New Floor Creaking - help!

jampot1

This is my first posting so bear with me.

In January 2008 we had laminate flooring installed - the area covered the lounge (15"x15") dining room (17"x11") and utility room (12"x12"). For the first few months all was OK. around April/May I noticed the floor start to creak in places, which got steadily worse as time went on. By August I can only describe the floor as walking on bubble wrap, it was driving us mad. I spoke to the floor layer, who insisted it had been laid correctly.

By this time it was around November and, strangely, the floor began to creak less. During the winter months the floor seemed fine. In fact people who had been round when it was creaking, commented that it was better 'now it's been fixed!'

Recently however, with the milder weather, the floor has started to creak again. Now I'm not an expert but to me this seems like an expansion problem, in the cold floors contract and I would imagine that had an expansion gap not have been left the floor would have contracted sufficiently to have prevented the creaking. With the return of warmer weather the floor now appears to have expanded and, without an expansion gap, caused the floor to start creaking.

I spoke to the floor layer again today - he stated that he had left an expansion gap (he would wouldn't he) and advised that the problem could be because no expansion joints were fitted between rooms. He stated that at the time he advised that expansion gaps between rooms should be fitted, I catagorically refute this as, had he told me that failure to fit these would lead to problems with the floor creaking in the warmer weather, I would have had them fitted!

I also advised him that the original floor, which was far cheaper than the one put down, was laid in exactly the same way, without expansion gaps between rooms, and did not creak.

He is going to come round and remove some of the skirting (that was replaced as well) to see if an expansion gap is there. My concern is that would he not have to remove all the skirting to ensure an adequate expansion gap was left around the whole floor?

At the moment I have over £3000 worth of flooring that is driving me mad.

Any advice would be appreciated. For information the floor is Berry lock.

ajtrader100

Hi there,

I'll try to help. Expansion and contraction of the floor depends on temperature and relative humidity so the floor doesn't always necessarily contract when the cold weather is here, as thats when you central heating starts up, it could be the change in relative humidity.

for the floor to crackle it is one of two things

1) expansion and contraction (as you say). The laminate is expanded all the way up to the wall (not enough expansion allowed by the fitter) and the baords are pushing aginst each other. The crackling noise is the laminate edges rubbing against each other as you walk across them, it sounds like egg shelss under the floor itself. However this can also be caused by an uneven subfloor, again the movement of the boards is such that the edges of the laminate are rubbing. However please see my comments about expansion below

2) grit under the lamiante boards. if the subfloor is not cleaned properly small pieces of grit will attached and detach as you walk across the floor, creating a very similar noise.

The expansion profiles sounds like the most likely cause though. The different rooms expand and contract at different rates. A room with the sun on will be expanding, while the room without the sun (on a cold day enhances this) will be contracting. The two floors will push and pull against each other causing the floor to raise in areas meaning as you walk across the floor the laminate will be rubbing (like above).

It is imperrative that expansion bars are put in place, I know that it looks better without them, but it is necessary for the floor to perform properly. Manufacturers will not replace a floor if there are no expansion bars.

This could be solved by lifting the floor and installing the expansion bars, or "chopping in" and putting in the expansion bars. Not always a guaranteed solution, but thats what I would recommend.

Good luck!