Noisy Engineered Oak Floors - Solutions?

[chrismason]

Hello All,

I installed an engineered oak floating floor around two months ago in my downstairs hallway, living room and dining room - approx 40sqm in total. Initially the installation seemed to be successful but over time the floor has become increasingly noisy - specifically with cracking noises when walking on certain parts. This does seem to vary slightly with environmental conditions.

The majority of materials (except the underlay) were supplied by Champion Timber so I called them today for advice - not surprisingly they suspect the underlay although I personally feel the subfloor may be more significant!

The flooring is Fertig Parkett Click System, marketed by Champion as Rustic Oak 3 Strip (Block) 185mm x 2.2m 13 mm thick and would appear to be of reasonable quality.
The underlay at the moment is Wickes Fibreboard Underlay 800 x 675 x 5mm.
The subfloor is chipboard and was secure although not perfectly level - did seem to be within the tolerances stated on the flooring (3mm over 1mm length). It should be noted that both with and without underlay not all of the board was in contact with all of the floor - ie there was some springiness - this seems to have decreased with time.
Expansion gaps are good all round including architraves - Scotia and thresholds removed today to verify this and monitor.
No apparent pinch points.
The floor has only been laid using the click system - glue (Wickes Floor Adhesive) has only been used ocasionally at doors etc where locking system had been removed to aid fitting.

The floor is completely free floating - ie only in contact with the underlay which in turn rests on the subfloor.

Champion have suggested that my next course of action in the process of elimination would be to use their recommended underlay - Akustik Protect which is a grey roll which I think is manufactured by Parador. This underlay is 2mm thick compared to the 5mm Fibreboard I have at the moment.

Previously the Hallway had thin laminate flooring which had a thin foam underlay. It sounded like laminate but did not click like the fibreboard/engineered oak combo does now. This would suggest a change of underlay might just work.

I plan to try the new underlay next week in the dining room only.


If anyone has any experience of these products or advice it would be very much appreciated.

Cheers, Chris

 

[mattysupra]

i dought very much it has anything to do with the underlay unless the fibre boards are breaking up or something. i would guess at a poor locking system or the subfloor is to uneven.


Just how noisy is the floor tho, its normall to get the odd click and scweek.

 

[chrismason]

Thanks for the reply. Its good to get a pros opinion!

The floor is pretty noisy - it seems to vary i guess due to temp/humidity etc but at its worst involves localised cracking with every footstep.

The interesting thing is that it has got worse with time. During the last two months that the floor has been down we have gone from a central heated environment to heating off - I wonder if this is a factor?

I'm not convinced about current the underlay being unsuitable - my supplier has said however that any gaurentee would only be vald if I used their "recomended" underlay.

I just got my wife to walk around while I monitored the floor - it has a definate springiness and can visibly be seen to move when stepped on. Is this normal and acceptable for a floating floor?

As I mentioned the subfloor (Chipboard - house 8 years old) was not perfectly level but seemed to be within the stated tolerances.

Do you think gluing the boards together in conjunction with the click could be a solution?

Thanks very much for your help.

 

[mattysupra]

you shouldn't see the floor moving while you walk on it. Well it will move a little maybe a couple of mm here and there.

It sounds to me that your subfloor is too uneven. This will be causing the tongue and groove lock system to be moving more than it should do and could be the cause of your problem. The movement may also be that there is not enough expansion but you say this is fine?

If you have used the incorrect/not recommened underlay then the supplier will blame this.

I think you need to uplift the floor before it gets to damaged and re-check the subfloor first. When this is checked we will go from there.

 

[chrismason]

Thanks for the reply. I plan to lift the floor next week. I too suspect the subfoor rather than the underlay and will check this more throughly when I have removed the floor.

As I mentined in my first post the hallway previously had laminate with 3mm foam underlay. It didn't seem to have any problems over the same subfloor - but i suppose being thinner it may have taken the shape of the subfllor more easily. Who knows?

Will let you know what happens.

Cheers, Chris.

 

[WoodYouLike]

Did you use a threshold between hallway and other room? If not, the boards in the hallway 'take on' the movement from the other uneven room

 

[chrismason]

Hi, thanks for the reply

Yes I used thresholds (nice solid oak ones) between all the rooms with suitable expansion gaps. Each floor is completely independent. As a side issue these have also started to squeak like hell. This would appear to be because the engineered flooring the threshold sits on is not stable ie. it moves up and down as you step on it causing the threshold to move up and down in its U-Profile base track (Screwed to chipboard subfloor)causing the squeak.

This is another clue to my problem again pointing to an unlevel subfloor.

All the rooms have noise issues but I plan to work on the dining room only until I'm sure what the problem is. I plan to lift that floor tomorrow, check the subfloor and if thats ok reinstall with suppliers recommended underlay. If that works great, if not then the subfloor is almost certainly not ok and I will probably level it with a self leveling compound and relay the floor with the new underlay.

Would you suggest any other course of action.

Other options/Ideas in order of preference

1. Glue the whole lot together to stop squeaks. Will this just fail eventually if sub floor is the issue.

2. Glue the whole lot together and to subfloor with no underlay.

3. Inject expanding foam to stop springy movement in floor.

4. Call a pro and get the cheque book out!

Any help is much appreciated.

Cheers, Chris.

 

[WoodYouLike]

3. Inject expanding foam to stop springy movement in floor.

NOOOOO, whatever you do, don't do that. If you don't control the amount you inject extremely well you end up with a terrible raised floor. That is never a good solution!

Check out your subfloor first. Most of the times that's the cause of movement. I know it is hard work to remove your floor again, but it is always better to find the cause than to struggle further with all kinds of not working alternatives.

 

[chrismason]

Hi

I have now removed the dining room floor. The Wickes Fibreboard Underlay was in exactly the same condition as when laid two months ago. Visually everything looked fine. I then removed the fibreboards and examined the subfloor. As I suspected it was not level. There is a ridge that runs perpendicuar to the direction of the flooring around 5/8 along the lengths of the boards. This seems more pronounced at one side of the rooms than the other. As best as I could tell using a 2m straight length of timber this was within the 3mm within 1m tolerance for the flooring. Trouble is the Oak flooring dosn't seem to bend within this tolerance to rest on the floor. Anyway, if I wanted to claim the flooring was defective my Supplier - Champion Timber had stated that I would have to install the floor with their recommended underlay - Parador Akustic Protect. This underlay is a 2mm thick acoustic mat compared to the 5mm fibreboards., so I did so. To my amazement the floor now feels much more solid with very little noise at all. There is still some visable movement but things feel much more like you would expect. My plan is now to relay the whole floor using the Akustik Underlay.

I have a couple of questions

Do you think this movement will be a problem or is this acceptable for a floating floor?

If not do you think I should slide some more underlay under the section that has movement - a strip of 2mm underlay can just slide under at one point - or will the flooring "bend to fit" over time?

Is gluing (T+G) a good way to mitigate against future noise or might this fail with any movement in the floor.

Many thanks for the help so far!

Cheers
Chris

As a general point I would suggest that Wickes Fibreboard Underlay is not a good option on a slightly unlevel chipboard subfloor when laying engineered woord using a click system - despite what it says on the packet.

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