Installing Laminate Tiles

Retired art teacher Marsha Graham loves the southwestern look of the ceramic tile floors in her Arizona home and wanted something similar in her Oregon residence. However, she wasn’t convinced that Oregon’s wet and cold climate and tile floors would get along that well. That’s how she settled on a laminate floor with a tile pattern.  

In addition to being softer and warmer, the laminate floor would cost less, install faster, and maintain easier than the tile floor in her desert home. With a preference for making art over cleaning and sealing grout, Graham could look forward to years of easy care with her new floor.  

Homeowners Dallas and Marsha Graham installed tile pattern laminate throughout the first floor, including this bedroom.

Laminate flooring is made of several layers. At the core is the thickest layer, which is a high-density fiberboard. Under the core is a back layer that adds stability and acts as a moisture barrier, which is very important to prevent cupping.  

Above the core is a pattern layer, which is essentially a photograph of almost any material you would use for a floor surface, usually hardwoods, stone or tile. Covering the pattern layer is a protective wear layer, many of which incorporate aluminum oxide for added durability.  

You can use conventional woodworking tools on this flooring, although it’s a bit hard on the blades.

You can use standard wood cutting saws to cut laminate flooring, but the very things that make the newest flooring so tough are also hard on saw blades. Be prepared to sharpen or replace the blades when you are finished.  

We used a portable table saw and our Dewalt 12-inch sliding compound miter saw (because it can reach all the way across the boards) to make most of our cuts. On both the table saw and the miter saw, the teeth enter the material from the top, which minimizes chipping. You can use your circular saw equipped with a carbide blade, but we recommend cutting from the back of the piece, especially if you have a net fit that will not be covered by base boards, such as against a shower stall or patio door.  

Our Dewalt 12-inch sliding compound miter saw can reach all the way across to cut the pieces to length.

Make sure the subfloor is flat and free of nail heads, has no sizable holes and is clean. Because laminate floors float (are not fastened directly to the sub floor), they tend to bridge over low areas, which can leave a sinking feeling when walking on these areas. It’s best to get things flat within 3/16 inch or so over an area that can be tested with a 6-foot level.  

Next, roll out an approved foam pad underlayment. This padding acts as a vapor barrier, smoothes out minor subfloor imperfections, insulates and dampens noise.  

Each row steps back one tile so the head seams are offset while keeping the simulated grout lines in line with each other.

In the end, it doesn’t matter which direction tile pattern laminate floor boards are laid because the pattern components are square. So, do whatever makes the most sense to get the rectangular boards into place. Orienting the long side of the boards down a hallway, for example, could mean fewer cuts.  

Also, read the instructions for your particular product when deciding which direction to work the floor. Many of the non-glue laminate floor systems require a specific order of installation such as left to right and top to bottom.  

The flooring pieces tip in at an angle until the tongue and groove match up.

With wood-grain laminate floor patterns, you can use random lengths to begin and end each row of flooring as long as the seams don’t land too close to each other. This is not so with a tile pattern laminate floor. All of the grout lines must line up in both directions just like real tile.  

Unlike real tile, however, each of these laminate pieces has multiple printed tiles in the pattern of each board. This adds a little more challenge to the layout, because you have to think in terms of making your cuts and overlaps based on where the printed grout lines fall.  

Tap the joint together with a hammer and block.

You want to think “brick pattern” to off-set the joints of the boards while thinking “tile pattern” to keep the grout lines in line. This will all make a lot more sense when you open a box of flooring and get started.