I have recently carried out some building work at home and made a kitchen and living room into an open plan area. All has gone really well except that the floor covering lets the room down. Three quarters of the 5m x 5m room is good concrete floor. The last quarter is an area of 2.5m x 2.5m floorboards. Under the floorboards are water and drainage pipes, and just in case we should ever get a problem, we decided to use Karndean Loose Lay flooring. The floorboarded area was fitted with 6mm marine grade plywood, screwed down every 100mm by me, and the whole area skimmed level with a water based latex by a floor fitter. The Karndean tiles move slightly where fitted over the wooden floor, which is annoying but fixable. However, the Karndean tiles over the concrete area don't lie flat and the edges seem to rise up slightly like a leaf. We weren't to happy with the flooring fitter, and thinking that he wouldn't be able to improve things (he's a glue down man, not too experienced with loose lay as it turned out...), asked an independent fitter to inspect. His opinion was that the floor had been put down too soon before the latex had dried out thoroughly, and advised us to lift the tiles and let the room dry. We did this but now cannot get the fitter to return. He's busy apparently, and seemed a decent man but doesn't call us back..... We are after some advice please, or someone experienced with loose lay to come and advise. We need this completed before we can finish fitting the skirting and decorate. At this point, I'm wishing I'd gone for something other than £1200 worth of Karndean Loose Lay, but I'm willing to be convinced how good the Karndean really is. We are in the Staffs/West Midlands area if anyone is interested.
It's not unusual for a looselay product to curl up like a leaf tbh, the reason for that is the moisture underneath the material needs to escape and is coming through the material. If in doubt glue it out.
Karndean now say it has to be laid with a tackifier to stop problems. Was the concrete screeded by floor fitter?
Karndean loose lay !!!! Absolute joke !!! I laid some last week. Hall, dining room, wc, kitchen and Utility. ........all on tacifier. Rubbish product in my opinion.
The tiles have now been up for a month and the floor is definitely dried out. (Checked with damp tester). The tiles being taken up should present no problem - We labelled all edge tiles before moving and reference points marked.
Not just that but some of these loose lay systems dont back the same way the 2nd time. Ive never fitted the loose laid karndean and wouldn't either after all the horror stories and to hear that Karndean themselves are recommending tacky now is a complete fail
Laid a large kitchen in looselay straight over existing kArndean. Same problem. Within a month all the edges curled up. KArndean inspected it and had no idea why this had happened. Advised we stuck it all over with tackifier so did. Done absolutely nothing. They replaced the lot free of charge in the end. From my experience your tiles will now be of no use to u, putting it all back together will be near impossible. Sorry I've had bad experiences with it shrinking massively aswell. It's not the worst product out there but it's not looselay by any means.
