Solid oak floor - lifting!! Enough gaps left.

keystone

I_have_spoken wrote: »

Sounds like you have rising damp.

No it doesn't. A most overused and misunderstood phrase. Its sounds like there is some sort of moisture in the subfloor - that isn't rising damp.

Cheers

I_have_spoken

Any other signs of raised humidity in the room, with condensation on windows etc?

keystone

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

As per above, you can't have a floating floor and then nail it down, the nailing defeats the object.

Exactly.

The idea is to allow your new floor and your original floor to react independently to each other.

But the floor is solid wood. Only laminate qand engineered are installed as floating. Solid wood isn't installed as a floating floor it either has to be nailed down or glued down.. In this case with a timber subfloor it is nailed down using a process called secret nailing using the device the OP observed. An alternative is to screw it down through the tongues once again so that the screws aren't seen.

Your fitter doesn't know what he is doing.

Actually he did as far as nailing it down is concerned. My concern would be that he perhaps hasn't used enough nails or hasn't used bitumen backed paper on top of the existing floorboards to provide a moisture barrier - in which case he might be at fault.

It should have been glued to itself and given the expansion gap the fitter was looking at, that would allow it to float.

Yes if it were a laminate or engineered youd be spot on.

The only way to fix it will be to relay it methinks.

I think you are probably correct.

Cheers

keystone

Tall_Tone wrote: »

If the the wood is swelling evenly across the whole floor this would be a humidity issue, If the problem is localized there is a leak/moisture ingress of some form. Be careful here as sometimes general expansion causes the biggest build up of pressure in the middle of the floor where it can lift, but the problem is else where.

The problem is probably to do with the air vents. Make sure they are are not blocked and that you do not have soil up to them or that something else is breaching the DMP from the outside. Paving laid above the DPM line or something.

+1½.

Cheers

cyclonebri1

I agree 100% ks except, the whole issue is humidity.

There is no difference in how you should treat overflooring other than to expect it to react differently to the sub floor.

The key is that the top layer prevents the subfloor from reacting, so top layer expands, sub floor doesn't , whoooops:eek::eek:

You get my drift.

keystone

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

.......the whole issue is humidity.....

Concur. Thats why he should have installed a bitumen backed paper moisture barrier between the sub-floor and the solid wood floor. A polythene or similar moisture barrier would be a no-no. I wonder if thats what he used?

Cheers

bluedrop

Thanks for your valuable inputs everyone. He used this underlay

http://www.wickes.co.uk/flooring-underlay-roll-15m/invt/620801/

Reg the vents, they are all external. Several other external vents that are slightly raised from the ground level...no probs with them.... Only three vents are at the ground level. Two of them are on either side of the speedbump. One is on the other side of the hallway wall. There is slight damp on the internal wall too. Exactly on the inside of the vent

The vents at the ground level look like this :

bluedrop

I_have_spoken wrote: »

Any other signs of raised humidity in the room, with condensation on windows etc?

No other signs at all

bluedrop

One question, would moisture not enter through the air bricks/vents? I was considering temporarily blocking them to see if there is any difference.... Bad idea??

DevCoder

bluedrop wrote: »

One question, would moisture not enter through the air bricks/vents? I was considering temporarily blocking them to see if there is any difference.... Bad idea??

Bad idea if the OP has gas fires in the room.