Hi guys, First time on this Forum as I'm slightly starting to bang my head against the wall here with the issues I'm having with a new engineered floor that was installed about 3 months ago. Since installation, the floor has become incredibly noisy, to the point where every footstep now leads to a cracking noise. As well as some visual rippling that is now happening across the boards. The floor does also "flex" in some places. The living room floor is about 25% concrete and the rest is wood. The hallway is solely wood. In both cases, the floor has the same issues. The floor is a Natura Oak Tyrone Engineered Wood Floor. The boards are 14mm thick with a locking mechanism and have a 2.5mm veneer. The floor was laid with a Gold underlay and I'm told has at least a 12mm expansion gap around all sides. Any ideas?
Using a 5mm Sonic Gold Underlay The Subfloor in the living room is uneven but the fitter is confident that the floor has been worse on previous installs which have never resulted in issues like this. The floor was also done in the hallway which is completely flat but still suffers from the same issues.
If the 5mm underlay is the black polyfoam with the gold foil, ive seen 9mm laminate break on the joints on a flat floor using that underlay, the underlay isnt dense enough and the flooring on top can flex, this could be where youre getting the noise from. I personally wouldnt use it that underlay its too spongy for hard flooring.
Is the “visual rippling” you mentioned - a ripple between each floorboard or a ripple in the oak on the individual boards?
Subfloor sounds like the problem, subfloor must be flat. Was the concrete self levelled before ? did they ply over the floorboards. Pull the fitter back to site and ask them to put it right he should not have laid if not flat.. simple. And as for worse installs sounds like he is the wrong guy for the job.. did he have a white van with floor fitter written in blue gloss paint ?
That's the one. The underlay purchased was specifically for an engineered floor and was clarified with the supplier before being purchases. What would you use instead?
It's in the oak of the individual boards. In talking with the manufacturer it seems like the board is made up of three layers, the middle layer (which is also the layer with the locking joints) consists of staves which are situated crosswise to the surface. They are blaming it on moisture, but given the underlay has an damp proof membrane and it’s in the middle of the room this doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve done moisture tests in the area of the ripples and nothing is high.
The boards do have a tolerance of 2-3mm over every metre. There was no self-levelling or ply over floorboard that I saw. Fitter is telling me its a board, manufacturer is telling me its a fitter issues. Hence I'm here asking for other opinions.
Have only done the floor once with wood floor wipes. There has not been any spills of water on any of the wood.
Ok it would still point to the subfloor not being as flat as it should you will always get a very slight spring in a floated floor. Any pictures of the ripples ? also was all the wet trades finished (plaster / painting )dry before the floor was fitted ?
Ok so everything was dry before the floor was fitted and during fitting. The room was fully painted about 2-3 weeks after the floor was fitted, then furniture started going in shortly after. Picture below on the ripples, shown in the red circles.
You can't feel the ripples. You can just see them under light. If there is dim light in the room then for the most part you cant see them.
could be chatter marks on the face of the board and as its a dark stain it is showing up more than say a natural oil
