Agreed - as mentioned the board movement shown is really the plank "flattening" to the level of the padding, so it's not a fair representation to view deflection at the end. But the fact that the plank compressed the padding at all to see movement was enough for us.
Large floor plan - suggested starting point / layout?
- Thread starter bitbanger
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Sometimes an idea is so horrible we don't really need to entertain debate. If your goal is to lessen the sound of walking around on plastic floors that already have a cushion designed to lessen the sound of walking around on plastic floors..............?
I'll toss that one in the bin marked "Horrible Ideas" and move on without reams of data.
As far as the layout you of course strike the longest line exactly as shown in the diagram, play around projecting the various outcomes, make your choice then shifting the main layout line to the best of those choices. There are a variety of slang terms we use in different regions for the smallish, undesirable cuts that are inevitable. When I was an apprentice the Old Man called them schnitzels......as in, "hey kid, go put those schnitzels in along that wall there." Worst case scenario is the schnitzel that is also out of square so it goes on an angle from a small piece already unsightly to zero. That just looks like crap.
One of the reasons I abhor all the click-lock floating plastic, floating garbage is you cant really do some basic stuff we need to do to work stuff out like........avoiding schnitzels and squaring up individual rooms, creating borders and designs to hide/highlight things.
In your case, and most complex layouts your main starting point ought to be squared up to all the measurements you took to get that line. When you enter other areas you WILL find some smallish pieces fall out and you WILL find out of square/parallel walls. LAYOUT is the challenge of minimizing those crappy outcomes. How much that matters is product specific and up to your personal level of tolerance. You wouldn't believe how little some people care! I've also seen professionals who don't "get it" stress out for hours over the inevitable.
With other types of products besides "click" we can correct for out of square condition a variety of ways; at transitions---generally KEEPING the visual impression of a continuous layout by shaving off the ever so slight angle required in a doorway or at a transition between areas to square up the room OR maybe even cutting back the "field" under the door or in the last rows to eliminate those schnitzels. It doesn't always look wrong to transition to cut pieces under a door then start the room (with a door) with a completely different layout. With the click products you're really locked into that single, continuous layout------like it or dont-----that's awesome in an open floor plan but not so cool in a cut up space like yours.
Oh well, you're gonna love your regardless and that's OK by me.
I'll toss that one in the bin marked "Horrible Ideas" and move on without reams of data.
As far as the layout you of course strike the longest line exactly as shown in the diagram, play around projecting the various outcomes, make your choice then shifting the main layout line to the best of those choices. There are a variety of slang terms we use in different regions for the smallish, undesirable cuts that are inevitable. When I was an apprentice the Old Man called them schnitzels......as in, "hey kid, go put those schnitzels in along that wall there." Worst case scenario is the schnitzel that is also out of square so it goes on an angle from a small piece already unsightly to zero. That just looks like crap.
One of the reasons I abhor all the click-lock floating plastic, floating garbage is you cant really do some basic stuff we need to do to work stuff out like........avoiding schnitzels and squaring up individual rooms, creating borders and designs to hide/highlight things.
In your case, and most complex layouts your main starting point ought to be squared up to all the measurements you took to get that line. When you enter other areas you WILL find some smallish pieces fall out and you WILL find out of square/parallel walls. LAYOUT is the challenge of minimizing those crappy outcomes. How much that matters is product specific and up to your personal level of tolerance. You wouldn't believe how little some people care! I've also seen professionals who don't "get it" stress out for hours over the inevitable.
With other types of products besides "click" we can correct for out of square condition a variety of ways; at transitions---generally KEEPING the visual impression of a continuous layout by shaving off the ever so slight angle required in a doorway or at a transition between areas to square up the room OR maybe even cutting back the "field" under the door or in the last rows to eliminate those schnitzels. It doesn't always look wrong to transition to cut pieces under a door then start the room (with a door) with a completely different layout. With the click products you're really locked into that single, continuous layout------like it or dont-----that's awesome in an open floor plan but not so cool in a cut up space like yours.
Oh well, you're gonna love your regardless and that's OK by me.
Small update - patching the uneven OSB edges took longer than expected... what a PITA. To add insult to injury the OSB from the lumber supplier was the worst - LOWE's was actually all even at factory edges.
Anyway we spent some time getting our reference lines lasered, and measured everything out. You guys are going to think I'm crazy (the CAD) but whatever: the blue lines are measurements off our laser. As mentioned we started by making our ref line perfectly parallel to the Living room wall. Took the perpendicular off of the main run, down the foyer, then re-setup the cross laser into the office. From there measured the distance from our reference/laser lines to all the 'horizontal' walls/features, shown in blue below. In addition the distance between the two horiz laser references. All the measurements within a flooring area (for instance from both sides of the living room to our ref), was within 1/8-3/16" with only one exception: the two narrow walls dividing the TV and Dining spaces, they were off 5/8" of an inch from one another. I'll take it; I feel we got very lucky.
(I removed some of the vertical walls for clarity). In addition since the double measurements within a room were so close I only show one measurement line per space below. This was just to get everything to scale/referenced.
Got actual measurements of flooring and have been playing around with placement, primarily to avoid 'slivers' or 'schnitzels' as Incognito so affectionately called them.
Best I can seem to do leaves me with a 2-1/4" strip down the French Door wall in the Living room. That was a compromise to give me nearly a full plank along the opposite wall, full/half planks in office, 2/3 plank at entry door/TV top wall, ~1/2 plank or greater everywhere else.
(I don't expect you to make out anything useful from below):
Anyway we spent some time getting our reference lines lasered, and measured everything out. You guys are going to think I'm crazy (the CAD) but whatever: the blue lines are measurements off our laser. As mentioned we started by making our ref line perfectly parallel to the Living room wall. Took the perpendicular off of the main run, down the foyer, then re-setup the cross laser into the office. From there measured the distance from our reference/laser lines to all the 'horizontal' walls/features, shown in blue below. In addition the distance between the two horiz laser references. All the measurements within a flooring area (for instance from both sides of the living room to our ref), was within 1/8-3/16" with only one exception: the two narrow walls dividing the TV and Dining spaces, they were off 5/8" of an inch from one another. I'll take it; I feel we got very lucky.
(I removed some of the vertical walls for clarity). In addition since the double measurements within a room were so close I only show one measurement line per space below. This was just to get everything to scale/referenced.
Got actual measurements of flooring and have been playing around with placement, primarily to avoid 'slivers' or 'schnitzels' as Incognito so affectionately called them.
Best I can seem to do leaves me with a 2-1/4" strip down the French Door wall in the Living room. That was a compromise to give me nearly a full plank along the opposite wall, full/half planks in office, 2/3 plank at entry door/TV top wall, ~1/2 plank or greater everywhere else.
(I don't expect you to make out anything useful from below):
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Ok, so I get that you put way too much effort into it, but I have to say that what you got out of it is peace of mind
I see what you did there and other than making what happens in our brains into a graphical representation in a CAD drawing..... thats about it. Glad to see that your house is mostly paralell.
Now for the fun part, making it all work with actual flooring!!!!
I see what you did there and other than making what happens in our brains into a graphical representation in a CAD drawing..... thats about it. Glad to see that your house is mostly paralell.
Now for the fun part, making it all work with actual flooring!!!!
I have absolutely no idea how you guys do this by hand. My wife didn't understand what I meant when I said I was "cheating" by using CAD...
And of course like everything else, it can look good on paper... Tolerance stackup is a real you know what.
Excited to have this done in time for Thanksgiving.
And of course like everything else, it can look good on paper... Tolerance stackup is a real you know what.
Excited to have this done in time for Thanksgiving.
The thing is no one does is "by hand" its all just in the brain. Also, after a time, you begin to realize that there is literally nothing you can do so you pick the things that are most important and check those and then just go for it.
Tolerance stack up IS a real thing you are right, looks to me like you have about 54 rows. 54 one hundredths of an inch can really bum a person out, as an example.
It is also why I started using metric for everything. That and because most products are actually manufactured in metric sizes and then just "americanized" as close as they feel like.
Tolerance stack up IS a real thing you are right, looks to me like you have about 54 rows. 54 one hundredths of an inch can really bum a person out, as an example.
It is also why I started using metric for everything. That and because most products are actually manufactured in metric sizes and then just "americanized" as close as they feel like.
Even American cheese ain’t right
Mark nailed it. We really only look to make the important parts look good. The rest falls how it falls. That's what the extra 5-7% of material is added on for.
You'll go loopy trying to get every single wall to fall how you want it. Just pick the spot thats going to get the most attention and get that right.
By the time you trim it out and pack all the furniture in, you don't see the size of the cuts.
I would have spent about +/- a half hour playing with layout. After that it's time to rock and roll. Total time for installation for myself and 2 very experienced helpers for that job would be around 16-20 hours. Prepped, layout, install, trim, cleanup/touch up and out the door check in hand.
You'll go loopy trying to get every single wall to fall how you want it. Just pick the spot thats going to get the most attention and get that right.
By the time you trim it out and pack all the furniture in, you don't see the size of the cuts.
I would have spent about +/- a half hour playing with layout. After that it's time to rock and roll. Total time for installation for myself and 2 very experienced helpers for that job would be around 16-20 hours. Prepped, layout, install, trim, cleanup/touch up and out the door check in hand.
Fair enough - either way you all have done this enough times to know what's important to focus on and what else to leave to figure after the cards fall.
We're well on our way, and it's going as expected. One question I have - what are the chances that the flooring coming from the kitchen into the foyer, and the flooring coming from kitchen->dining->TV will actually align in the foyer (at the TV/foyer threshold)? Should I just give up on this notion and plan for a transition here?
Compounding matters is the fact that I had to install a transition between kitchen-foyer. Main beam of the house runs just beneath and both sides of that threshold are lower. Didn't want to spend the effort floating the entire foyer or kitchen to even it, so a transition made the most sense to me here. Issue of course is maintaining that natural plank width into the foyer, to keep spacing for any hopes of meeting up with the flooring coming out of the TV room. I of course made the transition + adjoining strips the total width of a plank, but any hammering moves it out of place, so im already not too confident things will align.
We're well on our way, and it's going as expected. One question I have - what are the chances that the flooring coming from the kitchen into the foyer, and the flooring coming from kitchen->dining->TV will actually align in the foyer (at the TV/foyer threshold)? Should I just give up on this notion and plan for a transition here?
Compounding matters is the fact that I had to install a transition between kitchen-foyer. Main beam of the house runs just beneath and both sides of that threshold are lower. Didn't want to spend the effort floating the entire foyer or kitchen to even it, so a transition made the most sense to me here. Issue of course is maintaining that natural plank width into the foyer, to keep spacing for any hopes of meeting up with the flooring coming out of the TV room. I of course made the transition + adjoining strips the total width of a plank, but any hammering moves it out of place, so im already not too confident things will align.
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Just go slow and take lots of measurements as you're going around the walls. It'll line up fine.
Hard to explain but do it with the least amount of material locked in as possible. Don't get ahead of yourself building your "pyramid" until you make the connection.
Hard to explain but do it with the least amount of material locked in as possible. Don't get ahead of yourself building your "pyramid" until you make the connection.
I think I see what you're getting at. Though this is a floating floor, this SPC is insanely heavy. Combined with the grippy attached pad once you've got a few dozen sq ft down this stuff is near impossible to shimmy around... In my case (ref floor plan on page 1) I have little choice but to complete most of the dining/TV room, as well as office before really meeting in the foyer, so by then I think it'll be far too late to make any tweaks.
But I do take to heart the suggestion to constantly check reference measurements. With this flooring being off less than a 16th" off on the long edge is enough to keep them from locking fully.
But I do take to heart the suggestion to constantly check reference measurements. With this flooring being off less than a 16th" off on the long edge is enough to keep them from locking fully.
