Laminate floor underlayment Question

toolman33

Greetings! I'm putting down Swiftlock Plus, laminate flooring in my living room. The flooring will be installed on top of concrete. The flooring I bought has a underlayment pad preattached to the back of each board. Since it is being installed over concrete I was thinking of putting down a traditional vapor barrier with underlayment pad underneath the flooring as well to give the floor a little extra give. This would give it two layers of pad underneath it. My question is... is it a mistake to do this? Would 2 thickness's of pad be to much? make the floor to spongy? An thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks

Bud Cline

You should check with the flooring manufacturer on that one. Too much padding certainly could be an issue.

AtlanticWBConst.

I wouldn't suggest putting 2 layers of padding down. If anything, consider installing a 4 mil Poly layer (vapor barrier) over the concrete.

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mcvane

If you feel that the concrete is cold on your feet (really cold), I would personally put the vapour barrier or any other layers that can warm things up.

Following the advice of 'experts' at some big box stores, they suggested I wouldn't need a vapour barrier below my laminate that I installed on a bedroom above a cold porch. I did install a 'foam type' of padding, but cold air still comes in very easily - the vapour barrier would've helped at least cut the wind-chill down in cold weather.

I'm not a pro-expert, but I would put the vapour barrier down.

toolman33

Thank you for your thoughts, I think I am just going to go with a vapor barrier and just use the padding thats on the back of the boards. I would hate to have to rip the floor up because it was too spongy to walk on.