Solid Hardwood, Engineered and Laminate Flooring - Undercutting Door Jambs

I have a question about undercutting door jambs. We installed about 500 square feet of our flooring already and now I am looking back and wondering if we made a BIG mistake!! I thought I understood how to undercut the door jambs, but when we went to actually do the cutting it proved to be a much more difficult task than we expected! We used a hand jamb-saw and after cutting for awhile, decided that undercutting the door jambs probably meant just the trim on the door jambs. Needless to say, we have about 4 doorways that have 1/4 inch expansion gaps where no base board can hide it!! I have read that we could put weather stripping in the gap and cover it with colored caulking that matched closely to our flooring. Do you think this would work?? I would really hate to undo all of our hard work!! PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN!!! THANK YOU!

If you had paid for the labor, and the installers did what you did, would you make then replace it and do it right, or would you let them patch it and goop on some caulking??

If I had paid for the labor, of course I'd have them redo it ... they should know better ... I, on the other hand, am just learning. I took a look at the gaps again last night and realized that they really aren't as bad as I thought they were. I don't think it is worth taking apart the entire floor, I will try the caulking.

For clarification, you are supposed to cut under the entire doorway, right? If you slip the board under the whole doorway, how do you lock it in place? We are using Alloc original flooring and you are supposed to put the boards together at a tilt then lock them together. How do you do that when the boards can't be tilted?

Thats a trade secret. :)

Some times with a rotating lock, the lock is cut off and that plank is glued in. Sometimes you can tap a rotating along the length, if you hold your mouth just right. Sometimes you can rotate in, and then tap it back under the jamb.

You can also use a T molding like all the manufacturers require in their specs, at doorways.

Thanks for your help!

As it turns out, we're just going to have to live with the minor mistakes we made ... and we'll prolly be the only ones that notice it. It turns out the "unclicking process" is not as easy as they make out to be, in fact its impossible! :wall:

So we'll try the rotating process in and plan to never remove them. :thinker:

We too made the decision to lay about 1200 sq ft of laminate and made a similar mistake around the door frames. I was able to pull back the door molding a bit, cut slim pices of laminate (matching the grain) and slide them in with a bit of glue. I used a wedge to hold them in place until the glue dried. It is not the professional way but only I now notice the once rather glaring problem.
good luck..

Think of it as a learning experience. On my first laminate job I did some of the same things and in hind sight thought the same thing. Now in a new old house I knew to do things differently. Being a tough critic of yourself and your work is the sign of good do it yourselfer. Just try to say thank you when someone compliments your work instead proceeding to point out your mistakes as I have a tendency to.

Jester

The little wedges look great, untill the floor needs to expand! :wall:

Locking the laminate at the doorjambs, is the leading reason for buckled laminate. That is why all laminate manufactures state clearly in their installation instructions, to undercut ALL door jambs and fixed obsticles, and to use Tee molding transitions as the flooring goes from room to room. Failure to do this and warranties get voided.

The laminate was cheap, but how much did you really pay for the product and time invested in the installation? What is your time worth?

Thank you for all your help!! I'm almost most glad to hear it doesn't only happen to me. :) Things are looking pretty good in our home now. It's taking us much longer to finish this process than we initially anticipated, but it seems we made good planning choices on where to start (where all the furniture goes).

Thanks Workingonmyhome & Jester, we're finding some good fixes to the little problems we seem to keep creating. Once in awhile, I just need to step back from "problem spots" about 5 feet, look at it from there and realize its totally invisible. I'll try and not point it out to guests coming over and just take the compliment ... isn't funny that that's a difficult thing to do!

Thanks again for your replies!

>>I'll try and not point it out to guests coming over and just take the compliment ... isn't funny that that's a difficult thing to do!<<

I used to think so until one day long, long ago my dad said to me, "If somebody complimented you on your good health, would you proceed to tell them about your hemorroids?"

I got the point right away ;)

What's the difference between laminate flooring and linoleum flooring?