I've been cutting my own underlayment for years and just found out I was wasting a ton of material.

I was working on a big LVT job in a house in Tacoma last month, and the homeowner's son was watching me. He's a carpenter. He saw me cutting a full roll of pad to fit a room and said, 'You know, you could just run it parallel to the flooring planks and butt the seams, right?' I always cut it to the shape of the room, which uses way more pad and time. I tried his way on the next room and saved about 15% of the underlayment. I've probably thrown away hundreds of dollars worth over the last decade. Do any of you guys run your pad this way, or do you still cut it to fit?

3 comments

3 Comments

reese862mo ago

Ever butt seams on a diagonal wall?

ryang652mo ago

Nah, I'd run them parallel every time.

the_riley1mo ago

Used to be right there with @ryang65 on running them parallel, no question. Then I saw a job where they butted the seams on the diagonal and it just looked so much cleaner, like the pattern flowed right over the corner. Changed my whole view on it. Makes you wonder how many other little rules we follow just because that's how it's always been done, you know?