Laminate to Ceramic Tile Transition Strip
When you are installing flooring and are using laminate and ceramic tile, you will have a transition strip between the two surfaces. The transition strip is an attractive strip that covers the area where the two different flooring surfaces meet. They are not difficult to install, but you must plan ahead.
It is usually the case that one of the flooring surfaces will already be installed, and so when you are looking at materials, take note of the clearances for the transition strip. You will need to leave a gap between the two surfaces where the strip will fit.
A common distance is 3/8” between the surfaces, but read and measure for yourself. The transition strip is shaped like the letter “T” and the vertical leg will fit into the gap while the horizontal leg spans the gap and makes the nice transition. Some strips come with a metal channel that you can glue, screw, or nail to the subfloor, while others use adhesive.
For the metal channel, measure and cut and then figure out which method you will use to secure it. If you have a wood subfloor, you can easily screw the channel in. For concrete, you can use an adhesive, or concrete nails (be careful here though as you can damage the flooring by an errant hammer strike). You can also use concrete screws like tapcon bolts but their height will affect how the transition strip sits. You will have to remove a small amount of the vertical leg right above the head of the screw if the screw head sits to high. Once the channel is secured, the strip just pushes into the channel.