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| About 9 months ago we installed stand-woven bamboo floors throughout our whole house. The floor is a click-lock system (which I would not recommend, but that's another post).
The problem we are currently trying to address is that in certain places the planks...give. I'm not quite sure how to explain it, but there is a certain bounce to the plank, or rather a hollow under the plank that allows the floor to move up and down. I am not talking about side-to-side, expansion movement. This is purely vertical. In some of the more extreme cases, you can even see the plank moving up and down, mostly from the way the light reflects off of the wood. The problem is not due to expansion or contraction; it is purely due to what seems like an uneven subfloor and the floating, click-lock system combining for a poor floor in general. The "company" (I use the term loosely) we paid to install the floor also leveled our concrete slab subfloor. We've since called them to address this vertical movement of some of the planks, and their solution is to drill into the wood (in an inconspicuous area, like in the cracks between planks) and inject glue under the plank to fill the hollows. They did one test spot, though I don't think they used enough glue. It's not quite as bad as it was, but it still gives some and squeaks. My questions: 1. Does injecting glue under a floating floor have any reasonable expectations of success for such a problem? It seems a silly solution to us... 2. What would be a reasonable solution? We were thinking of pulling up the offending and surrounding planks, cutting out the underlayment, having them level out the hollows, and then replacing the underlayment and wood. This might be excessive... or is it? |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| You do not want to glue(lock in) and section or place in a floating floor. Drilling and injecting adhesive is for hollow areas in a fully bonded gluedown wood floor, not a floating floor. Strike two (first strike was not prepping the substrate in the first place) Removal and correcting the substrate, then reinstall if it can be saved. That is the only way to correct the most important part of a floating floor.... The floor prep! |
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- Posted by floorman67 (My Page) on Sun, Sep 25, 11 at 3:01
| a floating floor should never be anchored/glued to the substrate or anything else. It must float! If you allow them to make their suggested repair, your floor will have many more problems, like expansion and contraction issues because it can not freely move with the changes in temp and huimidity. Additionally, when enough pressure from expansion and contraction ocurr, it will buckle the flooring (tent or peak) and/or pop the adhesive, leaving you worse off than you are right now. Its improper and the flooring retailer knows it! they are suggesting this improper quick fix in the hopes that it will satisfy you long enough so their installation guarantee expires, then when you call with problems later, and there will be the same plus more problems later, they will say, "sorry but your install guarantee has expired. We can fix it for a fee or sell you a new floor". I recommend filing a claim with the manufacturer directly and immediately so the date of the filing is on record and they do not try to ream you with an installation guarantee expiration since its close to a year. Once your claim has been opened, the retailr is on the hook, and you can request an independent certified inspection of the flooring. You bought a floor that is not looking or performing as advertised, and you have not received what you paid for. get the ball rolling on this ASAP. I do not recommend negotiating with this retailer any more, because its quite obvious they are recommending improper remedies to save on a replacement. Just curious - what retailer is it ? |
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- Posted by Boulder_Outpost (My Page) on Thu, Dec 15, 11 at 19:10
| The bounce that you describe can start to loosen the locking sytem. The first thing you would notice is end board gaps. |
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- Posted by Samantha111 (My Page) on Sun, Dec 18, 11 at 9:08
| "You do not want to glue(lock in) and section or place in a floating floor. Drilling and injecting adhesive is for hollow areas in a fully bonded gluedown wood floor, not a floating floor. " On a nail down t&g floor (3/8"), can areas be injected with glue to stop crackling and popping in areas? Would that be any different than face nailing those areas? What else would you suggest?
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| "On a nail down t&g floor (3/8")" Most strip floors are 3/4 inches thick. 3/8 sounds like an engineered floor, and those can be either fastened or floating depending on their design. It could also be parquet, and that is another item all together. |
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- Posted by Samantha111 (My Page) on Sun, Dec 18, 11 at 17:11
| This just went down. It's engineered and was fastened poorly using finishing nails instead of cleats or staples. So it might have problems down the road. That's why I'm wondering if the high traffic areas get unpleasantly noisy down the road if they can have glue injected underneath to secure them better or if that would be a bad thing to do. I read above that mixing how a floor is installed is not a good idea. |
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