Underlay for laminate flooring

Hi, I'm having quickstep laminate fitted in my lounge but confused as to what underlay I should be buying for a plank subfloor.

The quickstep guide advises to lay plastic foil first (quickstep screen) followed by quickstep soft board and then for perfect prep a quickstep underlay (uniclic green?).

This seems to conflict with other information I've read, to never fit a DPM on a wooden subfloor?

Any advice much appreciated.

Cheers

 

Go with the manufacturers guidance.

 

If you want the warranty on the quickstep floor you should install it to their recommendations.

 

and using just their products and only their products.

 

Cheers all, so fitting a DPM shouldn't cause any problems to the existing subfloor etc? I appreciate I'd need to follow the manufacturers guidelines and products for the warranty but don't want to do so if it's to the detriment of whats underneath.

Oh and up the Villa Merit, fingers crossed for Saturday!

 

also if you get a quickstep master installer to fit it for you you will get a 2 years installation warranty backed up by quickstep plus a very good job. just use the find a installer section on quicksteps website.

 

I personally don't like quickstep underlays (for the value)and always use timbermate excel as I think you can't beat that.
It's only my humble opinion but the warrantee isn't worth the paper it's written on,
As an example if within the 20 or 25 years the surface wears out it has to cover an area of 1m x 1m before you can claim.
As if you would wait for the heavy traffic area to get a bald patch of a 1m2.
And then you don't get it paid in full or replaced, you will get a rebate for the amount of years you have left ,
So say it cost you £20 and it wore out after 23 years instead of 25 you would get £1.60 back and 3 years of watching a 3 inch wearing patch increasing to the m2

 

Bit like having to use manufacturers own adhesives, it's all a bit of a con. Something I learnt on here is that the underlays built in DPMs are just vapour barriers so they won't rot your floor and equally they won't protect your floor against rising damp so you should be installing over a dry floor anyway!

Best make sure your floors dry newbie

i also think timbermate excel is a really good underlay, I would use it under my own floor

 

Agree about excell, gives the floor a much more solid sound and feel

 

UVCure - Couldn't have said it better myself. Warranties and guarantees are just largely marketing fluff. Chocolate muffins are given 25 year guarantees now-a-days

I like the timbermate as well. Friggin heavy lumps though, but that's all good..

For Merit, underlays with built in vapour barriers are good up to 75% RH. I think the word DPM is so misleading. Another bit of marketing fluff. I suppose the word 'Damp' is a little vague but joe bloggs thinks it'll protect against the great biblical flood :| (I'm not religious btw, unless anyone wants to stick some notes in my collection box - then I'll turn into the Pope in the blink of an eye )

 

Thanks for all the good advise. Timbermate it is then, Cheers