Linoleum flooring basics

Synthetic materials are often placed on the basis of fiberboard. Most often these are linoleum or plastic tiles. These materials have enjoyed significant success due to their durability and strength. In addition, they are of low thermal conductivity and beautiful, they drown out steps, and are quite easy to operate..

Synthetic materials are often placed on the basis of fiberboard. Most often these are linoleum or plastic tiles. These materials have enjoyed significant success due to their durability and strength. In addition, they are of low thermal conductivity and beautiful, they drown out steps, and are quite easy to operate..

Linoleum can be glued to the floor, or you can simply lay it, fitting well to the corners and under the furniture. Sometimes linoleum sheets are very large, so first you need to combine them according to the pattern, cut off the excess, leaving a few centimeters in stock, in a word, cut out. When fitting, cut the linoleum at the corner folds so that it does not bulge.

Linoleum is a roll material. Usually its width is from 1,000 to 2,000 mm, length is from 12 to 20 mm, and thickness is from 2 to 5 mm. It has a paper or fabric base and is divided into several types – according to the type of materials used for its manufacture: colloxylin, glyphtal, polyvinyl chloride, glassine, rubber.

Plastic tiles are usually square (150×150 or 300×300). They, unlike linoleum, require mandatory gluing to the floor..

For gluing linoleum, you can prepare adhesive mastics and pastes yourself.

Oil-cement-chalk mastic consists of 36 parts of drying oil, 47 parts of finely ground dry chalk, 17 parts of Portland cement. Mix chalk and cement thoroughly, sift through a sieve and mix with drying oil. Applies 24 hours after preparation.

The consumption of mastic is 1-1.2 kg per 1 sq. m. This substance is used for gluing glyphthal linoleum on a fabric basis on a wooden or concrete floor.

Lacomel mastic. 40 parts of oil-resin varnish are mixed with 60 parts of finely ground dry chalk. Glyphthal linoleum is glued onto this base. Drying time of the adhesive is 3-5 days.

The surface on which linoleum is glued must be perfectly flat and smooth. It is undesirable to lay it directly on wooden boards, since if they bend when walking, damage to the coating will occur.

It is best to pre-lay wood fiber (plywood) boards on the boards. In any case, whatever the base, it must be flat, clean, without. dents and damage. The flatness of the base is checked with a ruler or an even wooden block. The gaps between the measured surface and the ruler should not exceed 2-3 mm.

If the base is a wooden floor, boards before laying linoleum must be carefully trimmed in all directions, and then cleaned with a sanding cloth.

Sometimes linoleum spreads over parquet floors. This means that you need to carefully trim the protruding rivets, cover the seams and cracks with putty. Otherwise, all parquet defects will be printed on linoleum.

If the base coating is old, it must be removed so that the boards do not bend and damage the linoleum surface.

Before starting work, linoleum should be prepared. To remove bumps and dents on it, it must be cut into pieces of the desired size and ironed with a hot iron from the wrong side of each canvas. This must be done very carefully so as not to damage the coating..

Then the canvases are laid on top of each other and pressed over the entire surface with some heavy load. After 10-15 days, the linoleum will straighten. When laying linoleum on wooden bases, the sheets should be placed along the slabs. The joining of the canvases should be in the middle of the wooden plates.

Dry linoleum flooring is usually done in locations, where it will be fixed on all sides if the width of the web is equal to the width of the floor. As a rule, these are small rooms: corridors, passages between rooms.

First of all, you need to remove the baseboards, lay the linoleum, adjust the joints very well in width, carefully straighten it and press the baseboards. It is better to glue the edges at the joints with mastic. The skirting boards are glued in 1-2 weeks after the flooring, when they walk on it and it will smoothly press against the floor surface.

Linoleum laying on adhesives is considered the most durable and reliable. Before applying the mastic, the surface must be cleaned of dirt and dust. The back side of linoleum before the sticker is primed a day before starting work.

The mastic is applied not only directly to the floor, but also to the back of the linoleum, so that it holds better. Docking points are pre-cut along a ruler. When glued, a bag with something heavy should be carried over it, having previously placed a mat under it so as not to scratch the outside.

You can stick linoleum without a primer. To do this, the base and the back of the linoleum canvases are well coated with mastic, but the edges are not touched. After that, they are laid as described above and pressed with a bag from the middle to the edges. This is done in order to squeeze out excess air and mastic from under the linoleum. When excess mastic comes out from under the edges, the edge is turned off and the mastic is removed with a rag.

The final gluing of linoleum takes 7-10 days. If, after this period, swellings appear under it, plywood or a board is placed on them, and a load is placed on top. After that, after 5-7 days, they start cutting and attaching the edges.

It takes a very sharp knife and ruler to cut the edges correctly.. The ruler is placed on the edge of the linoleum and pressed down with a heavy load. After that, one or both edges are cut off. They are turned off, the base and back side are coated with mastic, then first one edge of the canvas is glued, then the other. Excess mastic is removed with paper. The glued edges are pressed down with a load until the blisters disappear completely.

When laying linoleum with a pattern, all the edges are cut off, then the first sheet is glued completely, along with the edges. After 2-3 days, the second sheet is laid, gluing only one adjoining edge 150-200 mm wide, and the entire sheet should remain unsticked. A load is placed on the edge. If you need to stick three canvases in the same room, it is better to start with the middle one, and after 2-3 days take up the rest. The patterns of all edges must match exactly.

To make a riser cutout, you need a hardboard template.. The space around the pipe is measured squarely. Then the measurement results are transferred to cardboard. In the middle of the square, a circle is drawn on cardboard, the diameter of which should be equal to the diameter of the riser. The circle is cut out so that a hole remains in the cardboard. This hole is transferred to the linoleum and cut out. it is not recommended to apply them with a layer. The mastic is rubbed with a floor polisher or a soft brush until it shines. When washing the linoleum coating, soap can be added only in case of severe contamination, since linoleum loses its shine and fades from soap and soda.

To work on laying linoleum and plastic tiles, you need: a sharp knife, an even ruler, a wooden hammer with a rubber tip.