Identifying laminate wood flooring used for plank replacement

[TNGuy]

Hello,

I have some damaged laminate wood flooring planks that I want to replace but I don't have the manufacture and part number information. I might also extend the flooring into more rooms.

Is there a way to identify these planks?

Should there be identification info on the bottom of of the plank?

Attached are some pics of what I have.

Thanks
Don

 

[C.J.]

Looks like a staple down engineered wood floor.

 

[TNGuy]

Looks like a staple down engineered wood floor.

The pic showing the staples is the last plank where the flooring meets a room and different flooring type transition which was a carpeted room. I'm thinking the wood planks are normally floating except where there is a different flooring type transition.

 

[C.J.]

The pic showing the staples is the last plank where the flooring meets a room and different flooring type transition which was a carpeted room. I'm thinking the wood planks are normally floating except where there is a different flooring type transition.

Could be but I’m thinkin like a floor guy though and I wouldn’t pull out my flooring stapler just for a header board if I wasn’t already using it for the rest of the floor. I woulda popped a couple top nails n putty and been done with it.

Do you have any heat registers you could lift out and check if it’s floating or fastened? Maybe a suction cup to see if you can lift up on the flooring to check.

Some of those thinner engineered floors have to be stapled through the groove side. Not many people read instructions so I’ve seen my fair share of incorrectly fastened floors. They tend to make noise because the middle layer, the core, of the flooring isn’t meant to hold a fastener so it either blows through or partially blows through a lot of the time. That’s gonna be a big source of noise.

 

[TNGuy]

Could be but I’m thinkin like a floor guy though and I wouldn’t pull out my flooring stapler just for a header board if I wasn’t already using it for the rest of the floor. I woulda popped a couple top nails n putty and been done with it.

Do you have any heat registers you could lift out and check if it’s floating or fastened? Maybe a suction cup to see if you can lift up on the flooring to check.

Some of those thinner engineered floors have to be stapled through the groove side. Not many people read instructions so I’ve seen my fair share of incorrectly fastened floors. They tend to make noise because the middle layer, the core, of the flooring isn’t meant to hold a fastener so it either blows through or partially blows through a lot of the time. That’s gonna be a big source of noise.

From a register opening I can lift the planks up a little, maybe a 1/8" or so.

 

[C.J.]

Shouldn’t be able to lift up a nail down or staple down floor. It could be floating but it could also be a staple down job with not only an insufficient amount of fasteners but blown out fasteners as well.

If you can lift up the floor about 1/8”, can you stick a ruler or something else flat underneath and slide it around to see if there’s any fasteners at all holding the floor down. Even if the fasteners aren’t holding anymore, you’ll feel them and at least know what you’re dealing with.

 

[TNGuy]

Shouldn’t be able to lift up a nail down or staple down floor. It could be floating but it could also be a staple down job with not only an insufficient amount of fasteners but blown out fasteners as well.

If you can lift up the floor about 1/8”, can you stick a ruler or something else flat underneath and slide it around to see if there’s any fasteners at all holding the floor down. Even if the fasteners aren’t holding anymore, you’ll feel them and at least know what you’re dealing with.

I used a chisel to raise the planks and slid a putty knife in, I found a few hard stops which sounds like I was hitting metal and they were along the plank edges.

 

[Commercial Floor Rep]

Just to be clear on terminology, that's not a laminate floor. That's an engineered hardwood floor.

The problem that you're going to run into is that adding or replacing planks without having original planks (attic stock) to use is that, if you can identify the product, trees are not perfectly repeatable, like a man-made product. Anything new is either not going to match, or is going to need to be stained and site finished to match. Depending on the soil composition that a tree grows in it will take stain differently.

This looks to be a 3" wide hardwood, the market has moved towards wider planks (5" width and wider is the new "standard"), so you may play havoc trying to find 3" wide plank in engineered. I wish you luck, but I think you've got quite a challenge in trying to find a match.

As to the installation, it appears to be stapled over OSB. While it's an acceptable substrate and installation method, OSB is a horrible substrate for stapled installation. It does not hold fasteners well and can be a problem, long term. It also doesn't appear that the original installation used any type of barrier, such as roofing felt or Aquabar under the floor when installed. Not the end of the world, but would have helped in protecting from squeaks and minor subfloor imperfections.

Just for arguments sake, I prefer to do a glue down over OSB for engineered hardwood. It's slower, and more messy, but makes a much more problem free installation.

 

[TNGuy]

Just to be clear on terminology, that's not a laminate floor. That's an engineered hardwood floor.

The problem that you're going to run into is that adding or replacing planks without having original planks (attic stock) to use is that, if you can identify the product, trees are not perfectly repeatable, like a man-made product. Anything new is either not going to match, or is going to need to be stained and site finished to match. Depending on the soil composition that a tree grows in it will take stain differently.

This looks to be a 3" wide hardwood, the market has moved towards wider planks (5" width and wider is the new "standard"), so you may play havoc trying to find 3" wide plank in engineered. I wish you luck, but I think you've got quite a challenge in trying to find a match.

As to the installation, it appears to be stapled over OSB. While it's an acceptable substrate and installation method, OSB is a horrible substrate for stapled installation. It does not hold fasteners well and can be a problem, long term. It also doesn't appear that the original installation used any type of barrier, such as roofing felt or Aquabar under the floor when installed. Not the end of the world, but would have helped in protecting from squeaks and minor subfloor imperfections.

Just for arguments sake, I prefer to do a glue down over OSB for engineered hardwood. It's slower, and more messy, but makes a much more problem free installation.

Thanks for the input.

I live near a small town that only has one big-box hardware store (Lowes) so I checked online what they have (thinking this is where the original installer went) and found this that might be the same stuff. But like you mentioned it still might not match well being that mine is 15 years old.

My plan was to start with the carpeted rooms anyway and replace the ~1800sf original engineered hardwood floor after it wears to the point that it needs replacement, which could be a few years down the road. It would be nice to replace the few damaged planks now though.

If I can't get the same matching engineered hardwood floor then I need to come up with a new flooring for the carpeted rooms, that carpet needs replacement near term. I could go with carpet again but with animals I prefer a flooring that goes well with the original engineered hardwood floor and holds up well over time.

 

[C.J.]

Lowes is a crap shoot at best.

Floors By Southern Boys lives in Murfreesboro and he works for a local shop. You should look around and see if you can find the shop he works for. He is a top notch installer! He has a bunch of videos on YouTube. I don’t follow him anymore cus he does a lot of carpet and I don’t care about that but maybe you can peep where he works and go from there.

 

[TNGuy]

Lowes is a crap shoot at best.

Floors By Southern Boys lives in Murfreesboro and he works for a local shop. You should look around and see if you can find the shop he works for. He is a top notch installer! He has a bunch of videos on YouTube. I don’t follow him anymore cus he does a lot of carpet and I don’t care about that but maybe you can peep where he works and go from there.

I agree, Lowes is low probability. I'm trying to get a sample sent to me from the manufacture.

I'll checkout the Southern Boys videos.

 

[TNGuy]

Lowes is a crap shoot at best.

Floors By Southern Boys lives in Murfreesboro and he works for a local shop. You should look around and see if you can find the shop he works for. He is a top notch installer! He has a bunch of videos on YouTube. I don’t follow him anymore cus he does a lot of carpet and I don’t care about that but maybe you can peep where he works and go from there.

Got my samples. It looks like the same stuff except it has a lighter shade of pale.

 

[C.J.]

If the new flooring samples are a close enough match for you then it sounds like you’re in luck.