Kitchen waterfall edges without scotia - laminate floors

Hi everyone.

I know this issue has been talked about in the forum quite a bit but I haven’t got one answer as to if we can have laminate floors without scotia or not?

It’s a new build and I have 2 questions.

1- if the flooring goes up to the wall and the skirting/trims sits on top of floors, will that be enough expansion space for the floors?
And if the slab is not smooth, how will vertical gaps between floor and skirting be filled?

2 - what needs to be done for island waterfall edges?
I do not want scotia there but is it safe to have waterfalls on top of flooring? Someone said it might crack the island stone if the floor expands?

Would really appreciate some solutions please . Really worried.

1- I believe there would be enough space for expansion, I am installing engineered timber and the floor guys are perfectly happy with the gap and said it is within the manufacturer's specification. The alternative is scotia which is a big NO NO for us too.

2 - We talked to our flooring guys and joiners. The joiners told with their installation the waterfall edge never reaches the concrete floor and the weight of the vertical stone is shouldered by the carcass which is glued and bonded to the stone. So if you could arrange with the joiner (and their stonemason) to cut the stone to have the correct gap from the concrete floor, the floorboards can slide in. This will give you the most perfect finish! Offcourse for this to happen, you will need to make up your mind on exactly what flooring you are after and find out floorboard + underlay thickness and pass it to the joiners (or let the joiners to talk to floor guys). I guess one could always leave a millimeter gap between the floorboard and stone if the vertical expansion is a concern (adjust and pre-cut the stone accordingly so that it won't sit on floorboard rather hover on top). My joiners seem to be comfortable with it, perhaps they always leave the gap, but I will also have to double check on that.

Another method is to cut the floorboard to a millimeter or two and butt join with the vertical stone, then fill the small gap with matching color sealer. But this is more job for the floorboard installers and if the cuts are not perfect it will leave uneven gaps.

Hope this helps.

Cheers, LG

Thanks LG. It makes sense now as to how it should be done. I was really confused.

Also - if we are putting the flooring first, does the stone still need to hover 1mm or should sit on the floor?

Would you know if the gaps between the skirting and flooring (due to uneven slab) can be finished with silicon sealent?

You don't want the flooring taking any of the weight of the waterfall.

A 1-2mm gap filled with silicon would be the way to do it.

thanks a lot
our kitchen will be installed later this week or early next. hope evrything turns oout fine.

Thanks you CuttingEdgeKitchens! I will also pass on this details to my joinery to make sure a gap is kept and sealed.

Regarding the scotia, I agree it looks much better with the skirting on top of the boards. But it depend on the builder as to whether they will do this - a lot of volume builders won't. Mine wouldn't, but said they could leaving the skirting off for me to install afterwards

we are having our flooring done by the builder and he will be doing it before handover, so still you think they will hav e a problem?

And just out of curiosity, did you do your skirting after then? and who laid your floors?

The builder should be able to co-ordinate this, not for free though! For having to come back to finish the work the joiners and carpenter charges the builder which will be passed on to me (with fat added off-course) - it was around $1K.

we hired our Joiners, hes not the builder's joiner. He gave us an allowance and we went to market with that. so hopefully he wont charge us extra as i ahve already told him that we do not need scotia.


lets hope the builder donesnt delay the florring.

The joiners can take care of the waterfall and kickers. However for the skirting the finish-carpenter needs to come back to fit and paint right ? If your builder is happy with that then its fine, otherwise you may have to do it yourself - fix the skirting - nail it in, apply putty, sand and paint - I guess.

thanks a lot. I think hopefully he'll do it because we had a word with ....but lets see.