An often overlooked feature of any home would be the door. Doors do a lot more than just open and close, they separate rooms, surfaces and they also stop pesky things from entering your home such as the weather, the sound of your neighbour’s old Ford Cortina starting up, unwanted people or a Gazelle. They come in a wide range of shapes, sizes, styles and materials however their purpose still remains the same.

So what door is right for your home? Well whether the door is solid, glass, louvered or half glass it should complement the look and feel of the wall where it is placed so skirtings, mouldings and trims are all complemented by its presence. It should also suit your needs so if, for example, you’ve just had all of your walls sound insulated, the last thing you would want is sound to still come through to your room thanks to having a hollow-core door.

There are many kinds of doors with specific names, depending on their purpose. The most common type of door is the single-leaf door which consists of a single rigid panel which fills the doorway. There are numerous variations on this design such as the double-leaf door or double doors. Below is a list of some of the door types available.

• Dutch door/ Stable Door
• Saloon Doors
• Batwing Doors
• Blind Door
• Barn Door
• French Door
• Louvred Door
• Flush Door
• Moulded Door
• Ledge and Brace Door
• Wicket Door
• Bifold Door
• Arcadia/Sliding Glass Door
• Australian Door

Since its introduction during the great housing boom, the Hollow-core door consists of 2 thin plywood or hardwood faces with supports between to keep the door rigid, these are often made from cardboard. These doors are light and cheap but are poor at sound insulation and are prone to damage. However they provide a flush face for paint or staining and are easily installed or replaced.

Because solid wood doors are not as budget sensitive as these hollow-core doors, manufacturers started to develop the engineered wood door. These doors are faced with a high-quality wooden veneers which are placed upon a core made from either high-density fiberboard/hardboard with higher quality engineered doors may use hardwood sticking (the pieces that go between the panels) to the sides and below – called the stiles and the rails. Top quality doors will also have hardwood support where screwholes are located for good adhesion without stripping. These doors, like solid wood doors, come in raised panel and flat panel styles. They can be stained or painted but typically have veneered faces that are suitable for staining.

What a typical door consists of

Once you have chosen your door you will want to finish it (providing it hasn’t already been done for you!) For the best protection you should first apply a basecoat to all surfaces of the door – ensuring maximum protection. Once this has been done you will need to seal the end grain of the wood at the top and bottom of the door stiles as well as all joints before finally applying 2 coats of Top Coat to ensure you have a fantastic durable finish

Depending on the weather conditions Oak doors generally need a recoat every year, although with hardwood doors it is recommended to check the finish every six months and recoat as necessary.

We hope that this information has helped you in choosing the right doors for your home and given you some help in finishing your doors.

Laying laminate flooring is easy. However it’s important that all materials and steps are properly prepared for. The following guide gives step by step laying instructions. You should first verify which sub-floor you want to fit your Krono Original laminate flooring onto because the individual floorings are not suitable for every type of sub-floor.

Fitting laminate on screed

The floor must be absolutely level, dry, clean and firm. It is very important to sand down and fill any unevenness of more than three millimetres over one metre. You must use PE foil as a moisture barrier.

Fitting laminate on wooden planks

Loose floorboards must be fixed and uneven surfaces should be smoothed out to ensure a flat, firm surface to fit on. Fit the Krono Original laminate flooring at right-angles to the lengthwise direction of the wooden planks. You may not use PE foil on wooden sub-floors.

Laminate on wooden boards

Loose wooden boards must be fixed and any unevenness levelled out. The boards must be firmly connected to the sub-floor so that there is no creaking later.

Fitting laminate on PVC or linoleum floorings

These types of old flooring must be removed.

Fitting laminate flooring on hot water underfloor heating

Please ask a trusted heating specialist to heat your floor until it is dry. They have the necessary skills and records. A surface temperature of 25 degrees Celsius is advisable; you should never exceed 28 degrees Celsius. Old flooring must be removed.

Residual moisture

The screed should never exceed the following residual moisture values:
1.) Cement screed: With underfloor heating 1.8 percent CM; without underfloor heating 2 percent CM.
2.) Anhydride screed: With underfloor heating 0.3 percent; without underfloor heating 0.5 percent CM.

Before fitting your laminate flooring please make sure you go through these checklists.

A.) Tools checklist

You should have the following tools ready to hand at all times when fitting your Krono Original laminate flooring:

• Spacer wedges
• Circular saw, Jigsaw or handsaw with a finetooth
• Angle for undercutting the doorframes
• Tapemeasure, pencil
• Laminate fitting kit
• Tapping block, Hammer
• Acoustic sound underlay (for floorings without a Sound Absorb System)

B.) Materials & accessories checklist

• Precise measurements of your room
• Krono Original laminate flooring
• Clickseal one tube is sufficient for ten square metres of laminate flooring
• Skirting boards – Solid wood, PVC or MDF with real wood vaneer
• Scotia or quadrant beading  transition and edge profiles
• Fixing clips (30 clips per pack of Krono Original flooring)
• Vapour barrier layer, Gold/Silver dune underlay
• Foam underlay

Please also note that additional transmitted sound insulation is necessary for laminate floorings without S.A.S (Sound Absorb System). Under certain circumstances you may also need Clickguard or a comparable joint seal, joint sealing compound and glue/bonding agent.

Before fitting: Store the packs of flooring for 48 hours under the same climatic conditions as for fitting.

An important requirement for installation and long durability of the laminate floor is a room climate of around 20° Celsius and a relative humidity of 50 to 70 percent. The sub-floor must be absolutely level, dry, clean and firm.

When fitting on a mineral sub-floor such as concrete, cement screed, anhydride screed or stone tiles you must measure the moisture first. The screed should never exceed the following residual moisture values:

1.) Cement screed: With underfloor heating 1.8 percent CM; without underfloor heating 2 percent CM.

2.) Anhydride screed: With underfloor heating 0.3 percent; without underfloor heating 0.5 percent CM.

Before fitting on concrete underfloors you must fit a suitable vapour barrier underlay (Gold/Silver dune underlay) to protect against moisture. Fit the sheets with a 20 cm overlap and fix with aluminium tape.

Carpeting is not a suitable underlay; you must remove all remaining carpeting before fitting the laminate. Laminate flooring is laid as a “floating” floor; you may not fix it to the sub-floor. Please use 2 millimetre PE foam underlay or another suitable underlay, maximum 3 millimetres thick, as transmitted sound insulation for floorings without S.A.S impact sound insulation. Please lay the sheets in the same direction as the panels. You should lay opened packs of flooring immediately.

Generally you have three options for fitting laminate flooring:

1.) Fast, glue-free laying
2.) Laying with Clickseal or comparable joint sealing. This ensures the floor is permanently protected against the effect of moisture from above. The floor can be nevertheless be taken up again and relaid.
3.) Laying with glue also provides permanent protection against moisture; however, the work is more time-consuming and complicated and the flooring can no longer be reused.

Laying Laminate

If the walls are not straight, please trace the line of the wall onto the first row of panels and saw the panels accordingly. Before laying the panels measure the depth of the room first. If the last row of panels has a width of less than 5 centimetres you must evenly distribute the remaining measurement between the first and last row of panels so that both rows are cut to size with the same panel width.

Always maintain a 12-15 mm distance from walls, heating pipes, columns, door stoppers etc. You can use spacing wedges to fix this distance. Expansion joints (at least 2 cm wide) are needed if the laying area is more than 8 m long or wide. Please also note that these are also required when laying flooring continuously over more than one room. Here the laying areas have to be interrupted in the area of the door frames. To this end, use profiles from our range. These movement joints can be professionally covered using the appropriate profiles.

Tip: Lay the panels lengthwise in line with the main light source!

Start laying in the left-hand corner of the room. The protruding lower groove cheek should be facing the layer. Lay the 1st row of panels by joining together the first two, and then each further panel, with an installation aid (panel off-cut with lengthwise tongue profile). Tip: In general, you should set the fitting aid lengthwise in the area of the two head joints and then finally align the elements. This prevents damage when sealing the panels.

Now knock the panel to be laid, in a flat position, with the flat of your hand until a pre-latching effect is achieved over the whole width of the panel.

To do this the chock is placed on the panel lengthwise to the head joint. Please ensure the tapping block protrudes by around 5 – 10 millimetres beyond the edge. This ensures the surfaces of both panels joint flush with each other. Repeat the above procedure to lay the whole of the first row of panels. Use spacing wedges to ensure a 12 -15 millimetre distance is maintained from the wall!

Start the second row left-hand side by inserting the long tongue side of the panel at a 30 degree angle slant into the bottom groove cheek of the panels that have already been laid (the 1st row) and twist it in and downwards with light pressure. Begin each new row with the remaining piece (at least 20 centimetres long) of the previous row. The space between the transverse joints of one row of panels and the next should be at least 40 centimetres.

The following panels are first inserted on the lengthwise side and then just before lowering the head side is pressed tightly against the previous panel until the overlays joint together.

Now tap the flat panel with the palm of your hand in the area of the transverse joint until a locking-in effect is achieved across the whole panel width. Then lock the head joints by lightly hitting them with the hammer and chock. Use the fitting aid too. Lay all the remaining panels by repeating the given sequence.

If necessary, close the transverse joints by tapping them from the side with a suitable tapping block. To cut the last row in the panel to size, rotate it through 180 degrees; place it with the decor side facing upwards next to the already laid row (groove cheek to groove cheek). Allow for the wall spacing on the end face. Mark the panel and saw off. To avoid splintered edges the décor side must be facing downwards if you use an electric compass saw or circular saw to cut the panels. Otherwise saw the panels with the décor facing upwards. If necessary use the drawbar to fix the last panel in a row. After laying panels remove the spacing wedges.

Holes, which are 3 centimetres larger than the pipe diameter, must be cut out for heating pipes. Saw out a V-shaped “adapter piece”, glue, fit into place and fix with a wedge until the glue has hardened. Then cover the cut-outs with radiator rosettes.

Please shorten wooden door frames so that an element with impact sound insulation fits under it, so that the laminate flooring can move without restriction here too if the room’s climate changes.

For a perfect finish at a wall, fix the skirting board clips at 40 – 50 centimetre spacings along the wall, and then attach the matching skirting boards suitably cut to size.

Laying with Krono Twin Clic

Start laying the panels in the left-hand corner of the room. Lay the first panel with its tongue side facing the wall and use spacer wedges to ensure the correct edge spacing. Insert a second ‎‎panel into the end (short side) with an angle of 30 degrees in the groove profiling of the preceding first panel and then put down flat on the floor. Ensure the lengthwise edges are aligned, are not offset and form a straight line. This is necessary to be able to insert the panels in the lengthwise profiling without joints when laying the 2nd row.

If a wall is uneven and the distance from it is partly too large or too small as a result, please trace the line of the wall onto the first row of panels and saw the panels accordingly. Add further panels until you reach the end of the 1st row.

To fit/cut the last panel in the row to size, rotate it by 180° and place it, with the decor side facing upwards, next to the already laid row (groove cheek next to groove cheek) and the wall side. Allow for a distance of 12 – 15 mm from the wall at the end (short side). Mark the panel length and saw off. To avoid splintered edges the decor side should be facing downwards if you use an electric compass saw or circular saw to cut the panels. Otherwise saw the panels with the décor facing upwards. Begin each new row with the remaining piece (at least 20 cm long) of the previous row. Start the second row with a half-panel or the rest of the 1st row. Ensure the panel is not smaller than 30 cm and not longer than 95 cm. The joint offset (transverse joint offset) must be at least 30 centimetres from row to row.

Position the panel piece of the second row so that the lengthwise sides of the panels in the 1st and 2nd row lie parallel on top of each other but are not clicked into position. I.e. the tongue side of the 2nd row lies on the groove side of the 1st row. Before clicking into place, position the other panels up to the end of the 2nd row. Repeat the procedure for the 1st row. If the complete 2nd row is lying next to the 1st row, it is raised by approx 2 centimetres on the left-hand side, on the lengthwise side (tongue side) facing into the room.

The tongue of the 2nd row of panels slips into the groove of the 1st row in the raised area. When the panels are lowered again the click connection locks into place. Repeat this procedure along the whole of the 2nd row (“zip” method), until the 1st and 2nd row are laid together free of joints and with no height differences. When connecting the first and second row, always ensure the lengthwise sides of the panels are laid without an offset. The remaining rows can then be added as for row 2; ensure you allow for an adequate transverse joint offset.

Expansion joints (at least 2 centimetres wide) are needed if the area to be laid is more than 8 metres long or wide. Please also note that these are also required when laying flooring continuously over more than one room. Here the laying areas have to be interrupted in the area of the door frames. To this end, use profiles from our range. These movement joints can be professionally covered using the appropriate profiles.

Tip: Lay the panels lengthwise in line with the main light source!

If the floor is to be glued or a joint seal is to be applied, sufficient white glue type D3 or Clickseal must be placed on the upper tongue cheek of each panel (1 x lengthwise side and 1 x short side of each panel). After approx. 10 minutes, push off any surplus glue emerging on the surface when it is dry using a plastic filling knife or scraper. Completely remove any residues using glue remover, a non-scratch pad and/or clean, hot water.

When using Clickseal, follow the instructions for use. After laying the panels remove the spacing wedges. Holes 3 centimetres larger than the pipe diameter must be cut out for heating pipes. Saw out a “fitting piece”, glue, fit into place and fix with a wedge until the glue has hardened. Then cover the holes with radiator rosettes. Shorten wooden door frames so that a panel with impact sound insulation and 2 -3 millimetre gap fit under them.

For a perfect finish, fix the skirting board clips at 40 – 50 centimetre spacings along the wall, and then attach the matching skirting boards suitably cut to size.