Getting laid - have you put down your own floor?

[MovingOnUpMovingOnOut]

We have horrible flooring in our kitchen and utility room and I would like to replace it quite cheaply because at some point we are going to take it all out and redevelop that end of the house. But we don't have enough money to do it at the moment so we want to smarten it up to last the next three years so I thought I'd have a crack at laying a new floor myself.

I have been looking at flooring that I can lay over the top of what's there already (for various reasons I don't want to take up or disturb the current floor) and wondered if anyone has used Amtico click or similar? I know I'd have to do something about the uneven bits maybe with a self-levelling infill before I could lay the floor.

There is vinyl in the utility and strips of the shittest laminate ever in the kitchen. The laminate is uneven and peeling in places.

All advice very welcome. I am fairly handy.

[fluffikins]

I really think the best bet is to rip up what's there and then hardboard the entire floor with lots of nails to keep them in place. Then you can use scree over the hardboard joints so it's all smooth and then put your flooring on the top. Otherwise you'll just find it lifts and is all uneven and a false economy.

[frenchfancy]

I think if you were doing a permenant job then fluffikins is right - however for a temporary fix I don't think it is necessary. We have laid clip laminate flooring over all sorts of surfaces and never had a problem. You can get thicker underlay to even out the floor if you have a couple of mm un-eveness. The real trick to it is at the edges, you need to leave an expansion gap and it can be tricky to finish the edges neatly, but if you have cupboards with baseboards on the job is easy just remove the baseboards, lay the flooring up to the feet of the unit, then replace the baseboards.

[MovingOnUpMovingOnOut]

If it's anything beyond sticking on vinyl tiles or clipping together boards I'm going to leave it until we do it properly.

I've just found moss growing round the soil pipe for the loo so I'm keen to just cover it all up and worry about and fix it later!

[MovingOnUpMovingOnOut]

Thank you for the advice. I have been debating underlay and watching YouTube videos of flooring installations. The click stuff looks so much easier than I thought and so long as I have all the gubbins for edging I probably wouldn't even have to take the skirting boards off the walls. Although if I did I could just glue them back on which is no bother.

[stealthsquiggle]

If you are laying something which is supposed to be a "floating floor" (engineered wood and the like) then stripping down the floor underneath is less crucial - we laid underlay boards, then a foam underlay and engineered boards on top of what was a pretty uneven floor, and it has gone down really well and stayed that way. Builders did the same with click-together plastic wood effect floor in the bathroom (honestly looks much nicer than it sounds) and that has worn really well too. If it will work on our upstairs floors (they need a contour map, and don't stay still!) then I think it would tolerate a little unevenness downstairs...