Why roll underlayment opposite floating floor direction?

18 years ago

We're about to put down a floating engineered floor in our living room/kitchen area. This the largest room in the house, and we have a lot of items we can't move easily into other rooms, so our strategy was to clear off half of the room area, put down the underlayment and flooring, then move the "stuff" to the completed side and finish the job.

However, when we opened up the first pack of underlayment and read the instructions, we noticed a statement that it was very important that the underlayment be rolled out cross-wise to the direction the flooring planks are being laid in - so we'd need to put down the underlayment directly underneath the area where we've moved everything from the other half of the room. Ugh.

Given our inability to completely clear the room, I don't know how this can be possible for us (unless we put down the underlayment in two pieces...) Does anyone know why this is important - or more importantly, is this a rule that can be safely broken?

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Comments (3)

floorguy
18 years ago
Never heard that before, unless there is an overlap and the under cushion is thick.
Shannon01
18 years ago
Never heard of that either. Since you are supposed to use tape to attach the rows of underlay together I would imagine you could lay the rows in the area you are working on, then move all your stuff back onto new floor and then connect the underlay with tape and continue the rows on the other half of the room. Or, there is always an or. You could measure the length of each row and only unroll the length of the area you are working on, leaving the rest of the roll sitting there. Then move the stuff to new floor and unroll the rest of underlay.
But, and there is always a but too. I still have never heard of laying it that direction.
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rekoil
Original Author
18 years ago
Thanks for the replies - we're going to roll the underlayment out crosswise but stop where our furniture is sitting, then continue once we've finished the first half and the other side is cleared.

Still very unclear to me why this would be important, however.

Also, is it recommended to staple down underlayment at the corners to keep it from shifting? If not, how do you keep it from moving around after it's put down but before the flooring is laid? Should I just put weights on the corners to keep it steady?