Anyone who lays floors here? Question

[J_Tiers]

A friend laid an Armstrong "foundations" floor, Achiever or Successor, I dunno which. It is NOT acting correctly.

It is the type you glue only around the edge.

Background, he refurbishes houses, doing much of the work himself, so he is familiar with flooring. He recently laid a different one in a house he just sold, no problems.

Anyhow, for this stuff, he followed the directions to the letter. But the (&^$&*^%$$ floor has popped up, especially in places where it is warmed up, like under the fridge vent. He has ripples all over now.


He says he can pinch nearly a half inch in the middle of a 9 x 12 kitchen area. That is a heck of a lot, nearly 1% expansion.

He let it warm up several hours in place while trimming etc, before finally gluing down, so it isn't a case of laying it cold.


Anyone have a guess as to what happened?

Ideas on fixing it?

Thanks in advance...

[Kevin45]

Could there be a possibe moisture problem where there is an excess of moisture causing the flooring to expand? Was a moisture barrier put down before the floor was laid. When worse comes to worse is there a possibility that he can get a rep. from the company to look at it and maybe go back on them. There is a remote possibility that it could be a problem with the floor itself. You may want to go to a few home remodeling sites and ask the question. There are quite a few sites around and I would go here www.ixquick.com which is a search engine and do a search for either remodeling or do a search for flooring problems.

Good luck,
Kevin

[J_Tiers]

Thanks. Since it is on a luan subfloor over joists and boards (first floor over basement), probably not trapped moisture. But it could be a humidity change.

Is the stuff that unstable? Wow.

He is in the biz, and he is getting the rep as the next step. We are just trying to get the easy blow-off stuff out of the way first, so the rep doesn't toss off a few comments and split.....seen it done before, they never come back..

Thanks
Jerry

[GeorgeGaskill]

Could he have just mis-measured it?

[J_Tiers]

but it was tight when laid, and went crazy by the second day. They rough cut it, and then trimmed it in place. Both he and the helper swear it was flat as laid.

I have seen it, and you could likely pinch an inch total in the loose folds, now. The floor looks like one of those "wrinkle dogs".

The wrinkles are diagonal, so yeah, I would say it loosened up overall, in both directions.

Armstrong already discontinued one of the two series of that stuff, maybe they had a reason.

Thanks

[Jon]

Did he allow for expansion? Most of these floors call for a min. of 3/8" on all fours sides. I have seen several of these floors buckle because when they were installed, the spacers got kicked out and the floor was laid tight to the wall. Is there a large amount of windows in the room allowing an abundance of sunlight in and this will cause the flooring to expand even more. Personally, for the cost of that type of flooring and the inability to sand and refinish it, I would not install for anyone period. You could have a great solid wood flooring for pennies a sq. ft. more. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/confused.gif"%20alt="[/img]