. I did this in my bathroom after pulling up carpet (don't ask me why the previous owners decided to install carpet in the bathroom - terrible choice in my opinion) and missed a nail head that was just barely protruding. Within a year it had popped up through the vinyl. I didn't really believe it would happen until I saw it. Note that I did use cheaper vinyl which probably accounts for a lot of this.