Underlayment is the layer between your subfloor and your new floor. It is usually made of rubber, cork, felt, or foam. Unless your flooring has an attached underlayment, you need a separate one. Underlayment adds warmth and softness and, more importantly, increases the longevity of your new floor.
Benefits of Flooring Underlayments
Underlayment isn’t just something you throw down under your carpet or laminate. It has several purposes:
- Provides support for your flooring: Adding underlayment provides more stability.
- Minimizes the hollow sound caused by foot traffic: Underlayment muffles sounds caused by footsteps.
- Resists moisture: This is a significant feature that helps to protect your flooring in areas prone to water.
- Helps smooth subfloor imperfections: Underlayment ensures your floor lays correctly over your subfloors.
- Reduces transmission of impact sounds: Underlayment provides an extra sound barrier between levels of homes.
- Adds softness to your flooring: If you’re buying carpet, you’re looking for soft. Underlayment adds some give to your step.
- Increases the longevity of your floor: Underlayment will help keep your floors beautiful for years by supporting them and protecting them against friction.
The flooring underlayment operates as a protective barrier between your floor and subfloor. Floating floors are especially prone to expansion and contraction as the temperature changes. Underlayment provides a barrier from friction and movement, keeping your floor together during shifting.
How to Install Underlayment
Installing underlayment is a lot easier than most people think. Here is the process in a few simple steps:
- Start by rolling out the underlayment one row at a time, perpendicular to the direction the flooring will be laid.
- Tape or adhere rows at the connecting seams. Some underlayments come with an adhesive strip.
- Don’t overlap underlayment unless the manufacturer recommends it.
That’s it! With a few tools and a little labor, your underlayment is ready to go. You should always check with the manufacturer to see if your product has more specific directions.
Flooring Underlayments from Indiana Floor
Our vast inventory of flooring, sundries, accessories, and tools is unlike any other in the industry. We established decades of vendor relationships to provide the flooring industry with top-quality products. Here are some of the flooring underlayment brands we carry.
Roberts Unison® 2-In-1 Underlayment
This underlayment can be used under laminate and engineered wood flooring. Its dense, closed-cell structure offers moisture, mold, and mildew resistance, making it suitable for use over radiant heated floors. The 2-in-1 underlayment offers cushioning and a reduction in sound transference. It is designed for on- or above-grade applications, but it can also be used below-grade with a moisture barrier.
Rebond Cushions
Bonded polyurethane foam (also called rebond) is unique. It is easy to recognize because it is formed by combining small chopped foam pieces of different sizes and usually different colors into one solid piece. It frequently has a surface net for ease of installation and improved performance. For light traffic, it’s recommended to find a carpet cushion with a density of 5 lbs and a thickness of at least 3/8 inches and a density of 6.5 lbs and a thickness of 3/8 inches.
These are recommended but with rebond carpet cushion, increasing the density numbers to 7.0 lbs and 7.5 lbs is a good idea. Higher-grade rebonds are manufactured using memory foam.
Indiana Floor, Inc.: Your One-Stop Shop for Quality Flooring Products
Since 1993, Indiana Floor has been the leading choice of contractor supply to the hardwood flooring trades. We offer a vast inventory of finished, unfinished, engineered flooring, sundries, and tools to meet customers’ needs. With 6 locations in the MD and VA areas, we are dedicated to providing quality flooring products to our clients. Contact us today at (703) 550-0020 or fill out the contact form on our website!