Can I lay wood laminate floors over old tiles?

Do I need to screed over exiting an existing slabs before laying glued down vinyl planks?

Thanks for the info. I will talk to the installer. They are very good to deal with. I will definitely download the installation instructions.

Thanks for your reply. Looks like I will only need to plane my interior doors to accommodate the increase in height.

Learn about pattern repeats in your new floor and research how many unique planks you will have and how many mirrored ones you will have.

Why?

Well real timber flooring doesn't have any repeats. "Fake" flooring depends on a photograph so the aim is to replicate real timber and therefore the aim should be to have as bigger pattern repeat as possible.

Picture of a a print film being produced.

The first step is an image is decided upon and used as the floor colour. It is printed and then planks are cut out from it.

Then usually it will be flipped and another set of planks cut to create double the planks (albeit they are mirror imaged).

This example would give you 5 + 5 (10) planks which is pretty normal.

Sometimes larger (longer) papers are used in conjunction with standard length planks and the cut outs are walked up the image to create small variations and increase the pattern repeat.

This exampled show how one paper could create 15 (or more) unique planks.

Why not use multiple photographs too?

Yes, some manufacturers use multiple images and then mirror and rotate the images creating up to dozens and dozens of different planks. These floors look very realistic as they have more variation.

This example is of a high definition laminate floor that has 30 different planks, making it one of the most realistic laminate floors on the market.

Direct Digital Printing

Some of the latest flooring products are also now being produced by a digital printer applying an image DIRECT to the boards which means that in the future, some products will have much more variations and even in theory unlimited patterns.

Ask your preferred retailer about colour and pattern variation in your new floor before you buy it to ensure it will look as real as possible!

Hi there! We have 70 m2 of floor tiles in the kitchen, family, meals and hall. We would like to lay something over the tiles as jack hammering the old ones up would be expensive. Is there a product that we can put over the tiles, assuming they are level. We do not want to remove the skirting boards or have beading if possible. We will get carpet after this, so I gather we can arrange for a seamless transition with the heights.
Thanks for any thoughts.

Hi guys. I have a 75 yr old messmate floor. Sections are getting to thin to sand again and we can feel some movement in places We replaced some boards 13 years ago but it is time to do something. What would you recommend. We have a new messmate floor in a sunken lounge that is two steps down from the original part of house, the messmate steps were added at same time. When we bought the house 21 years ago there was carpet or vinyl, over the timber, so currently have a lip up to tiled areas

Hi Kate, aplogies for the delay. We have had issues logging in with Windows so we had to log in via iOS. Your situation sounds like a common one with the existing hardfloors being too far gone to be resanded again. You have a couple of options, being a new timber floor that can be glued to the messmate floor. This will give you the strong solid feel youre used to and also bring the hieghts up to your tiled areas. Or your floor could be floated which is less expensive but wont feel as great as the glued down method. The second option could be to use a water resistant type floor like a laminate or a hybrid and float over the existing floor, but like mentioned above it may not ”feel” as nice as what you're used to.

Hi Cath, yes so you can put any floating floor over the tiles. Timber, Laminate or Hybrid however youll need to allow for removing the grout (using a leveller) on the tiles before using a Hybrid floor because of the risk of the tile pattern showing through eventually.