Floor panels installation
Before installing the floor panels make sure that the base surface is clean, dry, flat and sound. Suitable base surface is concrete, chipboard, plywood or an old wooden floor. To check the evenness of a base surface use minimum 2m long bar. If the unevenness of the base surface exceeds 2mm over 2m distance, you should flatten the surface by using suitable plaster or smooth by sanding. In new buildings you should spread 0.2mm thick insulation plastic on the concrete, overlapping the edges of each piece by at least 200mm. For sound insulation you should then lay for example, 2mm thick hollow polyurethane plastic, corrugated hardboard or cork onto the insulation plastic. You can use, for example Tuplex, where the humidity, levelling, and sound insulation functions are fulfilled by a single product. Separate humidity protection plastic or levelling material is not required.
Air humidity variations causes wooden floors to contract or expand. Therefore, during installation a gap of 10mm should be left between the floor and the walls. In the case of larger floor (wider than 6m) you should leave a 1.5 mm gap for each linear meter of the floor. For example, in case of an 8m wide floor you should leave 12mm gap between each wall and floor. Also you should leave the same gap at the junction of the floor with pipes, door thresholds, doorposts and columns. Where the floor joins another floor, this so-called breathing space should be left. Breathing space should also be left, if the width of the floor area is more than 12 m. To create this gap you should put wooden wedges to the side walls (between the floor and the wall). When the floor is installed, remove the wedges.
Usually you should mount the panels in line with the daylight (i.e., endways on to the window). However, if a wooden floor is being used as a base, the new flooring should be laid crossways to the existing floor.
While laying floor panels, make sure not to push too heavily on the new floor, because it can handicap allowed movement after installation. Finish off with plaster, but do not use silicon plaster.