Laminate floor going mental

[silverclaws]

Laminate floor in my flat is going nuts, it's expanding and creating a hump in the middle of the room, the kind if you stand on the hump the boards flex badly. Now it is only the cheap mdf stuff with a plastic wood like coating, but it's doing my nut. But what is happening aside from the fact it is expanding with nowhere to go the middle is bowing upwards, but why, is it this weather?

Yes it is rather wet this year, is anyone else having problems with laminate flooring ?

The only solution I can think of is to saw around the edge to give it more expansion room and for that job I have ordered a reconditioned exact saw which will be going back on ebay as soon as the job is done as every penny counts and I hope it comes soon as this expansion is getting worrying.

 

[poweredbypies]

Your lucky its cheapo laminate me and my uncle went to a house where they had oak down and had a leak. It had bowed up a foot in the middle of the room and was starting to push the bricks out of the walls at the bottom :shock: . Unfortunatley, unless your really really lucky the flooring is shot it wont go back to how it was before.

 

[Neil]

You rent, don't you? Isn't this a job for the landlord to sort?

 

[Whatleymeister]

I am no expert in this, but sounds like its a 'new boards' job. Check for any possible leaks and dont assume it is right under the bowing either. Water can find a way from anyway and just collect there, causing it to bow where water collects but not where it comes from.

Thats what I would do anyway. Do with this opinion what you will

EDIT - just seen Neil's comment. If you do rent, get onto the landlord/agency sharpish! Especially if you are in an upstairs flat or anything!

 

[yagamuffin]

Firstly, if you do rent, notify the agent/landlord immediately, failure to do so will probably result in less than the full deposit being returned!

I have had similar happen before and it was caused by a leak. The trouble is, by the time the boards have reacted like this the leak may have been happening for a while...

 

[ajm]

I'd be looking for a leak too... our central heating boiler is in the kitchen and has leaked (water) a few times. The first sign is the newly-springy laminate floor, followed by the water seeping up between the boards...

Actually, our floor has recovered fairly well after each occasion - it obviously wasn't the cheapest of laminates which is surprising knowing who put it there!

 

[NAILTRAIL96]

Yep, It's poorly fitted boards or you have water damage.
Unless they're new, my moneys on the latter.

 

[Magsy]

Same as the others, you should have a pretty big gap around the edges under the skirting. However I had a leak in the kitchen that flowed under the slate tiles, over 2 metres into the hallway and caused a bulge there. It was only when I stood on it and saw a tiny amount of water seeping out of the joins I figured it out. It recovered ok-ish but took ages to dry out.

Stop being polite to your landlord, tell em to fix it or you'll take action.

 

[NAILTRAIL96]

Water can travel for some distance under flooring like this, it's not uncommon to for the first sign of a leak under a kitchen unit to appear in the hall where the flooring meets a carpet.
If it's a ground floor flat then you may have had under floor flooding in the recent bad weather.

 

[silverclaws]

Ah well, my landlady is angling for me to leave anyway as she has after seven years of no contact suddenly taken an interest in the place again and is saying she wants to replace the kitchen which has taken on the consistency of a digestive biscuit and the bathroom suite because it looks old when there is nothing wrong with it except it is old but what does one expect given the fact no one has done anything to the place since it was built in the mid eighties. Also she is on about doing the electrical safety checks which have never been done that or the earth bonding on pipework. As it is I have replaced most of the electrical fittings that have failed and removed the bridging wire across the fuses in the fuse box, but she has said recently she never wanted DSS in her property so I believe the writing is on the wall, I am in the process of downscaling and might have to let my restored motorcycle go for peanuts as I can't get it mot'd.

The floor I paid for out of my criminal injuries compensation and my cousin a professional floor layer laid, but he quit before the job was done as arguments ensued over leaving enough gap for acclimatisation, mdf is wood after all as this is a coastal location, five minutes walk from the sea. It is simple he did not leave enough gap so I will enlarge it by half an inch and so the reason for the exact saw as it seems the boards are springing through longitudinal stretch indicating not enough gap.

But an odd one perhaps, all the bank statements for the property mortgage come here so I wonder why and has my land lady declared this place as an income and here an estate agent too.

Perhaps the problem is years back she said to me she wanted me to be happy here and to treat it as it was my own home of which I duly did, because for the past seven years it has been my home and what's more, I have never missed a rent payment yet and there was no deposit paid.

So iffy ground I know.