Sub flooring sealer

I would think that if you fixed the leak.....just put down the underlayment and your laminate. I did the laminate last year.....so much better than carpet.

A sealer would probably do more harm than good. If water gets to the subfloor you would want it to soak in or pass through the surface vs. being trapped on top between the laminate and the sub floor. Laminate floors wear very well but they do not do well with moisture and will buckle if water is trapped beneath.

No sealer, but it won't take much water to cause swelling on any laminate flooring. Better option in an RV is Allure vinyl planks from HD. But my personal preference is no-glue sheet vinyl, like Tarkett Fiberflor, doesn't curl or distort like cheap, thin vinyl. EZ and clean trim out. Installed it in my last trailer and still looked great after 5 yrs.

Thank you all for your very informative inputs. I will not put sealer down as mentioned. I was pretty sure that it would be a problem. I am going to check into the Allure vinyl planks. The area I am going to cover is only 40 square feet.

Ray

what do you think the glue to hold the vinyl floor does when you have it installed..... seals the floor.
so if you got water under your laminate floor. it would have to penetrate the cushion which is installed under that laminate flooring. then make it to the subfloor. there it could sit and swell the sub floor before evaporating. if you sealed the sub floor, the water would sit there longer possibly causing a mold problem. to make my point either way will work, just be aware, a water leak will do damage if you get one... the type of damage will vary due to the construction method used...

glue/seal or not to seal... whatever makes the floor look and last the longest.

Dayle1 wrote:
No sealer, but it won't take much water to cause swelling on any laminate flooring. Better option in an RV is Allure vinyl planks from HD. But my personal preference is no-glue sheet vinyl, like Tarkett Fiberflor, doesn't curl or distort like cheap, thin vinyl. EZ and clean trim out. Installed it in my last trailer and still looked great after 5 yrs.

We are seriously thinking about installing the Allure flooring planks. Most likely this spring when the weather warms up. Do you have to space the flooring from walls, cabinets , ect. for expansion? We watched a "You Tube" on an install in a house but he did not use any spacers for possible expansion. I would use quarter round and nail it to the wall or cabinet to dress it up and let the flooring expand. Thanks.
Ray

We just bought the Allure to go down in the bath of our house.

They said 1/8" gap on edges.

Ken

Reelay wrote:

Dayle1 wrote:
No sealer, but it won't take much water to cause swelling on any laminate flooring. Better option in an RV is Allure vinyl planks from HD. But my personal preference is no-glue sheet vinyl, like Tarkett Fiberflor, doesn't curl or distort like cheap, thin vinyl. EZ and clean trim out. Installed it in my last trailer and still looked great after 5 yrs.

We are seriously thinking about installing the Allure flooring planks. Most likely this spring when the weather warms up. Do you have to space the flooring from walls, cabinets , ect. for expansion? We watched a "You Tube" on an install in a house but he did not use any spacers for possible expansion. I would use quarter round and nail it to the wall or cabinet to dress it up and let the flooring expand. Thanks.
Ray

Floor area is much smaller in an RV compared to a house, but temp extremes are worse. Also, RVs flex, so you should leave a 1/8" gap at all vertical surfaces. Quarter round is rather large moulding for use in an RV. Shoe moulding or screen moulding is plenty wide to cover a 1/8" gap.

Thanks for the replies to all.
Have a great New Year!!

Just to update on my linoleum problem, I forgot to mention the shabby work the original installers did when installing the linoleum. At our door entrance there was always some small little bumps trying to push through the linoleum. After removing the flooring I found metal shavings from a drill, looks as though when they installed the metal threshold they didn't clean up very well. So this new flooring I am putting down will take care of that and you can bet I will vacuum and clean up better than they did. Just goes to show you when a mass produced product is on a time table they loose sight of professionalism.