My Laminate Floor Has Issues.....
- Thread starter Ernesto
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Help Support Flooring Forum - DIY & Professional:
gotta love the signs of a DIYer. I had a customer on the island one time that laid out his ENTIRE house in laminate, cut around all the corners and door jambs. He called me to come look at it because he "was having issues with gaps". I went over to look at it and surprisingly the gaps were caused by him not locking the flooring together...yeah, thats right.
FloorMaven
Well-Known Member
Ken said:
Which island?
Sorry Maven, I have a habit of thinking that everyone is familiar with jersey, haha. The locals refer to long beach island as "the island". Were stuck in our own little world over here, lol.
First one was from a so called box store pro. The latter one with the screw in it was a fireman pimping himself off as a flooring expert. Said he knew how to do Pergo and done it many times. I believe him, cept the XP got the best of him this time. Course it helps that you clue the owner in on putting cabinets on it too. 
So easy to make dough doing these inspections.
Here is a lesson on gluing over cutbac if your ever tempted. lol
So easy to make dough doing these inspections.
Here is a lesson on gluing over cutbac if your ever tempted. lol
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Hey, I'm a box store pro! Haha. There are definitely some knuckleheads in the mix. I like to think I kinda know what I'm doing, lol. Maybe not. I HAVE been getting quite a few calls from my stores to fix jobs that their other installers screwed up so maybe I know enough to be the one they call when things go bad. I guess I'm lucky though. When my business is slow they get busy and when they're slow, I seem to get busy with my own jobs. Can't complain.
When I moved back to my hometown in '92, I made a living for 6 months just doing repairs for one store. They had used the same installer for 20 years but he had started putting stuff up his nose and had butchered a bunch of jobs.
I just checked out one job where the customer was complaining about how the original installer leveled their slab and by leveled, I mean stuck extra vapor barrier in the voids. Thats right, the plastic vapor barrier.
FloorMaven
Well-Known Member
Ken said:
Complaining about the method or the results?
I suppose both. The installer filled voids by stuffing extra 6mm vapor barrier plastic under the laminate. You could feel and hear the floor move at the same time, lol.
Well Ken thats a good topic to explore. What method is best for filling low spots on a wooden substrate when installing a floating floor? Of course we all know when doing a naildown paper felt and roofing tiles are acceptable. I am not fond of putting patch on top of PB in say a manufactured home for obvious reasons.
I'm working on one now, all the seams were high so I planed then down. Even at that with the joists 16 inches on center there are still low spots. I plan on filling them with 30lb felt and roofing tiles. In fact I already have done so in some spots and it feels flat and hard underneath.
Perhaps the guy should have used somthing heftier than 6 mil.
This was actually over concrete but as far as techniques are concerned, I prefer filling with wood over wood substrates. Ive also used tar paper but never shingles, I dont think ive heard of that before. Wouldnt the nasty gritty crap thats attached to the shingles cause noise under the floor? I HAVE used a technique I learned from an old timer from cali where you lay vinyl in the low spot and cut it like a topographical map, and that works great! (Dont tell him I said that, lol). This particular depression needed some levelor and not extra plastic though, lol.
First Ken, how do you feather out with wood?
Doing the topo withnoaoernis the same as the vinyl you speak of. I use 15 and 30lb sometimes use shingles as well. With shingles you flip it upside down. You can scrape off a lot of the sand first. Its not an issue.
Plus tar saturated paper is more dense than vinyl and will not compress as much as tar paper.
Doing the topo withnoaoernis the same as the vinyl you speak of. I use 15 and 30lb sometimes use shingles as well. With shingles you flip it upside down. You can scrape off a lot of the sand first. Its not an issue.
Plus tar saturated paper is more dense than vinyl and will not compress as much as tar paper.
Depending on the situation I've used shims but generally ill fill the low spots with plywood or luan and then make up the difference with Henry 547, so I suppose that's not ENTIRELY wood over wood if you want to get technical, lol.
I was looking at a self levelor by TEC the other day and they actually require metal lathe installed first over wood. How the heck do you feather that!? Haha.
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