Westhollow Cork Question

Q: I’m planning to install Westhollow cork floating planks throughout my new house: 3 bedrooms, kitchen, living room and basement/playroom. I have few questions about installation:
1. Currently we have old hardwood floors (decent condition) in our bedrooms and living room. Should I remove old floors or keep it before I install cork planks?
If I’ll keep it, what kind of underlayment should I use if any and how should I lay the planks?
I think that hardwood should be installed across joists and if I’m installing the cork on existing hardwood should I install it parallel to the hardwood or across it?
Is there the rule of thumb on which way to install cork floating planks?
2. I noticed that Westhollow planks have few different finishes, what is the best/durable finish for kitchen?
3. Since I’m replacing old kitchen cabinets and appliances, should I install floor under cabinets and appliances? I’m worry about the weight and pressure on the floor and room for floor to expand and contract. Also, what kind of underlayment I should use in kitchen (right now we have thin vinyl tiles on the plywood and I’m not sure how easy it would be to remove old tiles)? If I need to use cork underlayment and vapor barrier, what should go first on the subfloor?
4. Can you please break down on where Westholllow cork planks are made and which collections have better quality and more durable finish?
Please respond asap as my project should start in 1-2 weeks. I really appreciate your time and help and hope these questions and answers would help other customers of your company.
Thanks again.
Roman
A: We have several good questions here, and I am going to break them up a bit, answering them in a slightly different order, but I think this will help to keep in mind the process you will go through to install your new flooring.
Let’s start with question four, about the product itself. All lines of Westhollow cork are manufactured in Portugal and are amongst the best corks in the industry. The Portugal made cork collections all carry a very good finish which is one of the best cork finishes in the industry – so for cork standards these are excellent choices and all should work well in your kitchen. To answer question 2, as long as you clean up any moisture spills ASAP in your kitchen, any of these collections will work well in your kitchen.
Let’s move onto your third question, as this will help set a few good practices for your entire installation. With floating floors, you can not set very heavy furniture at the edges of the floor, such as cabinetry, large entertainment centers or large book cases. This being said, I would suggest no installing the floor before installing cabinetry and appliances.
What you can do to make sure the appliances and cork flooring sit at similar height is install some plywood in the areas where appliances will go. This will essentially shim up the floor to be the same height as the finished floor, now if you want to be extra safe, make this sit about 1/8″ higher than your cork flooring, so than you can place a 1/8″ Masonite board over the cork, moving the appliances onto the Masonite to prevent any damage to your cork.
Now to answer the rest of your third question and your first question, let’s break this into two parts: installing over existing floors versus removing them and underlayment and installation process.
For the vinyl and wood currently installed over your home, you can install over both of these floors as long as they are in good shape and nothing is loose. Keep in mind here that if you want to keep all of these floors at the same height and use very few expansion joints, you will want to remove all of the existing flooring so that you can install directly over the subfloor.
As far as underlayment is concerned, you must have underlayment with all floating floors. Now the thing cork backing on the Westhollow planks can suffice, but I heavily suggest against not using any additional underlayment. At the very least I would suggest using 3mm cork (6mm being preferred for floating cork floors) as this will maintain a solid feeling floor underfoot while reducing sound and insulating the floor. When installing the floor, you will want to install the moisture barrier first, then the underlayment and then finally the flooring itself.
When installing the planks, the basic rule is to install parallel to the longest wall in the room, but overall it is best to install perpendicular to the joists in your floor for wooden subfloor, but over concrete the direction does not matter much.
This should cover all of your questions and most of your suspicions are correct. The best thing to do here is take your time and plan out the installation. Remember, stagger the floor properly and measure twice before cutting once.