Installation of skirting boards, their types, installation methods, technology for fixing plastic and wooden profiles. Installation of skirting boards is the final stage of flooring. It is extremely necessary, since, in addition to performing the functions of a beautiful decor when decorating adjoins, the products also have a practical purpose - they fix the floor covering around the perimeter of the room, protect the walls during cleaning and hide electrical communications. You will learn how to install skirting boards on the floor using simple tools from this material.
Varieties of floor skirting boards
Skirting boards for home use are available in a variety of materials. On this basis, they are divided into the following types:
- Wooden skirting boards … They are made from solid wood or veneer. Spruce and pine are the raw materials for such products. For higher quality samples, wood of expensive species is used - oak, ash or cherry. Wooden skirting boards are used for the functional and decorative design of cork, tongue-and-groove flooring, parquet and laminate flooring.
- MDF skirting boards … Their base consists of compressed wood chips, and the outer layer is made of paper impregnated with dyes and a protective coating. Such skirting boards are hygienic, easy to use, have a huge number of colors and an affordable price. They are often used for edging laminate flooring.
- Plastic PVC skirting boards … These are serious competitors to their wooden counterparts. The reason for this is the mass of advantages of PVC products: low weight, absolute resistance to moisture, household chemicals and ultraviolet light. Plastic skirting boards are used to decorate linoleum, carpet or laminate flooring.
Methods for installing skirting boards on the floor
You can fasten the plinth to the floor or walls of the room using dowels, special glue or clips.
The design as the basis for fixing the skirting boards is selected based on the material of its manufacture and the type of floor covering. For example, a wooden skirting board is easier to nail to a plank floor rather than dowels to a concrete wall. And when installing a "floating floor", any skirting boards are fixed only on fixed vertical structures.
Fastening the skirting boards to the dowels starts from the far corner of the room. 40-50 mm retreat from it and the first hole is drilled for hardware using a perforator or an electric drill. All subsequent holes are located in increments of 0.6 m.
If the installation of the skirting boards is carried out on clips, then they are first installed with the same step, and only then the holes for the dowels are drilled.
Fastening skirting boards with glue is the simplest. To do this, it is enough to apply liquid nails to the back of the product, and then press it firmly against the wall.
All these methods are universal and are actively used in the installation of products made of metal, plastic and other materials. The installation of wooden skirting boards has some nuances. For example, when they are docked in the corners of a room, a special trimming of the ends of parts at a certain slope will be required.
Installation of plastic floor skirting boards
For floors made of ceramic tiles or laminated boards, plastic skirting boards are an excellent solution. Before starting their installation, the finishing of the floor and walls of the room must be completed. If the walls are uneven, you can use products with rubberized edges for fixing to them. In their absence, another method is used: the gap between the wall and the plinth is filled with a special silicone mass, which can be selected to match the color of the floor curb. After it hardens, the curvature of the wall will be less noticeable. Plastic skirting boards can be attached with screws, clips and glue. Let's consider each of these cases separately.
Installation of skirting boards on self-tapping screws
Before attaching the plinth to the floor, you need to prepare the following tools: drills for concrete and wood, a hammer drill, an electric drill, a hacksaw, a miter box and dowels.
Work should begin with the installation of the corner profile. After installing it from the plinth, you need to remove the cover and attach it to the wall. Using a drill, in the center of the groove in the inner cavity of the curb, you need to drill a number of holes for its fastening. The step between them should be 25-30 cm. The places where the skirting boards are spliced and the angles of their rotation are taken into account. After drilling, a mark from them should remain on the wall.
Then it is necessary to select a drill according to the diameter of the dowel plug and, according to the marks left by the drill, make holes in the concrete of the wall.
The standard length of the skirting board is 2.5 m. If it turns out to be longer than required, the curb should be shortened according to the wall edge mark. It is recommended to trim it with a miter saw in a miter box. Correct installation of the skirting board on the floor is possible only if it is meticulously adjusted to the required size. It is not difficult to calculate the required length of the element. To do this, you need to attach the corresponding elements of the plinth fittings to the corners of the wall and measure the distance between them. To find the desired length of the curb, add 5 mm to the resulting value for each end. This is the required distance for the skirting board to fit into the groove of the corner fitting.
After making the holes and preparing the product to size, it is necessary to install dowels in place of the plugs and fix the plinth through each of them at the base of the wall.
Before installing the next curb, an overlay should be attached to the installed element, hiding the place of fastening of the product. After that, you need to choose the size of the next plinth, which at the junction should form a right angle with the previous one. Internal corners should be marked by putting the appropriate piece of fittings on the end of the product.
When splicing profiles on flat sections of the wall, couplings are used. The assembly of the curb line must be carried out in such a way that it ends on the wall near the doorway.
Installation of skirting boards with clips
When choosing this method of fastening, you do not need to nail the plinth to the wall, in this case it is fixed on special brackets.
The step of installing clips on the wall depends on the degree of its curvature. For flat surfaces, it is about half a meter, for those with deviations from the norm, it can decrease to 20 cm. Accordingly, the more significant the curvature of the wall, the smaller the step of fasteners should be on it. To mark the fasteners of plastic skirting boards, it is necessary to press each clip tightly to the wall along one line and mark the places of their fixation. After that, according to the obtained marks, holes with a diameter of 6 mm should be made. In each of them, it is necessary to hammer a dowel with a hammer and, applying clips to the plugs one by one, fix them with screws.
After completing this work, it is necessary to adjust the dimensions of the skirting boards in place. Installing the curb is very simple: you need to attach it to the fasteners and click it into place with a light pressure.
To install the next skirting board, its end should be inserted into the sleeve that was previously put on the edge of the previous one, and then click the product onto the clip. The do-it-yourself installation of the plinth on the floor is completed by installing plugs on the unoccupied ends of the curbs located near the doorways, as well as decorative corners.
Installation of skirting boards with glue
Before gluing the skirting boards, you must carefully level the walls of the room. This can be done with plaster, putty or drywall sheets.
As a glue, compounds are used that are suitable for working with plastic or wood, for example, glue-88B or "liquid nails". In order to glue the skirting boards to the walls without any problems, you must first try them dry at the installation site, taking into account the length of the profiles, plastic plugs, connecting and corner elements.
Installation of skirting boards should start from the corner of the room. Glue should be applied to the back of the profile with a thin layer, and “liquid nails” - in separate drops, located at a distance of 3-5 cm from each other. The product with the side treated with glue must be applied to the floor and wall, then removed, and then finally fixed after eight minutes. The instruction says that with this technology, the glue sets better after fixing the material on it. Then, at the free end of the profile, you need to fix the coupling.
This installation method is not at all complicated, but when choosing it, you should take into account some points:
- The skirting board can only be used once.
- It is difficult to achieve an ideal base plane for the product to be glued.
- It is necessary to be able to dispense the adhesive used for fastening.
- The work requires the utmost care in order to avoid the appearance of glue drips on the front of the skirting board and the floor.
Features of fastening wooden skirting boards to the floor
The technology for installing wooden skirting boards is not much different from the method described earlier using the example of plastic profiles. The main problem that arises during the installation of such strips is their joining in the corners and the addition of the missing profile. These issues are easily solved using a special device called a miter box, or a template.
Intermediate joining of skirting boards for the floor is made at an angle of 45 degrees. At the joints, the thickness of the profiles must be the same, and their wood must be free of knots. After trimming, the products are fastened with glue or decorative nails.
To form an inner or outer corner of 90? of the two skirting boards, their ends are alternately cut at an angle of 45 degrees in the miter box using a hacksaw. In this case, the inner left corner is performed first, and then the right one.
Unlike the option with plastic skirting boards, in this case, not plastic dowels are used for fastening wooden products, but special pins - sticks with a round section, made of the same wood as the skirting board. This makes it possible to make the attachment points invisible. If the walls are loose, this method of fastening is not suitable - the pins will not hold in them, but you can use glue.
To give a neat look to the installed skirting boards, you should fill the gaps at their outer and inner corners with wood putty, the indentations from the screw heads, the gaps between the walls and profiles. Then the surfaces treated with putty should be sanded with fine-grained emery paper.
In some cases, to protect the floor, it is necessary to fill the gap between the flooring and the skirting board with a sealant. In order to perform this procedure carefully, you need to use masking tape, pasting over the surfaces of the abutments. Upon completion of the work, it is deleted.
How to install a plinth on the floor - watch the video:
The described installation methods for skirting boards will help you choose the best option for the final stage of floor finishing. If the type of product matches the technology of its installation, you will not have to redo the work and spend money on the purchase of new material. We hope that the above information will tell you which surface is suitable for installing skirting boards on the floor and how to choose them in accordance with the type of coverage. Good luck!
