Hi,

I had engineered wood floor installed a couple of months ago and have now noticed a gap in the middle of the trim that is in the doorway. I have taken two pics. I'm not sure if it was always there or has developed that way. But its pronounced enough that dirt, dust and things can go under it.

imgur: the simple image sharer
imgur: the simple image sharer

it's also like this with the trim which at the base of the door leading to the conservatory but only on one side.


Is this normal, is there something I can do to fix it, or is it the workmanship and I should be calling the company back who installed?

Thanks (please ignore the really horrible hallway carpet. still updating the place)

 

You should call the company back. Either the flooring has dipped because they didn't check for level and fill as needed, or the trim has popped loose. Some of those trim/transitions have a track that is attached to the floor then the trim is fit into it.

If you have a flat straightedge like a 4' level you should be able to tell if the trim has bowed up or the flooring has bowed down.

 

Thank you for the reply.

If it's the case its the trim and not the floor is that a relatively easy and quick job for them to fix?
Would it be best to try nailing it down as it is, or replace the trim?

I'm hoping it's just that the trim has popped up in that case. It's also to a lesser degree happened in the middle of a trim under a double door that leads to a conservatory on the opposite side of the room and also to a very slight degree to the trim along the underneath of the fireplace. But none of them seem to have any nails in? I can only spot one small nail in the one underneath the door to the right side.

Unfortunately they're closed so I wont be able to call until tomorrow to get someone back.

 

And your flooring looks to be laminate and not engineered, is that correct? Hopefully is the keeper piece that was attached to the subfloor that is at fault. If they have to remove the trim it will be destroyed, so they will need to install a new one, just so you know.

 

It's engineered, or at least that's what they told me now you got me worried :P

What makes you think it's laminate, the colour? The colour is very very off in that picture as its a combination of my terrible iphone camera and the lamp that was on giving everything a very orangey glow. The actual floor is a much more natural colour. If that was the reasoning?

Is the keeper piece something to do with the trim or the rest of the floor? I don't have any experience with wood floors.

I'm hoping it's just a case of replacing the trim and that this would be something they would do for free, as I don't think I could have done anything to cause this that i'm aware of? Is it a common occourance?

Thanks for the info

 

5 planks across a door opening indicates the planks are about 6"wide and I have never laid anything but laminate that wide. Laminate is nowhere the quality of engineered flooring. Not to alarm you. And I hope I am wrong. The trim piece is held in place by a metal "u" shaped keeper, and the trim fits in it one way, one time and locks. What brand/style flooring did they install? Curious.

 

its 138mm wide, 20mm thick with planks 2200mm long
"Brushed and Matt Lacquered engineered board flooring town grade"

I don't have the brand on the invoice, not sure there is one. I remember the sales talk being something about all the wood coming from the same manufacturer that has its own woods or some such.

I've googled and found engineered woods at that width though, perhaps it's a European thing? I'm in the UK.

 

Glad I was wrong. 5 1/2" wide just seemed wide for engineered, but you got it!! And 3/4" thick, too, not bad. Keep us posted on what the installer does with the thresholds, as we like to follow up on things.

 

May be just the picture but there looks like a really bad sag right in that area.
What will happen when they attach the U shaped piece to the subflooring is it will tend to open up in the middle and not grip the transition strip.

 

You called it. It's not that the trim has lifted it's that the floor has gone down in that area.

Had one of their floor fitters back today, the guy that fitted it.

In the doorway where you enter the room, also by the fire it's where I step to get to the sofa, and going into the conservatory. There is no movement at all when you push or lift the threshold, but the floor if you shove or put weight on it goes down. There is another threshold by a storage door I have under the stairs, and this is perfectly flush as the day it was fitted, because of course it gets rarely any weight on it at all.

The subfloor is chipboard, and the wood is installed as a floating floor.

He has told me that there's nothing that can really be done to remedy it short of tearing all the wood up, and redoing the subfloor? Which of course, I don't really want as he says it would cost a lot to do the subfloor.

It was a different guy from the same company who quoted the job and I can't help but feel I should have been made aware of it before booking the work? I may have still gone with it in the knowledge there would be some movement but at least i'd have known? And been able to weigh the cost of correcting the subfloor.

It doesn't particularly surprise me as the rest of the house is really very creaky, and I even have a quite big dent in the carpet in one of the upstairs rooms where it seems like the board or whats under there has gone in. I think the house was cheaply made. It's in a close/cul-de-sac and all 30 or so houses are the same and probably built on mass by the same developer.


Result: He has filled the visible dips under the threshold with a gap filling mastic, "Bona Gap Master", and said if it moves again just call him back and he will refill again and if it continues to go on after that, leave me with the stuff to fill it myself. Of course it's not a solution, it just covers it up to the eye, but he says there is no solution?

Anybody have any experience with this themselves or know what I should be on the lookout for in the future? And if this sounds right and makes sense?

Should I expect it to just get progressively worse and worse and worse, or this being 2 months in, it hopefully wont move as much? It has suddenly got very cold over here in temperature, would that have anything to do with it? I did literally notice these gaps in the last 3 days. They weren't there before. Perhaps in the summer the floor would expand slightly and fill the gaps?

Surely when the floor gets used this mastic is going to break anyway and leave holes as before, I suppose the real question is whether or not the floor will move any further and if it moves in the rest of the room.

I'm just a little sad and annoyed that I wasn't made aware of these problems with the subfloor being chip at the time of the survey.

 

If they installed the flooring parallel to the floor joists, with particle/chipboard the dips are the result of a wave in the sub-floor. Flooring should be installed perpendicular to the floor joists so that the planks bridge the gaps between the joists. "Creaky Floors" should have also been addressed as part of the prep work prior to installing the floor. I use a collated screw gun to drive screws where squeaks are and remove the offending nail.

 

Any way to get a picture of that area under the floor?

 

I don't think I can get a picture without pulling the flooring up.

If it's the chipboard in general you wanted to see I have pulled the carpet up in the ensuite as its gonna be redone (the old guy who lived here before had carpet in his shower room ....) but it's a very very small room so it's not like you'd get to see any joins or anything if memory serves. Just chipboard!

I mean, there's no solution now that the wood is down is there, they would have had to provide that solution before and redo the chipboard beforehand right?

But where do I go from here, is this just going to get worse, or is there no way to predict it. May it just stay as it is with these dips in the doorways?

I don't mind it not being perfection, I don't really mind the odd creak and squeak, i've been googling and seen a lot of discussions about it with reference to floating solid/engineered floors on chipboard.

I just don't want the floor to be wrecked "structurally" in a year or something