VINYL FLOORING Installation A-Z (Beginner Friendly)

What's going on guys today we're going to be going over how to install vinyl flooring from start to finish. Let's go. All right so first things first you're going to want to remove any of the old flooring and or level everything to make sure that the vinyl is going to fit nice and flat. There was carpet over this old hardwood which I pulled up popped out all the staples and over here I have a floor scraper. I got this 100% waterproof rigid core flooring picked it up from Home Depot and it has the underlayment attached. Now if it doesn't have the underlayment attached you're going to have to buy some sort of underlayment to put below the flooring or else it's going to be very rough feeling but this stuff has it attached which I like. I use this in the remodel project as well and it looks very good. All right guys so first what you're going to want to do is to measure your floors make sure everything is close to square if not you're going to have to cut an off piece that's angled at the end but unfortunately that's the only way to remedy that problem if you run into that. Now as far as which way you're going to lay the flooring this way or this way in this house particularly it's going to make sense going this way but you can do it either it's personal preference for the most part sometimes it makes sense functionally but a lot of the times it's personal preference on which way you want to lay the flooring to get the look that you want right. Okay so we got the floors measured we got our flooring when you purchase the flooring make sure you get about an extra hundred square feet all right because you're going to have to cut flooring at the end you're going to have to cut it for corners angles whatever you run into. Now when we start out we're going to be using these shims this is to alleviate any problems in the floor bowing from expansion because when you put the floor down eventually it's going to expand and if it's butted right up against the drywall that's going to cause the floor to bow so what we want to do is get these shims you can pick them up at your local construction store and it's three quarters of an inch from the wall so you're going to put these shims on where this floor sits which I'll show you in a minute. So now we're ready to do our first row. Now before we dive too deep into this I'm just going to give you guys a before shot of everything this is the area we're covering this is very simple going to be a little bit more technical here with the angle and going under the doors then we also got this room in the closet. First row is going in I got my shims taped to the wall so they don't move and I'm going to install it with the tongue right here the tongue is the part that sticks out a little bit further the tongue is the first piece that comes out because then the grooves going to fit very nicely right into it one hand there you go. Now I'm going to have to cut this to stagger the boards you can do a one board stagger you can do a three board stagger but I would definitely suggest staggering the boards or else you're going to have issues with your corners and it's going to look funny. As far as the length of each stagger I would go at least six inches deep when you're staggering the boards to alleviate any problems and I'm cutting it with a miter saw as you can see here when I cut it I have to go very slow so it doesn't crack the vinyl but it works well. You could also use a jigsaw or a utility knife. All right guys so I'm about to hit the first piece of trim and actually a pretty complex situation right here because I'm going to have to go through and then at this angle right here. Now to get underneath the trim right here I'm using this Dremel tool so what I'm going to do is cut it a little bit above where the floor is going to sit so then the floor can slide underneath and you won't see the edge of it. Now there's probably a lot of ways to do this but the easiest way I've found so far is to line up the boards where they're going to lay and draw the angle from there. I put a mark there I put a mark there and I use a straight edge to draw the angle. Same with the piece that's going to go in there and then after that I'm going to use a jigsaw to cut the pieces. Now these walls aren't going to be perfectly straight or square so what I do is I take a piece of trim and as I go along I set it right there just to make sure that it's going to cover up that gap for expansion. All right guys so the first couple rows are going to be the most difficult but also the most important because it's going to set the pace for the rest of the floor. So when you're going for through these first two rows make sure that all the spacers are correct and make sure that all the boards are locked in all the way. With these ones right here it's almost like you can't see where the boards meet and that's when you know it's totally locked in because if you don't get it to that point you're going to run into issues later further So originally I was going to run this flooring all the way to that back wall rather than separating it because it's only about 25 feet and that's usually about the length you want to go until you start doing transition 25 to 30 feet. But if you look right here you can see this front wall is at a bit of an angle. Now you look at that back wall and it's more on a straight projection so what the problem is is these pieces are at an angle. This wall is straight so they're not locking in correctly. I've drawn a line and squared it up with the end wall so I'm going to have to cut these end pieces at a bit of an angle. I'll put a transition strip on and then everything will be running straight because both rooms are almost square they're just not in line with each other. I'm matching these up for the placement of the transition strip so what you want to do is leave at least a three quarter of an inch gap in between the two for the t-molding to fit in. This is about five eighths and the whole thing is about an inch and a half or two inches so there's actually a lot of space. Cut it beforehand so you can mock it up. See that'll fit. All right guys the floors are finished. I had to cut a lot of pieces at angles but for the most part this really wasn't that bad. About 500 square feet take you a day and a half or two days.