Preparing to lay wood flooring is an extremely important part of the process of installing new floors. There is so much to consider including your dust control systems, the preparation of your subfloor and how much flooring you need to actually buy.

1. 1. Work out how much flooring you need

One of the first things you will need to do if you are planning on laying wood flooring is to work out how much flooring you will need to cover the whole room. Use a laminate flooring calculator to work out how much of your wood floor you will need to purchase to fill up your space.

2. 2. Remove your doors

Before you begin the process of preparing to lay your floors remove the doors to the room you are working on. Take the doors off their hinges but try to leave the hinges in place so that you can easily reattach the door once the floors are finished and ready. Keep the doors stored in a separate room with a blanket to prevent scratching or any other damage, and remember to keep all the pins from your hinges stored safely in a plastic bag or box so that they don’t get lost.

3. 3. Supplement the Dust Control System

Although most wood floor installers will make sure to implement a proper dust control system, it is recommended that you do anything you can to supplement these efforts. Seal off any rooms that won’t be sanded with plastic sheets and painter’s tape to avoid any excess dust from reaching inside the other rooms of your home, and install plastic sheeting around the perimeters of the worksite.

Make sure there is enough space clear for the workers to do their jobs easily, and tape some excess plastic over heating ducts and any other openings in your home to make sure that dust does not circulate your home through the ducts.

4. 4. Prepare the Subfloor

It is important to note that if you are bringing professionals in to install your wooden floors it is unlikely that they will spend much if any time working on your subfloor unless you have negotiated this already as a part of the installation price. Because of this, you may want to do some work to eliminate any imperfections such as dips in your flooring and give the workers a perfectly flat and well-secured foundation on which to install your new wooden flooring. If your home’s subfloor is particularly bad, you may choose to completely remove the old flooring and lay a completely new subfloor. If you don’t want to go this far, you may choose to install a thin underlay made of plywood to smooth over the surface.

Overall, there are many things that you can do to help to prepare a room for laying wood flooring, it is all about having a smooth and well-finished subfloor as well as a proper dust control system. Make sure also that you have enough material to cover the whole floor so you aren’t left with an incomplete room.