So what is a reducer? We use a reduce in the flooring industry to transition a floor from one height to another height. It’s called by many different names from different suppliers, but basically it is a trim that will either finish or start your floor, and it transitions from a high to a low or a low to a high.
Obviously, you can use it in reverse as you explore your flooring installation and your project. You might need to transition from a high tile or a carpet, or finishing off against a sliding door, or transitioning down to an existing old floor so you’re building up the floor level are placed in your laminate or engineered or new floor type on top of the existing.
So we need to transition down to the old floor type. So that’s where we would use this. These trims are installed in different ways depending on the type that you choose. This is a peel and stick. So you basically just peel it back and you stick it down in place. Or you can get a dowel option which basically the trim has a track down the centre and you just slide in your plug screw and you will drill a hole and fix it accordingly.
The number one rule to remember when you’re installing any trim, especially on a floating floor, meaning a floor that is just sitting on top, it’s not bonded to the substrate, is that the floor still needs to be able to move. So if we are installing against a tiled floor and we have a floating floor, the trim can be properly bonded to the tile, but it cannot be bonded to the floating floor because the floating floor still wants to be able to move around.
So we need to be very careful when we are gluing these trims down. If we gluing them down or fixing them down, that we don’t impede the natural expansion contraction movement of the floating floor if we do this, we can void our warranty and cause our floor to possibly fail. With these trims, we have quite a few different varieties.
Okay, so obviously I’ve been talking about the aluminium trim. This is the aluminium trim that can either be installed with a peel and stick or it can be installed with the dowel. The dowel system that locks in place. And these are some of the most popular types we have in the marketplace currently. From there, if we’re dealing with laminates, a very traditional format in the laminate market is these are made from medium density fibreboard or high density fibreboard.
And they are the same material used to construct laminate, but they are actually wrapped with a colour matching or complimentary decor paper with the built in anti-scratch layer. We then also have in the marketplace, and these are a little bit more custom, which these are solid trims made out of a solid hardwood or bamboo. And these are made out of the same material, but they are a lot chunkier.
And we need to be careful how they aesthetically add or potentially detract from the main floor time. The aluminium trims have come a long way in being highly anti-scratch, low profile and very easy to install.
