New Laminate floor creaking and popping

[daniel3982]

Hi all,

Wondering if you could help me.

I had my old laminate taken up and new laminate put down professionally, throughout my home recently.

The old laminate did not creak at all, but the new laminate sounds like we're walking on rice crispies, throughout the entire house, not just in one spot or other.

The floorer has said that the floor is just "settling" and will take a few weeks for the creaking to go away.

We had to level the subfloor in the living room, but the others were all level and the floorboards weren't creaky prior to the old laminate .

There is also a 10mm expansion gap and beading installed throughout the home.

The floor was an 8mm kronotex herringbone (parquet) click lock laminate, and the recommended 6mm acoustic underlay was used throughout the house.

Is my floorer right and the floor just needs to settle or is there something fundamentally wrong?

A lot of the floorers I approached said they didn't work with herringbone as they felt it was an inferior product?

I've read you can put talc down to stop creaking but how long does that last?

As it's throughout the entire house now it's driving us absolutely mad!

 

[DiyNutJob]

The underlay is rather thick. Maybe it yields too much and causing the laminate boards to move and rub excessively. Why did you choose that underlay, was there sound proofing issues for the old floor?

 

[daniel3982]

The underlay is rather thick. Maybe it yields too much and causing the laminate boards to move and rub excessively. Why did you choose that underlay, was there sound proofing issues for the old floor?

Thanks for your reply. No not really. It was the floorers recommendation, but there was no prior noise issues.

 

[DiyNutJob]

I presume the herringbone boards are much smaller than the original laminate boards? Smaller boards would be less able to spread the weight out and hence moving and rubbing more.

I had herringbone vinyl planks laid late last year on solid concrete with a layer of vinyl that the original house builder laid. There isn't any yield and no noise.

 

[dazlight]

When I read the tittle I knew it would be a herringbone. We don’t sell them in clicks as seen to many problems.
6mm underlay is to thick and shouldn’t of been used as not firm enough.

 

[tamas87]

Hi all,

Wondering if you could help me.

I had my old laminate taken up and new laminate put down professionally, throughout my home recently.

The old laminate did not creak at all, but the new laminate sounds like we're walking on rice crispies, throughout the entire house, not just in one spot or other.

The floorer has said that the floor is just "settling" and will take a few weeks for the creaking to go away.

We had to level the subfloor in the living room, but the others were all level and the floorboards weren't creaky prior to the old laminate .

There is also a 10mm expansion gap and beading installed throughout the home.

The floor was an 8mm kronotex herringbone (parquet) click lock laminate, and the recommended 6mm acoustic underlay was used throughout the house.

Is my floorer right and the floor just needs to settle or is there something fundamentally wrong?

A lot of the floorers I approached said they didn't work with herringbone as they felt it was an inferior product?

I've read you can put talc down to stop creaking but how long does that last?

As it's throughout the entire house now it's driving us absolutely mad!

Hi Daniel3982,

Same issue here, same brand.
I had Kronotex Herringbone laminated floor laid down 3-4 months ago and we moved in yesterday. The noise and creaking is beyond acceptable and we have a 1 year old so we cannot walk when he is sleeping that noisy the floor is.

Did your issue stop since or have you found any solution? Our floor is this: https://akciosparketta.hu/parketta/kronotex-halszalka-laminalt-padlo-d3678/

Many thanks,
Tamas

 

[kikixxxx]

Hi Daniel3982,

Same issue here, same brand.
I had Kronotex Herringbone laminated floor laid down 3-4 months ago and we moved in yesterday. The noise and creaking is beyond acceptable and we have a 1 year old so we cannot walk when he is sleeping that noisy the floor is.

Did your issue stop since or have you found any solution? Our floor is this: https://akciosparketta.hu/parketta/kronotex-halszalka-laminalt-padlo-d3678/

Many thanks,
Tamas

Hi. It’s the kronotex herringbone floor because we had exactly the same issue. If you actually google “kronotex herringbone laminate creaking” you will see the amount of issues people have with it cracking / creaking / popping.

We had 70sqm of it laid to our entire downstairs and it was like walking on Rice Krispies. We rang the manufacturer in Germany and they told us it was our subfloor or our underlay. I assured them our subfloor was brand new, level screed and gave them the opportunity to send someone out to take a look for themselves, surprise surprise they didn’t take me up on my offer.
I did a video showing the floor on a variety of types of underlays ( green fibre board, 3mm silver backed insulation, you name it) with every type of underfloor the floor still creaked. Proving it’s a manufacturer issue and nothing to do with external factors

The place I bought it from, I went on their tagged instagram photos and messaged people direct who had also installed the same floor, every single one came back to me confirming theirs also creaks and sent me videos. I can forward these onto you if it helps. But yeah, I actually feel sorry for your fitter because he hasn’t done anything wrong. The product should not be allowed on the market, kronotex are aware of the issues and still continue to sell this product. Utterly disgraceful.

The creaking was so bad we ended up pulling the whole floor up and chucking it in the bin. We bought a new floor and then had to pay the fitter again. We lost out by around 4500£ at least. I was in tears for weeks and hit such a low point due to the stress. It’s disgusting they can do this to people.