Badly half-fitted engineered flooring - Help required.

I have had an engineered wood floor (20mm, 180mm wide) wood floor fitted to my lounge, but have realised three-quarter way through that the floor is bouncing dramatically in places.

Underneath is a sound proofing system from http://www.soundservice.co.uk/soundproofing_floors.html involving two layers of SMB5 and another product called R10. My installer told me that it would be fine to lay the floor on top of the R10.

The room is in an old Victorian conversion and there has been some movement in the past. This means the floor is very uneven. My installer did not prepare the floor in any way prior to the sound proofing product going down. Nor did he 'pack' underneath boards. I'm now faced by the possibility of tearing up several boards and then raising the rest as a mass to deal with the subfloor beneath.

Does anyone have any idea of who I can contact to help me deal with the subfloor? Or can you give me any alternatives?

Many thanks

heeelllooo and welcome bexer

did you leave a 12mm expansion gap all round including doorways architraves and pipes!!

How long ago was this floor fitted? Have you contacted your fitter to ask an explanation and have him sort it out?

WoodYouLike said:

How long ago was this floor fitted? Have you contacted your fitter to ask an explanation and have him sort it out?

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Just this week. It's still not finished but I wanted to get a second opinion before proceeding further. I'm looking for other floor fitters to come and look at it. My fitter is a carpenter who assured me he'd done it before. When I complained he said he didn't know what to do to remedy it and said he doesn't want to continue. I've now lost faith in him anyway and am now left with an unfinished badly laid floor. I'm not sure where to turn next.

He did leave expansion gaps but my feeling is he should have prepped the subfloor better. The room has a bow and a level difference of 4cm, which is massive I know, but he didn't pack underneath as he went with fibre boards or anything. Furthermore, some boards even in the flat area are bouncing.

Now the glue on the tongue and groove has set I'm concerned about trying to rip them apart. I think I'll have to take a hit and replace some of the boards and have someone lift up the rest en masse to try and sort out the floor beneath. Unless anyone has any other ideas to salvage this bad job? Thanks

you havent answerd my question about the expansion gap yet

Hi bexer,

It sounds like your joiner is definately at fault here and should have spotted the bow in the floor (or is it a dip ?) . You've obviously lost confidence in him and wouldn't want him to put it right but by rights you should give him the opportunity to do so and at his own cost.

In reality, if your sub-floor had a 40mm dip then it wasn't ready to recieve a new floor.

To bring the sub-floor level you might get away with taking up 5/6 rows of flooring to reveal the joists and supporting wall and pack the joists with slate. 40mm is a lot of packing mind..... And hope you don't find any nasty's like rotting joists !!

You can't pack 40mm with underlay or R10.

Thank you for your advice.

He's walked off the job scratching his head - he didn't know how to resolve it. I'm at a bit of a loss to know who to call to help, any suggestions are welcome.

Thank you all.

i am trying to give you help but you havent answerd my question

Sorry - yes he did leave an expansion gap of 12mm around the walls, doors etc. The skrtings are not on yet either. Not sure if this will help the bouncing or not. Any ideas welcome.

bexer said:

Sorry - yes he did leave an expansion gap of 12mm around the walls, doors etc. The skrtings are not on yet either. Not sure if this will help the bouncing or not. Any ideas welcome.

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it to allow us to rule out bounce from boards springing up
have you noticed a completly uninterupted 12mm gap all the way round without pinch points!!!

mac391 said:

Hi bexer,

It sounds like your joiner is definately at fault here and should have spotted the bow in the floor (or is it a dip ?) . You've obviously lost confidence in him and wouldn't want him to put it right but by rights you should give him the opportunity to do so and at his own cost.

In reality, if your sub-floor had a 40mm dip then it wasn't ready to recieve a new floor.

To bring the sub-floor level you might get away with taking up 5/6 rows of flooring to reveal the joists and supporting wall and pack the joists with slate. 40mm is a lot of packing mind..... And hope you don't find any nasty's like rotting joists !!

You can't pack 40mm with underlay or R10.

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Hi, I wonder if you could give me your judgment on the following please? I've had four different flor laying companies around recommended by the bwfa and all say roughly the same thing - the fllor would be hard to level, but it should have been made flat. I've had wildly different quotes to a) just finish as it is and b) take apart the glues boards, clean off the glue, prep the subfloor again and re-lay.

I've gone for the b option because its so bouncey I'm not convinced that hoping it will settle is the right option. Only one of the floorlayers have said that that I may loose some boards if the tongue gets stuck in the groove. One did take one off and showed me it could be done.

Has anyone done this before? What was the outcome of taking up the floor?

Mine was first laid last Friday.

Any thoughts are welcome. Thanks

Hi bexer,

Sorry for the delay in replying.

Firstly, i would have thought if you had 4 outfits in, all recommended by the bwfa, at least 1 of them would have realised that it may be your wall-plate and/or supporting wall that has caused your floor to dip.

In victorian houses, supporting walls for floor joists were often built straight off rubble i.e (no foundations) causing a weak spot over time. They would sink, whereas, your supporting wall structure would have had foundations and been much stronger, hence the dip!!

It is a fairly easy fix to remove a few floorboards, locate the supporting wall and check for a rotten wall plate (very common) or an uneven single skin of brickwork,supproting wall that has sunk over time.

In case you didn't know, a wall plate is just a length of softwood timber placed on top of your supporting wall that your floor joists sit on.

As the middle of your floor has sunk 40mm i suspect that both the wall plate and supporting wall are the offenders because wall plates were often only 20/25mm thick, but not always the case. You can easily check by removing a few floorboards and getting a torch and tape measure down there for a look. If you happen to have a 40mm wall plate that is rotten, then you probably have your answer and it's very easy to replace. Worst case scenario is that the supporting wall may need replacing. Again, very simple to do, just more time comsuming and obviously more expense.

Once done, you will have a level sub-floor that should take any type of new floor covering.

Some are quite happy to pay to be members of the bwfa for accreditation purposes only !!

Forgot to mention that yes you can salvage your floor but will probably lose some of it. Strange though, that one fitter pulled some of it away without a problem?? Maybe because your original fitter only spot glued it for speed instead of running a bead of adhesive along the whole groove!!
However, to remove all of the adhesive from both tongue and groove will take a while and isn't something you should have to do yourself and there is no guarantee it will go back together as it should. Your fitter should replace it all in my book!!

Big-all's comments regarding expansion are also important.

mac391 said:

Big-all's comments regarding expansion are also important.

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i feel i may accidently be on bexers egnored list lol

big-all said:

mac391 said:

Big-all's comments regarding expansion are also important.

Click to expand...

i feel i may accidently be on bexers egnored list lol

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Bexer did answer you in 2nd paragraph of first reply big-all