Engineered floor is creaking

[GTrotter]

I have just fitted around 80% of my new engineered wood floor. I have laid it on an underlay with a DPM on a concrete subfloor. The wood floor itself is hammered together tongue and groove and has an interlocking system. It is not glued. However I have just noticed that it has risen up in some places and creaks a bit. The rising up can be removed by applying weight to the area (i.e. me jumping up and down) but just appears to move to another spot. I have left lots of expansion space around the sides. My question is should I expect the creaking and \\\"rising up\\\" to dimish over time as the boards settle in or is it more likely that the subfloor has some small irregularities that are causing this? I was hoping the former was the case but fear the latter! Any thoughts?

 

[mattysupra]

are you shore you have left exspansion every where? Even if one board is touching somewhere and the others ent it will cause this. How about door ways? is it touching here? Check every where. If not then it must be your subfloor. On adverage manufactory's state approx 3mm in 3 meter run out. You can get away with about 5mm in 3 meters (at least this is the max i will work with) but not really any more. Do you know how much your subfloor is out? And not with in level, i mean how flat.

 

[GTrotter]

Thanks for your reply.

I will double check around every side (tomorrow now) and come back to you but I am pretty certain I have checked everywhere as this was my first thought.

I do not know whether my subfloor is out enough to make a difference. It looked perfectly good to me and running a level over it showed it to be level (and hence flat).

I was wondering whether the action of hammering the boards together might push the boards upwards slightly. I did have to use a bit of force to remove some gaps that opened up after the boards had been fitted. I was wondering whether this might have caused the boards to rise slightly and that they might (hoperfully) fall back over time as the floor settles in and gets some use. Does this sound at all plausable? Do you think I might to be able to eradicate these by hammering down on the floor (with a suitable block between my hammer and the floor!)?

 

[mattysupra]

if using to much force you can damage tongue and groove. Not good as will give you gapping. I cant see it making floor lift tho due to sheer weight of floor should lye flat. i would be tempted to use flooring grade pva aswell to make shaw no movement on joints. And as for being flat while looking at subfloor, well you will be amazed at how bad some subfloors are after you run a straight edge on them (not a meter rule ! more like 3 meter) End of the day you should check it. Check the subfloor when you can to see if its the problem. If you getting big movement, gapping and creaking im guessing the subfloor is to uneven. Let me know.

 

[GTrotter]

Thanks again.

I have spent some time looking at this and have reached the conclusion that the likely culprit is the subfloor. After spending some time "bouncing around" on it and moving a level around is looks like my floor has an area which is slightly lower than the surrounding area resulting in a floor that dips slightly.

Any good ideas for how to fix this (as best I can) problem now the floor is down? I have applied some weight to the area to see if that persuades the floor to follow the lines of the subfloor. I was also wondering whether applying some gentle heat and then weight might also help. Any thoughts before I do something I will later regret (much like now really!)? On the upside my wife is pleased with it - it's just that I will see this dip every day and it will haunt me!

 

[WoodYouLike]

Try, if still possible, to slide a thin layer of extra underlayment under the worst dipping area. Not too much, otherwise it will lift the floor in other areas.

 

[GTrotter]

It is not possible to get underlay to the affected area, it is too far from the edge of the floor. Does any one have any other ideas to help alleviate this problem?

I have read some posts which suggest injecting an expanding foam into the floor in the affected area. I can see the logic of this but it also sounds like a pretty good way to completely screw up your flooring if you are not very careful indeed. I am not particularly keen on this approach. Any thoughts?

 

[mattysupra]

dont do that. you are going to have to take up floor and fix problem i think.

 

[bigpow]

Floor up, and make sure the T&G isn't warped as well depending on how it was stacked. measure wher you need the underlay.

 

[mattysupra]

Floor up, and make sure the T&G isn't warped as well depending on how it was stacked. measure wher you need the underlay.

no dont put extra underlay to fix problem when floor up. Woodyoulike has suggested this to you as a quick fix to try and get around taken floor up. Im shore he would agree that if taken floor up you should fill in dips with smoothing compound. Double underlay is not the way forward by any means. Just away of trying to help you out of situation.

 

[GTrotter]

Okay. Thanks to you all for your advice.

It looks like I will need to lift the floor if I am going to sort this out properly. However the boards are all held together pretty firmly (given they needed to be hammered together to get them into place) so taking them apart if far from easy. The installation instructions suggest the boards will come apart without damaging the T&G but this will require considerable force. Any tips on how to get the boards apart without damaging them? They are 14.5mm boards held together by T&G. They are interlocking and very difficult to move once in place. All tips welcome as I think I am going to have to lift the floor (I just can't live with a bouncy floor!). My first thoughts are:

1.) Which edge is easiest to start from?

2.) How do I start to get the boards closest to the wall out (only an expansion gaps worth of space to work in)

Thanks

Gary