Flat bar
Two coverings finishing at the same height. The bar caps both cut edges and holds them down, then the stem takes the fixing into the base.
Where one floor stops and another starts
The middle of a room is the easy part. A floor is judged at its edges: the doorway, the skirting line, the pipe collar and the stair nosing. Each of those is a detail chosen at the measure, then fixed on the day while the joint is still open.
A doorway is the hardest of them, because two coverings of different thickness meet there and a door swings over the joint. The bar is chosen for the height difference first, then for the way the door opens, then for the covering on each side.
Four bars, drawn in section
Each drawing is a section cut straight through a doorway, looking along the wall. The base is at the bottom, the coverings are either side, and the bar sits over the joint between them.
Height differences come off the pack thicknesses, and the same figures drive the build-up sum on the rooms page.
The gap that has to be left
A floating floor is not fixed to anything. It grows and shrinks with the room, as one raft, so it is laid with a gap at every fixed thing it touches.
Laminate and floated engineered wood both work this way. The gap runs round the whole perimeter, then it is repeated at every doorframe, pipe, hearth, newel post and threshold. It is not decoration and it is not optional: a raft with nowhere to go lifts in the middle of the room, and the only cure is to lift the floor and cut the edges back.
| At this edge | Why the gap is there | What closes it |
|---|---|---|
| Wall and skirting | The raft moves across its whole width with the room. | Scotia pinned to the skirting, never through the floor. |
| Doorframe | The frame is fixed; the floor is not. | The frame is undercut, then the covering slides beneath it. |
| Doorway opening | Two rafts must move without pushing each other. | A T-bar over the open joint, fixed to the base only. |
| Pipe collar | The pipe stays where it is while the boards travel. | A two-piece collar, or the drilled cut piece glued back in. |
| Hearth and chimney breast | Masonry never moves with the floor. | Scotia, or a slim trim cut to the stone line. |
| Long run through rooms | Length adds up, so a very long raft needs a break. | An expansion joint on the opening, with a bar over it. |
Bonded coverings are the opposite case. Sheet vinyl and glued LVT are fixed to the base and move with it, so they are taken tight to the skirting instead, then scribed in. A bonded floor gets no perimeter gap, and a floated one is never taken tight.
Round the room, and up the flight
Away from the doorway the edges are quieter, then they are the ones a hand finds later. Each is finished as the covering reaches it, rather than left to a second visit.
At the skirting
Where the skirting lifts, the covering runs under it and the skirting comes back down over the cut edge, which is the neatest finish there is. Where the skirting stays put, the covering is scribed to the wall line and scotia closes the gap. Scotia is pinned into the skirting so the floor still moves underneath it.
At pipes and awkward shapes
A pipe is drilled first at its own diameter, then a cut is made back to the board edge and the small piece is taken out. The board goes down round the pipe, then the cut piece is glued back and the joint disappears. Curved hearths, bay reveals and rounded frames are templated in paper before anything is cut in the covering itself.
Up the stairs
A flight is fitted from the top down, tread by tread. Carpet is pulled over each nosing and knocked into the back angle of the step, so the line of every nosing stays straight and sharp. A landing bar closes the run where the flight meets the floor above, then the covering carries on across the landing.
Fixing a bar into the base
A bar is only as good as what holds it. Into timber it is screwed, with the fixings kept clear of the joint so the covering can still be lifted later. Into concrete it is plugged and screwed, or bonded where drilling would break out a thin screed. Bars are cut to the reveal with a fine blade, then the ends are dressed so no sharp edge is left in the opening.
A bar is set out square to the frame, not to the covering, since the frame is what the eye reads when the door stands open. It is fixed while the joint is still open and both cut edges are visible, then the covering either side is pressed home against it. Once the bar is down the doorway is finished, and the room is ready for the furniture to come back.
The base every one of these fixings goes into is set out on the base page, and the coverings meeting over them are compared on the covering page.