Preparing wooden floor for laminate

[Neil rosson]

My bedroom has old pine wood flooring. It's mostly in decent condition apart from where there has been some pipe work near the radiator last few boards near wall. So a few boards there is quite a gap & some unevenness. There is no movement. There is also a few holes from knots in the wood. Is there a specific way to fix these issues?

 

[Tilt]

I would see if I could get rid of the unevenness, at least as much as possible........
Try securing the higher one down if this is the problem one, or raise the other one slightly up to it.

A good underlay will take care of some unevenness depending on what you go for.
I wouldn't worry about the holes tho I didn't look at them pics........

 

[DIYDave.]

Gaps between boards, holes from where knots have fallen out, pipe cutout (3rd picture) not a problem and the underlay will take care of all of these

I would go with the green compressed fibre type underlay as thicker and performs better than the 1-2mm foam type

Where the board is higher by 4mm, this does need sorting though as the underlay alone won’t even this out and will cause problems when laying the laminate

I would lift this board/s and see if you can work out what’s causing this difference in heights. May have always been this way due to uneven joists. If carpet and underlay was previously laid, then this could have coped with the 4mm but not laminate flooring

Could also be higher due to previous bodge repairs due to plumbing / electrical works being carried out - extra timber added here and there or floorboard could even be sitting on pipework (which needs sorting anyway)

Odd floorboards could have been used to patch in damaged boards from lifting, and these do come in various thicknesses

So either way, needs sorting for sure, do some detective work first by lifting these higher boards

Good there’s no movement but good time to check again, bouncing over total floor to dbl check minimum movement and no squeaking boards - now is the time to rectify any of these issues - good luck and report back !

 

[Neil rosson]

ok thanks this is great, think i will go get some new boards, a combination of the joists being cutaway & boards worn at the edges is causing the uneven floor. I'm a bit concerned about the lack of lack of places to screw into due to the joists being cutaway i would need to use the same screw holes.

 

[stevie22]

Nowt wrong with same screw holes: you know there's no pipe or cable. Go up a gauge or a bit longer if they don't want to bite.