Question about transitioning a floating floor.

Off topic for real.
...so I am installing a floating engineered wood click-lock floor. All is well, but I need to transition through a doorway to a different room with carpet. My understanding is that I need to cut the carpet, install a carpet tack strip, and then overlap the carpet and provide a gap between the carpet and the bullnose transition strip and fold the carpet down into this space.

Has anyone done this? If you have any suggestions or thoughts/tips/tricks to keep me from gooning it all up, I'd appreciate it. I am rather handy with tools, etc., but I am not a flooring professional. :crazy:

If I get no replies, I'll understand.:rolleyes:

I recently did some work like that. I did some searches and after a while I figured out my solution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHzmpIt0Euw

I did ours with a T molding that I ordered to match the floor. Tack strip the transition, air gun to the t molding. Quick and simple.

Hmmm...the problem is that I can't do it the way the video shows. I'm using engineered wood and it needs an expansion space. Also, I'm on a concrete subfloor. The mfg also says not to use a T-molding for transition to carpet. I was going to use threshold, but maybe I should rethink the T-molding. I would have to glue it to the subfloor

As always, the devil is in the details.

I guess there is not a question in the world one can ask and not get an answer here.If I can think of one I am going to try someday.

I re-did my floors a few years ago. Where there was carpet or tile, I used to T-strip. No glue. With tack strip on carpet. Most T-strips are convertible to make transition from wood floor to anything.
Leave minimum space for expansion. A little less than the recommended won't hurt it.

In the past 18+ years I have installed a few square miles of the stuff. Here in Florida, humidity can wreak havoc with expansion.

Do not forget an underlayment. Even if its only 30# felt paper. Underlayment over concrete is a must.
Got any questions, drop a line here. Best bet is always us the mfg. recommendations. Remember - recommendations are not carved in granite.

What material do you want to use for the transition? Wood, Aluminum, plastic/composite? Are you ok with screws. A hammer drill and expanding anchors might work for you to secure to the concrete.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by thomae

Off topic for real.
...so I am installing a floating engineered wood click-lock floor. All is well, but I need to transition through a doorway to a different room with carpet. My understanding is that I need to cut the carpet, install a carpet tack strip, and then overlap the carpet and provide a gap between the carpet and the bullnose transition strip and fold the carpet down into this space.

Has anyone done this? If you have any suggestions or thoughts/tips/tricks to keep me from gooning it all up, I'd appreciate it. I am rather handy with tools, etc., but I am not a flooring professional. :crazy:

If I get no replies, I'll understand.:rolleyes:

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that would work. basicly the same as butting the carpet against the base board trim.
you could also use a 3/4" thick transition peice at the end of the flooring and stain it to match.
that would give more height to butt the carpet into. a couple of tapcon screws into the concrete
would hold the transition peice down then plug the holes.

how about the height? will they be equal on both sides?
you can add a thin threshold between the wood and carpet.
you can use a metal transition thingy on the wood side that is tied to the threshold to a flat/incline pieces depending on height difference.

The height of the carpet and the floating wood floor will be very close.

Yesterday, I spoke to a local friend who is in the home contracting business.
Based on my research, including your respective inputs and his thoughts, I am going to use a T-molding for the transition.

I will first put down a wood strip the same width as the vertical part of the T-molding about 1/4" from the edge of the wood floor against the concrete and either glue it or (Tapcon) screw it to the concrete slab. Maybe both. I tend to overengineer things.

Then I will glue the pre-finished T-molding to the wood strip. The wood strip below will raise the T-molding up high enough to allow the floating floor to move underneath it. I am not going to go with my original plan because that would be hard to do on a concrete sub floor. If it had been a wooden subfloor, i could have folded the carpet edge, tucked it and stapled it, but that does not really work on concrete.

The Manufacturer's (Bruce, a division of Armstrong) instructions say not to use T-molding when transitioning to carpet, but I really don't see much of a downside, and my contractor friend said that was the way he would handle this particular situation.

Thomae,
Every manufacturer of flooring will make a transition strip to transition to just about anything. T molding molding is generally used to transition from one hard surface to another (ie wood to ceramic tile). I would recommend a bullnose transition in the same material as your flooring. You can glue the bullnose onto the top of your floor at the edge. This part is usually 1/8" thick by 1/2" wide. It will float with your floor. Do not glue an edge of a floating floor to the subfloor. The carpet side will just get a standard concrete tack strip. The front or carpet side of the bullnose is about 1/2". Your carpet will tuck down into the 3/8" space between the bullnose and tack strip. Be sure to bend over the tacks after the carpet has been tucked and stretched. You run the stair tool flat over them or just use a hammer and lightly knock them flat and forward. Got it? Easy peesy! Btw it was my trade for 12 years. Let me know if you have any questions. Pm me your email and I'll send you a pic if you want.

Hmmm...that's exactly what I was going to do, but when I was pre-fitting everything, I couldn't get the tuck to look good, so I decided on the T-strip.

It may be my own fault, I probably should not have cut the carpet until after I figured it all out because there was not enough to fold the end over. Please don't get me wrong, I certainly don't think I know more than anyone who has professionally worked in the business.

I do appreciate your and everyone else's responses. If the T-strip doesn't work out, I'll take a second look at what to do. I understand the danger of someone stepping on one edge and breaking it off.

The carpet can always be stretched if was cut a little short. I used the wrong word for the transition strip. It would nt be a bullnose but a wood to bare floor transition. The nice thing is there is more than one way to finish of the edge, if you end up not liking it, change it. Good luck.