An article about mosaic parquet, its characteristics, features, laying and finishing technology.
Preparatory work before laying mosaic parquet
Preparation for the installation of mosaic parquet includes a number of activities:
- When choosing a mosaic parquet, it is recommended to pay special attention to the color, design of the products and the types of wood from which the elements of the shields are made. Hardwoods are preferable, these are maple, hornbeam, oak and many others.
- After the purchase, it is necessary to select the parquet modules in such a way that during installation they make up a whole number, and they do not have to be sawed.
- The resulting products must be sorted by shade and pattern before laying for ease of installation.
Before starting work, you should prepare the following tools: brushes for cleaning the base for parquet, putty knives, a parquet hammer, a cord, a doboiner, a container for an adhesive, a scraper, carpenter's hammers with round-shaped backs for driving fasteners into the grooves of rivets and a wooden spatula for distributing mastic over base surface.
Installation technology for mosaic parquet floor
Mosaic parquet is laid on a rigid base, which can be a subfloor or cement screed. Before starting its installation, you should complete all construction work associated with "wet" processes.
The base for the mosaic parquet must be level and clean. After cleaning it from debris and removing concrete deposits, damage in the form of potholes, chips and cracks is often revealed on the screed. In such cases, the defective spots should be repaired with a polymer solution using a spatula.
If the floor is uneven, apply a leveling screed on it and wait until it dries. Then the resulting surface must be primed to improve its adhesion to the parquet glue. The evenness of the base is checked in all places with a two-meter rail. The gap between it and the floor surface should not be more than 1 mm.
Laying of any kind of mosaic parquet should be carried out at an air temperature of at least + 10 ° C. Before starting the installation, the material must be kept for acclimatization in the room for at least 72 hours.
When laying the parquet, the adhesive is applied with a notched trowel. This is done in portions so that the surface covered with the composition can be covered with parquet modules and thus prevent the mixture from drying out. The material should be laid on wet glue, tightening its adhesion to the substrate with a wooden mallet.
To install a mosaic parquet flooring, you first need to pull two cords along the walls in a perpendicular direction to each other. Then, guided by the cords, you need to attach slats 20 mm thick and length corresponding to the dimensions of 6-8 parquet modules to the walls. The slats are used as stops for the elements of the parquet flooring and form the required deformation gap after being removed.
The first modules are laid along the rails. On the 2 sides, first the first rows are laid, then the second. When installing parquet, each subsequent module must be joined by the edges in two previously laid ones. This helps to achieve an even styling.
A notched trowel is used to spread the mastic on the substrate. It allows you to create a layer of constant thickness from it. The glue squeezed out of the seams by the parquet flooring should be immediately removed with a knife, and the surface should be wiped off with a dry cloth.
3-5 days after the adhesive has cured, the paper can be removed from the parquet. To make the process easier, it needs to be moistened with a wet brush. After that, you should mount the skirting boards and start finishing the surface of the mosaic parquet.
Features of finishing mosaic parquet
Before applying a protective layer to the parquet, its surface must be carefully prepared, it must be smooth and clean. For this purpose, parquet grinders SO-60 or SO-206 are used.
Several passes are performed with periodic replacement of the abrasive material. Its grain size at the initial stage of work should be 36-50, on subsequent passes - 60 or 80. After sanding the coating, wood dust from the surface should be removed with an industrial vacuum cleaner.
Parquet varnish must be hard and moisture resistant. It should not distort the texture and color of the wood. Parquet varnishes "Tikkurila" (Finland), PF231 and PF257 meet these requirements.
The lacquer application to the parquet surface should be started from the outermost wall towards the exit from the room. The first coat of varnish slightly lifts the wood grain of the coating. To remove them, the dried surface must be treated again with a fine abrasive material, then the coating must be cleaned from dust again and 2 more layers of varnish must be applied to it. The second layer should be applied after the previous one has completely dried.
How to lay mosaic parquet - watch the video:
The process of installing a mosaic parquet floor is quite simple and accessible to everyone. This makes it possible to create beautiful coatings without high costs and rather quickly in residential premises and offices. Good luck!
