Laminate flooring which way to lay

[Ellen2]

Please can anyone help. I’ve bought this lovely floor and the people coming to fit it are telling me that I can’t fit vertically( which is the length of the room) because the floorboards are running that way. He is saying that the laminate must be laid across so horizontally otherwise the floor will pop out and to straighten the floor he would need to put plywood down.

is this true ?

Yes, the done thing is to lay the opposite direction to the floor boards. As you've been told, a way around this is laying ply first.

Seems reasonable yes. Usually flooring is laid perpendicular to the windows but if the floorboards already go that way then laying opposite way to the floorboards makes sense.

If it’s a large room you could consider laying diagonally? (In a small room it would probably make the space look smaller so not a good idea).

I so regret laminate in our kitchen, looks awful after 5 years, much cheaper in the long run to spend more to get it right first time than redo.

I laid my wooden floor down in the direction of how I wanted the room to look bigger. Mine are running the width of the room to make the room appear wider. If you want the room to appear longer then lay them the length of the room and not the width. Could something be put underneath on top of the floorboards so you can choose which direction to lay your flooring?

Yes that is true. It needs to go at 90 degrees to floorboards or have a mid layer

I wouldn’t put laminate over floorboards without first putting ply down, regardless of the direction.

Side question do you put ply under tiles?

So it’s for a rental, and the floor is only going in the downstairs area. He’s said that it’ll be £2k more to put the ply down. This is why I’ve gone for laminate bc it’s a rental, but it’s quite decent, it’s 12mm thick.

@Soontobe60 can you expand on what you said?

Laminate is made of woodpulp with a photograph of wood, tiles or stone glued to the top, so is not strong or hard wearing and is totally dependent on the floor beneath. I view it as a temporary or limited life product.

Half an inch thick sounds more like "engineered flooring" which is a sort of ply, and stronger.