Help please - engineered flooring problem .

[Froggy]

Hi A friend has a problem with the flooring pictured. Big gaps have appeared and the boards were glued down. Any idea what to do about this please?

 

[Bingy man]

my 1st question would be were the makers instructions followed on how the flooring should be installed? Next question would be has this flooring been exposed to excess water for any length of time? I’ve only ever seen this type of problem when the installation instructions have not been adhered to and on one occasion the flooring had been removed from the packaging and stored in a unheated garage that had a leaking roof for several weeks in the winter. The flooring had adsorbed all the moisture from the garage and was laid straight away in a heated room. The only way was to rip the lot up and start again with new flooring. The supplier threw out the warranty quoting incorrect storage and installation. Hope this is not the case for your friends but tbh it ain’t looking good..

 

[Droogs]

as above though you could pretend it is a boat deck and caulk it the traditional way not with silicon sealer

 

[baldkev]

What is the sub floor? Concrete? Ply / chipboard? Rather than all the boards shrinking a bit and having small gaps all over# it looks more like either theres a crack in the subfloor or it wasnt actually glued down?

#this is of course dependent on the way the t and g fits. If its standard t and g I'd expect all the gaps to open up a bit, fairly equally, but if the t and g was of a locking variety, it could well split like that, but again, it'd have to drag those glued boards apart, which i find less likely

 

[eribaMotters]

Hi A friend has a problem with the flooring pictured. Big gaps have appeared and the boards were glued down. Any idea what to do about this please?

You say the floor has been glued down. If that is the case the installation is incorrect. The "boards" should be glued to each other and float on the existing floor usually with a combination thin foam underlay/dpc material.
To me it looks like the floor has simply dried out after installation,as I suspect as others have suggested it was not stored correctly prior to installation.
When I zoom in on the first photo I can see what looks like the correct foam chip underlay through the gap between boards. That being the case the floor has not been glued down. The opening up of gaps between the boards also means they have not been glue together.
I would get the skirting boards or edge trim off and see if you can lift the boards without damage. If so you may well be able to relay it, gluing the board edges as you go along.

Colin

 

[Bingy man]

Having had a closer look at the pictures it’s completely come away from the joints around it and seems to point to a installation issue or a manufacturing defect- I think the 2nd possibility is less likely imo.

 

[Froggy]

Hi guys thanks for your input. I have a bit more information now. It was laid 3 years ago and only began to come apart this summer. The boards were glued to each other not to the floor which was a cradle and brace sub floor ( whatever that is?).
The manufacturer was asked several times to look at the floor as the manufacturers instructions were followed, they refused to come out, but did look at the pictures and concluded that it was extremely hot weather last summer that caused the problem!
Droogs you mentioned caulking the floor like a boat deck, was that a joke or is it a real option? If so do you have a link to some instructions and or the name of the caulk please.
At the moment finding a solution is more important than finding out how it went wrong. Thanks again everyone.

 

[Doug71]

Might be worth checking to see if anything has been fastened down through the floor into the subfloor. You can have a nice floating floor then someone comes along and screws through the floating floor into the sub floor and suddenly your floating floor can't float any more.

 

[robgul]

You say the floor has been glued down. If that is the case the installation is incorrect. The "boards" should be glued to each other and float on the existing floor usually with a combination thin foam underlay/dpc material.
To me it looks like the floor has simply dried out after installation,as I suspect as others have suggested it was not stored correctly prior to installation.
When I zoom in on the first photo I can see what looks like the correct foam chip underlay through the gap between boards. That being the case the floor has not been glued down. The opening up of gaps between the boards also means they have not been glue together.
I would get the skirting boards or edge trim off and see if you can lift the boards without damage. If so you may well be able to relay it, gluing the board edges as you go along.

Colin

There are two schools of thought on engineered wood floor fitting - the people that fitted ours said : Concrete floor then glue it down, timber floor then float it on an underlay with glued joints.

From experience (in another property) a floating floor on concrete flexes. Our recently installed floor is glued to concrete and feels very solid and stable. And, of course, there are a numerous brands of engineered flooring of varying thickness and quality . . .

 

[macca]

im no flooring guy but i can see no visible tongue in the gaps just underlay? so either A) there is none, which i find hard to believe in a floating floor; B) the tongue has been removed so the install isn't as per manufacturers would want it or; C) the tongues having been glued have remained in the groove and given way either due to damage prior to install or due to a fault in the boards.
Sometimes its worth going through the supplier and seeing if you make any headway if the manufacturer is being a PITA

 

[Desi2ie]

Not a lot of help probably but shouldn’t there be a tongue on these boards as in t&g, looks like it missing on the boards that have moved which would drastically reduce the gluing surface?

 

[Bingy man]

O p has said the manufacturer refused to visit and tbh that speaks volumes for the quality of their product if they can blame the hot weather but not visit the property to confirm what they have claimed from viewing a few photos. I recon it’s a choice between spending more time and money to hopefully fix the problem or biting the bullet and replacing it with something else of better quality. Agree with others as the gaps look to clean , I don’t see any water damage so manufacturers fault ?a problem with the adhesive used ? Tough call but shocking after 3 years.

 

[Droogs]

If taking the floor up and relaying is not an option then you could try caulking the gaps with hemp or jute as they did with planking on boats. There will be several vids on the tube about how to do this. Though I wouldnt go as far as using tar on the hemp but certainly stuffing the gaps with it and a cold chisel would probably work as a medium term temp soloution until the floor can be redone

 

[baldkev]

As others have said, zooming in, there doesnt appear to be a tongue? But anyway, as its now floating, take a skirting board off a parallel wall, then caulk some adhesive onto the edge of a board, wedge the flooring over using the gap where you took off the skirting. Once dry, refit skirting.
If no tongues, put some boards and weight over the joint to align the tops.


Not perfect but it'll get it back together.

 

[Ollie78]

I noticed the lack of tongue as well, perhaps that is the style of it, if its intended to be glued down. Never seen it myself though apart from occasionly some parquet.
Assuming the grey/black stuff is underlay then surely it would not be glued to underlay, a glued floor would be glued to the substrate or a plywood layer. If its not underlay then should we be able to see glue?
If it is floating then maybe getting some flooring straps onto it might pull it back in.

Its all a bit strange.

Ollie

 

[Drifter2406]

Yes I noticed no tongue, without seeing the whole floor obviously cannot be certain but it is a possibility that whoever fitted it cut the middle tongues of to fit it easier. I put a floor like this in my hallway as the floor board were wrecked and I didn't even glue them, just snapped them together and they have been down there for about ten years now with no problems, this COULD be just a case of the person that fitted it bodged it.

 

[clogs]

sounds like an insurance claim to me......
sorry but it's an expensive BIN job.....

with the fashion of eng flooring there's gonna be a lot of skips needed in the future.....

I have a small area at my place....not in the rental.....absolute carp and it was one of the more expensive types....
She wanted it as it's smooth and can be cleaned easily for her ironing room.....
every time I see it or walk on it I wanna rip it up......

 

[KeenToLearn]

Looks like a fitting problem to me, not enough glue. Get the fitters back? If that isnt an option, can you get some ratchet floor clamps either side of floor, clamp and reglue opened up joints?

 

[XTiffy]

I and my team laid engineered oak floors in two cottages more than 10 years ago and they were still perfect recently (apart from surface scratches, scuffs etc.). Each floor was around 35 sq. mtrs. and I do recall that the t&g needed a fair bit of force to push them together along with the "ratchet strap type" cramps made for flooring ( I think KeenToLearn in his post above is referring to this type of flooring cramp). Either the quality was poor or short cuts were taken in putting it down (maybe broke the odd tongue so cut it off) or did not push the boards tightly together.
In my case glued down to a dry screed board floor (Knauf). These floors also had underfloor heating (Air source heat pump), which is why engineered flooring was selected. This would make the "hot summer" excuse redundant.

 

[Jones]

From the photos it looks as if there is one staggered split opened along the floor. I think the glue covered tongue can be seen in some photos. As the split is at the joints not within the boards this is not a manufacturing problem but a fitting one. A floating floor should be free to expand and contract with temperature and moisture changes so it looks like this one's movement has been restricted so a crack has opened. That could be due to pinning or glueing the floor down in places or glueing the edges to the skirting or possibly due to very heavy furniture fixing it in place. To sort it you'll need to remove the skirting so you can open the crack more and close it later. Then clean the separated boards, reglue and clamp it together either with the ratchet straps or by wedging off the walls and weighting the floor. If you're lucky the original installers might take some responsibility and do the repair.