DIY Installation for Cork Flooring

Cork flooring is an excellent alternative if you want to go for an eco-friendly choice that is comfortable, cuts your time and efforts by being an excellent insulator and looks fabulous. Cork flooring installation is a fairly easy job and comes in two types. You can choose the glue-down or the floating floor installation. Here is a quick summary of both, before we go into the general steps involved in installing your cork floor:

Gluing Down Your Cork Floor

A good way to install a cork floor is to glue it down with adhesive. This must be done over a clean sub-floor like hardwood. The material cost remains low but the expense of installation costs a lot. The drawback with this is that if a tile gets broken and must be repaired, it is very difficult.

Installing A Floating Floor

Floating floors are very popular because they are much simpler to install. Here the cork planks are ready to interlock with one another. They are also easy to install on an existing floor like vinyl, wood or ceramic. The sub floor where a floating cork floor is installed must be even and dry.

Steps in Cork Floor Installation

Cork floor tiles often come as 12-inch squares. The surface on which these tiles should be installed must be prepared in advance. This surface needs to be cleaned, dried and absolutely even.

If the sub floor is concrete it is advisable to repair any gaps, cracks and damages. You will need to make sure the concrete is dry. The doorframe must be cut to size to ensure the cork tiles fit under them. Check if the concrete is dry and level to make sure that the cork tiles look smooth right after it is fixed. If it is glue down installation, the concrete should have a layer of primer and dried before the glue is applied.

If the installation is on wood, uneven areas need to be leveled. The base has to be dry. For sub floors that are over the crawlspace, a waterproof sheet must be applied to cover the ground under it. After adjusting the size of the doorframes, the cork tiles can now be installed. If there are issues on the floor, they will show up on the cork surface, so the sub floor must be completely smooth and level.

Before you decide to fix the cork tiles, they must go through a process of acclimatization for at least a couple of days, where they are exposed to the normal room temperature.

Cork tiles come with different types of design and shade. So when you get the tiles, after acclimatizing them, choose the ones that look the most attractive to you. The adhesive must be applied carefully and allowed to dry, according to manufacturer's instructions. As each cork tile is fixed, enough pressure must be applied over the tile so that when you are done fixing all the tiles, it must look totally level and smooth. Before the sealer is applied, the floor must be rolled. Based on where you live, the floor could take a day in order for it to dry. After the installation is finished, polyurethane cleaner is used to clean the floor.