How to Install Engineered Oak Floating Floors

Engineered oak flooring has an oak veneer on the top of it, over a manufactured base. This allows the flooring to be formed into various kinds of installation systems, including a floating floor system. Floating floors don't attach to anything, but just sit over the existing floor, with the boards locked tightly together by fittings cut into the sides of the boards. It gives the look of an oak floor without all the work. Start with a flat, firm floor surface. Floating floors can't go over carpet.

• 1

  Remove the floor trim from the edges of the room, using your pry bar and hammer. Remove it carefully, without breaking it, so you can reinstall it later.

• 2

  Roll out a strip of moisture barrier underlayment alongside your starting wall. Cut it at the end with a razor knife.

• 3

  Set the first course of engineered oak boards along the starting wall, snapping them together end to end. Put spacers between the long sides of the boards and the wall to make an expansion gap that will allow the flooring to move over time.

• 4

  Cut the last board in the course as needed, on your miter saw, to fit at the side wall.

• 5

  Lay the second course of boards alongside the first, snapping them together along their long edges. Stagger the ends of the boards between the courses so they don't line up.

• 6

  Build across the floor course by course, laying additional strips of moisture barrier as needed.

• 7

  Length-cut the boards of the last course with a table saw so they fit alongside the ending wall with about a 3/8-inch gap there.

• 8

  Reinstall the floor trim, using a trim nail gun. The trim should cover the gaps.