How to lay cork floor 2

Cork floors, popular in the West, are not yet widespread in our country. And in vain, because cork is a natural material, perfectly absorbs sounds and retains heat. In addition, it is believed that the cork covering is, in fact, an orthopedic coating that helps reduce the load on our spine. As you can see there are a lot of pluses.

If you decide to independently perform work on the installation of this wonderful coating, then you should carefully study the instructions.

Preparing the base

To prevent your cork floor from suddenly bulging or loosening, you should lay it on a perfectly flat surface. There are several ways to align.

Plywood base. Sheets of moisture-resistant plywood are fastened to a concrete screed, then ground. If the coating laid on plywood has a ready cork bottom layer, then there is no need for a substrate.

Linoleum. On linoleum laying is possible only if the floor beneath it is perfectly flat. On linoleum there is no need to lay the substrate.

Strainer. The most common method of preparing the base before installing the floor. After drying, the concrete screed is leveled with a grinder, covered with plastic wrap and only then the substrate.

Styling methods

There are two options for laying cork flooring:

• castle;
• glue.

Faster styling provides castle methodbut it can only be used for a perfectly flat base. The disadvantage of this option is that the floors of this type (due to the "floating" technology) can only be connected through the sills, even when the same type of cork is placed in all rooms.

Adhesive method You can put a cork on any surface, including uneven, but after laying the floor must be covered with varnish on top. The lacquer topcoat perfectly protects the coating from moisture and makes its surface monolithic. Glue floors are laid without a single nut in the whole apartment, they can also be combined with other floor coverings, for example, parquet or porcelain stoneware.

We propose to consider both ways of laying a little more.

Glue cork floor

1. Before laying it is necessary to perform the layout of the room. The cork should be laid from the center of the room in the direction of the walls, so first you need to mark the center of the room and draw parallel lines from this point towards the walls.
2. Pre-try on the plates without applying glue, as the glue quickly sets. If you notice that the tiles are laid unevenly, with some displacement, then you have to do leveling the base.
3. Apply contact glue to the floor surface and leave for 30 minutes. After the specified time has expired, apply glue to the bottom side of the plates and perform their butt-laying without gaps, pressing tightly to the base. After that, tap with a rubber hammer or roll a special roller on the surface. If glue protrudes from the plates, remove it immediately. While ensuring good ventilation of the room, the glue dries completely within 48 hours. The glue is usually applied with a notched trowel on the prepared substrate. It is desirable that this tool teeth are located at a distance of 2 mm and were triangular.
4. The walls, as a rule, the tiles do not fit entirely - they should be cut.
5. After laying, you should perform grinding and degreasing of the cork floor, and then apply a protective layer of varnish or wax on its surface. The number of varnish layers depends on the material: if you purchased a cork without coating, then it should be covered in 3-4 layers, if primed, then in 1-2.

Between the coating and the wall must leave a gap of 3-4 mm. If there is a door in the room, the bottom of the door must be cut to the height of the cover.

Glueless cork floor

1. Cork slabs with a wooden or plywood core are laid using the floating method with locks (without using glue). Such a floor is usually supplied with the substrate and the protective layer. Plates are gently joined by snapping the lock in the same way as when laying laminate.
2. Laying glueless plates should be consistent from the edge of the wall to the opposite. In this case, the plates should be joined by the method of "brickwork", preventing the junction of four plates at the same time.
3. Make sure that the smaller side of the slab is located parallel to the wall with the door - in this way the room will appear visually stretched.
4. Cork cover varnish to protect against water ingress. You can also use special seal gels to seal the joints between the plates. Before covering the entire coating with a roller, apply a varnish with a brush on the edges, near the walls.

The cork floor is unpretentious and can be washed with a damp sponge.

We recommend to read:

• bulk floor (step by step instructions);
• how to level the floor under the laminate without screed;
• laminate laying technology.

Video

Learn how to approach the choice of cork coating:

In this video you will see the process of laying the glueless cork floor: