But aesthetics matter and that means you should stagger the joints while laying out your flooring.
How to lay wood flooring staggard seams.
One way to do this is to maintain a minimum distance between adjacent end joints of at least 6 inches.
Ensure you maintain a minimum length for end boards.
You can print this out and follow it whilst laying laminate flooring.
That s what you re after.
To start row 3 cut a full width plank to the length of the trimmed ripped piece at the end of row 1.
Lay out your wood planks by size.
Its end should be at least 6 to 8 inches apart from the closest seam in row one.
Another way is to avoid regular stagger patterns such as steps or lightning and h patterns.
Keep the lengths random and at least 6 in length.
This will stagger the seams between the adjacent rows in a random way.
When laying out the boards keep in mind to never have the ends of boards in adjacent rows line up with each other.
The rule of thumb that professional flooring installers follow is to stagger the end joint of adjacent rows by a distance equal to 2 or 3 times the width of the plank.
Use 1 2 inch spacers to assist in maintaining the 1 2 inch expansion gap between the first row of flooring planks and the wall.
Put the first board up against the mason s line with the groove side facing away from the walls.
Today s wood flooring products have tongue and groove construction or click lock fasteners that hold the planks of wood together.
Some wood flooring comes with several lengths in the same package to help you stagger the seams.
Here s how to install click lock engineered hardwood flooring.
Separate them by length so you can grab different lengths each time.
That makes 6 inches the most common minimum spacing for 2 and 3 inch hardwood boards but laminate planks are typically wider than this.
As a rule you never want the seams of adjacent boards to be less than 8 inches apart i.
The national wood flooring association recommends maintaining randomness when staggering floor planks.
How you arrange these planks in size is up to you and the result has little effect on the functionality of the floor.
How to install laminate flooring like a boss laminate floor blog.
Most hardwood floors consist of many individual planks or boards measuring differing lengths but having the same width.
How to stagger floating floors.