I’m Have Problems With My Laminate Flooring. Can You Help? What Can I Do?
January 16, 2010 by
Filed under Carpet Sales
Okay this is the situation. Two years ago I decided to replace my old carpet with laminate flooring. The look of hard wood flooring impressed me. I still love the look but after the first year the boards started to separate. I tried to contact the owner and after a long six months I found out the owner sold his business to the guy that we made the sale with. He’s the new owner. He says my warranty is void because I made the purchase from the old owner. He’s not going to do anything for me. They tried to contact the manufacture of the laminate flooring and they couldn’t find one in the United States. Apparently the laminate flooring I purchased was made in China. At this point I feel screwed. I’m out $5,000 dollars. How can I fix the boards? Is their something I can put between the split boards? I hate the gap in the boards. I don’t have another $5,000 right now to redo the floors. I’m from northern Ca.
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HERE’S THE ANSWER:
These laminate floors are installed by starting at one wall and working toward the other. The boards can only separate so far before hittingthe other wall and running out of room. A little space is allowed under the mouldings on each side for expansion and contraction. Your guy left way too much room! In a ten foot wide room, for example, you might have ten boards close to a foot wide each, with three or four “boards” printed on each one. Over this entire floor you might have to allow 1/2 inch total, or about a 1/4 inch on each side… and even that is a lot. If ALL your boards are separating… even if that’s 1/8 inch per board… on our example floor that would mean that he left 1 and 1/4 inches of space! That’s just a BAD INSTALLATION. Now, if he won’t fix it you have to bite the bullet and fix it yourself.
HERE’S HOW:
Since the underlying problem is that there is too much space along the edges, we need to get rid of it. Take off the mouldings laying on top of the flooring on both sides of the room (longways) There is likely a hell of a gap along each wall under these mouldings. It’s supposed to be only a tiny gap. Using the specialty tool designed for the purpose, which you can buy at any home center for about ten bucks, grab the edge of the outermost board and tap, tap, tap with a hammer until the floor snaps all back together. Do this from both sides of the room. This floating floor should now have a long gap along the walls. In your case it sounds like you may have an inch or more along each wall. That’s a LOT. You can add another strip (if you have more of the material) or you can add a strip of anything simlar in thickness and then put the mouldings back to cover this filler strip. If the filler strip is wider than the moulding, you can add a second moulding.
that does not sound right for the new owner to say that . if you would get out your warranty papers and go over them very closely
Most laminates are tongue and groove construction, if you are able to find another brand of laminate that is of similar color and pattern you can remove the damaged boards and replace with new ones rather easily.
Just because the business has changed hands does not mean the warranty is void. Generally when a business is purchased, all of the obligations of the business go along with it. I would certainly argue the point, perhaps even have a conversation with an attorney.
It is hard to tell what is going on with the floor based upon your description, but my guess would be that this is an installation problem. If you are not able to get anything from the flooring company, perhaps you could have another installer rework your existing floor without buying new material.
A lot of low quality laminates have this problem. The boards separate because of having a poor locking mechanism/tongue&groove. You didn’t say who the manufacturer is but most good laminates come from Sweden, Germany, and the U.S. If you can’t get any warranty compensation you can get rid of the gaps by gluing the boards back together. Buy laminate or floating hardwood installation glue at any home improvement store. Squeeze it in the gap and tap the boards back together with a pull bar (also available at large home improvement stores). Just do this whenever you see gaps and it will help you out a bunch.