shopping list should you have a small room to handle. Some items can be as basic as finding a straight eight foot piece of 2 x 4 lumber, used for checking subfloor flatness. As mentioned numerous times on our site, floor preparation is an important ingredient to any successful installation.

For smaller rooms, lay the 2 x 4 flat on the subfloor, while kneeling and moving it around from one location to another. A quick check underneath for visual high and low areas should be recognized. Any irregularities should be marked with a carpenters crayon or pencil. If you're so inclined and prefer a good quality straight edge that may be useful for other projects, flooring supply houses offer aluminum straight edges.

Another Simple Tool To Check For Subfloor Conditions

This one costs very little money. It's called the string line method for checking subfloor flatness. Considering Checking subfloor flatness with a string line we have a chalk line in the tool box we've utilized it for this purpose. If you have a helper, walk around the layout perimeter along opposite wall lines while pulling the line tight with the string line flat to the subfloor in both areas.

Move the string line from one area to the other placing in between while marking high and low areas to be corrected later.

Trowels and Floor Patch Mixing Tools

If a low subfloor floor correction (fixing dips or valleys) is needed a float trowel, bucket, mixing paddle, and electric drill will be needed. Corrective measures may also include repairing areas in front of sliding glass doors. Often during the construction process concrete finishers recess the areas where sliders get installed. Once the doors are in, a gap in front may need filling.

Often when carpet tack strip is removed in lieu of new flooring, the removal takes chunks of previously used patch compound with it. In some cases carpet installers do nothing and leave the gap there allowing carpeting to hide the recess. This is where a float trowel comes into play as seen in our photo above. The area must be corrected because it becomes a vital area where end cap moldings or baby thresholds are installed. They must be glued and need a flat surface for it.

Floor preparation compounds used specifically for these kind of jobs are fast setting materials. Tools must be cleaned with water immediately, otherwise you'll find yourself beating on them once cured. These tools are important should more work be needed. Beating on them with a hammer trying to dislodge set up cement can disfigure their shape, especially that $15.00 float trowel you bought.

• Floor Preparation On Concrete

• Floor Prep on Wood Subfloors