How do I fit laminate around a radiator pipe?

Radiator pipes coming up through a floor are the most common obstacle in a flooring job and the one that most often produces a visible bodge. The method is simple once you have seen it, and the key point is that the hole must be oversized, because a floating floor pinched on a pipe is a floating floor that buckles.

What you'll need

• a flat wood bit or hole saw larger than the pipe
• a fine-toothed saw or a jigsaw
• a two-part pipe collar or rosette
• wood glue
• a pencil and a square

Step by step

1. Dry-fit the board up to the pipe and mark the pipe's position.Slide the board into place as far as it will go and mark where the pipe centre falls, measuring from both the previous row and the wall. Two measurements, not one.
2. Transfer the position accurately onto the board.Square the marks across and mark the centre. A hole a few millimetres out is obvious once the collar is on.
3. Choose a bit that gives a generous clearance.The hole should be noticeably larger than the pipe — that clearance is the expansion gap, and the collar is sized to cover it. Check that the collar you have will cover the hole you are about to drill.
4. Drill the hole with the board supported and backed.Laminate chips badly on breakout. Back the board with a scrap piece and drill through into it, or drill from the face until the point breaks through and finish from the back.
5. Cut across the board through the centre of the hole.A straight cut from the back edge of the board through the hole centre, at a slight angle if you prefer — an angled cut is less visible than a square one when the piece goes back.
6. Slide the main board into place around the pipe.Engage its click joint with the previous row as normal, with the pipe passing through the notch left by the cut.
7. Glue the small offcut back in behind the pipe.A little wood glue on the cut faces, pressed home. It is a small piece against the wall and it will be covered by the skirting or beading.
8. Fit the pipe collar.Two-part collars split so they fit around an existing pipe. Glue them to the floor board only, or to nothing at all — never to the pipe, and never screwed through to the subfloor.
9. Check the pipe is not touching the flooring anywhere.Run a finger round. Any contact is a pinch point and the whole floor will push against it.
10. Do the same at every pipe, and remember the expansion gap continues behind the radiator.The area behind a radiator is easy to skimp and it is where boards often end up tight to the wall.

Tips

• If you can drain and lift the radiator off its brackets, the job becomes dramatically easier and the boards can go under it properly.
• Two-part collars in a matching finish look far better than a blob of sealant or a cut-down escutcheon.
• Where two pipes are close together, one wider notch with a single larger collar sometimes looks tidier than two overlapping ones.
• Angled cuts through the hole are less visible than square ones because the joint line does not run straight to the wall.

Common mistakes

• Drilling the hole the same size as the pipe — A floating floor expands, so a tight hole around a fixed pipe becomes a pin. The floor lifts elsewhere, and in a bad case the movement bends the pipe or breaks its joint under the floor.
• Filling the gap round the pipe with sealant or filler — It removes the expansion allowance at that point and looks poor. That gap exists on purpose and it is covered, not filled.
• Screwing the collar down through the board — It pins the floating floor at that spot, which is the same fault as nailing beading through the boards. Collars sit on the floor or are lightly glued to the board itself.

If it doesn't work

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