Gaps in new wood floor

bms1972

Hi,
I originally posted about this in consumer rights, however someone pointed out it would be worth posting in this forum for technical advice. Original post here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3597885


A friend of mine has a problem with a solid oak floor that was fitted a few months back.

She bought the wood from a large DIY retailer, together with the recommended underlay, and had the flooring fitted by a carpenter. The wood was left in situ to acclimatise before being laid during the early summer.

This solid oak floor was fitted as a floating floor in 3 rooms - living room (over concrete) and 2 upstairs bedrooms. The instructions stated that this wood could be fitted as a floating floor.

The problem is that a significant gap (several mms) has appeared in the middle of two planks in the living room and smaller gaps have started to appear in that floor and in the bedrooms. The gaps are continuing to expand.

The carpenter has had another floor fitter produce a short independent report, which concludes that the fitting method was correct and in line with the instructions.

He commented that there was a pronounced "arris" (stop laughing at the back ;-) ) on many of the boards, meaning precise fitting was difficult. As I understand it, the arris is the outside corner - surely either this shouldn't be an issue or any incorrectly cut pieces should have been corrected or rejected?

He commented that the warm conditions (winter heating!) may have led to the wood shrinking. Would heat not cause expansion? In any case, the boards were acclimatised and fitted in the 'height' of our summer. And if there is expansion, would we not expect to see a rippled floor rather than gaps appearing?

The glue is only in the joins. In the absence of nails, should there be glue underneath? Or is it simply used to join wood to wood.

Last question for now, does anyone have a view on the supplier's responsibility in regard to the instructions? It sounds like they really should have recommended nailing not simply gluing?

Itismehonest

Yes, heat causes wood to shrink. Even in old houses where the floors have been laid for many, many years newly installed c/h can cause shrinkage.
I'll leave other to tell you how you stand on claims but, as far as I know, the only remedies are lifting & re-laying or filleting with wood, string or sawdust mix (old fashioned remedies).

DirectDebacle

Is it solid oak flooring or laminated. Engineered wood is laminated BTW. Marketed as 'engineered' so it is not confused with cheap laminated flooring which has very little wood in it.

bms1972

DirectDebacle wrote: »

Is it solid oak flooring or laminated. Engineered wood is laminated BTW. Marketed as 'engineered' so it is not confused with cheap laminated flooring which has very little wood in it.

It is real solid oak, rather than engineered or laminate :-)

1984ReturnsForReal_2

Not the fault of the carpenter

Wood expands & contracts & whatever causes it has nothing to do with him.

DirectDebacle

In that case you have to take into consideration that wood needs to 'breathe'. By that I mean it will expand and contract according to moisture levels and this is natural. It will move along its length and also across its width. For all intents and purposes longitudal movement is slight and can generally be disregarded. Movement across the width is much more pronounced and nothing will stop it. As an example ages ago wooden wedges were driven into the fissures of granite blocks, doused with water and eventually the granite would be split by the pressure of the expanding wood.

Although the oak boards were acclimatised to the room before fitting there will still be movement of the floorboards due to changes in moisture content of the air and possibly the concrete. Eventually this should settle down and the movement will continue but to much lesser degree.

This could take several years depending on the thickness of the boards and other factors. If after a few months there are gaps of several mm that would seem to me that the moisture content of the oak was quite high even after summer acclimatisation. Central heating will rapidly dry the boards and the surrounding air leading to shrinkage thus gaps. Over time this will settle. I cannot comment on the recommended fixing methods. I would have thought that upstairs the existing floor boards would have been lifted and the oak boards fixed to the joists as a straightforward replacement. There are several ways to fix to a concrete floor. I would not have glued the edges of the boards together unless the manufacturer specifically stated this was their only recommended method.

unsure

A while ago we were considering wooden flooring and opted for engineered oak laminate because several carpenters we'd spoken to all said that modern solid wood flooring was problematic as it is almost never seasoned long enough these days and is usually artificiailly kiln dried which means that individual planks may behave differently when exposed to the domestic environment, especially in modern houses with little airflow and fairly constant warm, dry conditions prevailing. If you think that the wood might be losing mositure it's easy to see how it might shrink over time. We were advised that if we really wanted a solid wood floor we should go for recylcled/reclaimed boards that had already done all/most of their expansion/shrinkage over many decades.

Sorry but it doesn't sound as though the fitter has done anything wrong (unless they failed to leave a cork, or similarly flexible, expansion barrier at the edge under the skirting or beading- but even that wouldn't be enough to make a significant difference beyond a couple of mms over the whole floor area).

glubalub

When fitting a floating floor it's very important not to fix the floor at any point. The whole idea of a floating floor is that it moves as one piece over the top of the existing floor. The floating floor needs an expansion gap around the outside and at door thresholds so that if it expands it doesn't buckle upwards. If it is fixed at any of the edges there is a danger that it will split when it shrinks and tries to pull itself in two directions at once. Carpenters some times worry about the movement in floating floors and try to fix it in place with nails or screws at certain points. Look for evidence of fixings around the edge of the floor or at the threshold of the door. The statement that there was a "pronounced arris" is a bit worrying. Is the fitter implying that he had problems fitting the tongue of one board into the groove of another? If the boards are not pushed properly together (there are special tools for this) then the glue won't be effective and small amounts of shrinkage will pull the boards apart. Did the fitter remove or modify any of the "tongues"? Did the boards look as if they fitted snugly together just after fitting or was there a noticeable gap? If the cracks are appearing in the centre of the boards rather than at the joints then it may be the boards themselves that are defective. I would be a little cautious about relying on a report from an "independent" mate. Most of the reputable suppliers will investigate defects. Has the supplier responded yet?

Itismehonest

unsure wrote: »

A while ago we were considering wooden flooring and opted for engineered oak laminate because several carpenters we'd spoken to all said that modern solid wood flooring was problematic as it is almost never seasoned long enough these days and is usually artificiailly kiln dried which means that individual planks may behave differently when exposed to the domestic environment, especially in modern houses with little airflow and fairly constant warm, dry conditions prevailing. If you think that the wood might be losing mositure it's easy to see how it might shrink over time. We were advised that if we really wanted a solid wood floor we should go for recylcled/reclaimed boards that had already done all/most of their expansion/shrinkage over many decades.

All true IMO but even reclaimed timber (including pitch pine) retains the ability to swell & contract. Many timber yards store their reclaimed wood outside so you still have to go through the same measures as you would with new wood. But that was OT, apologies to OP