Help please Laminate flooring disaster :(

Louby1

A long story cut as short as I can. We paid a builder friend to fit laminate flooring along with other jobs whilst we were on holiday and came home to a bouncing floor! The floor isnt level but one of the jobs was to replace joists and we just presumed the floor would then be level, it isnt So they re did the bouncing part and it was better but then it started to come apart. Fast forward and its just been done a 3rd time, theyve packed the area under where it had come apart and its now bouncing again. Im totally fed up as its worse than it was and will definately come apart again as its so unlevel.
So its looking like we will have to pull the whole lot up and try again, this time either doing it ourselves or paying again but for someone who just fits floors for a living.
It is an old house and its floorboards underneath, the proper fibreboard was used but the floor slopes to the corner and needs levelling. Am I right to think it will need boarding to level and somehow 'blend' the boarded area to the non boarded area?
Any advice please or should we just give up on laminate?

Debbie_Savard

>It is an old house<

'Bounce' and sag suggests the replacement joists haven't been fitted properly. They may have tried nailing some 2by6 to joists which are rotting where they fit into the walls.

Rather than bodging, you may need to lift the floor and replace the joists into metal hangers to level and secure

Louby1

Sorry Ive not been very clear and thanks for replying, its the laminate thats bouncing, not the floorboards, I presume because the floors unlevel. They lifted the floorboards before laying the laminate to check the joists and they had been replaced by the previous house owner and were fine. We havent lived here that long.

chappers

unless the subfloor is flat, then yes the laminate will bounce, depending upon the size of the undulations will depend on the remedy. blending some packing in might work but depends how out the subfloor is.

Louby1

Thank you. Its so disheartening as when we bought the house there was what looked like a cheap laminate already down, that had obviously been down for years. Apart from being scuffed and a bit battered it was totally sound. The stuff we bought wasnt cheap, bought it from one of the DIY stores, just wish we'd bought Quickstep as it wasnt much dearer and lasted great in our old house on an unlevel but ashfelt floor.
This has been an expensive mistake

TheCyclingProgrammer

When we had laminate installed over some uneven floorboards, they levelled it first using a levelling compound (I don’t know which, it wasn’t your standard stuff as they were able to put it over wooden floorboards without it going through the gaps).