Question about expansion gaps for floors...

11 years ago

I understand that the basic reason for having an expansion gap of 1/8 to 3/8 for wood/laminate flooring is to allow for size changes with temperature.

However, since most floors(in the bedroom or living room) are going to have heavy pieces of furniture on them, how are the floors supposed to uniformly expand? Isn't the effect of putting heavy things on the floor the same as nailing or gluing part of them down? Not quite as severe, but you get the point.

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Comments (4)

glennsfc
11 years ago
Floating floors can adjust to heavy furniture sitting on them, because they float along with the flooring. It becomes a problem when anything gets attached through the flooring, such as with kitchen cabinetry.
brickeyee
11 years ago
Exactly what type of wood flooring?

Strip hardwood if far different from engineered.

Laminate of what type?
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tootse_tj
Original Author
11 years ago
I have seen these recommendations for all floating floors i.e. Engineered wood, laminates on MDF core(Pergo, Harmonics, etc.)

I realize the principle is for the heavy furniture to float with the floors, but if you have adjacent sections with and without a heavy load on them, it appears that one might still see some strain from non-uniform expansion.
glennsfc
11 years ago
"...it appears that one might still see some strain from non-uniform expansion."

You would think that would be the case, but that is usually not born out to be true in the field.