Laminate flooring peaking and tongue/groove separating!?

Question

Hi, have you guys seen this happen before?

Looks like the newly installed laminate flooring is peaking to an extent where the tongue and the groove of the interlocking pieces are separating.

Jassem A. · Answer

Some laminates will separate or bubble up at the seams over time especially in bathrooms and kitchens or high traffic areas like hallways. An easy fix is to nail down areas that are coming up and caulk the cracks with similar color caulk or you can go over the laminate with peel and stick flooring and you don't necessarily even have to remove any trim or toilets.

Michael Bowser · Answer

It is a possibility they were not installed correctly. I just put down new bamboo floors that click (Floating floor) and if there was not enough room on the edges of the room for the floor to expand and contract then it makes the floor buckle like that.

Fixing it - I personally never have fixed the problem before, but going off of what I said before. you might have to remove the trim and make sure the floor was laid out right.

Hope this helps.

Manuel Gonzalez · Answer

I've had this issue when installing over old hardwood floor  in pier and brams homes. What I belive happens is that the moisture  travels thru subfloor  and thru  hardwood floor and evaporates. After you  install laminate it can't evaporate moisture gets trapped and hardwood floor starts warping. We had to pull up laminate and remove hardwood  install all new tar paper and plywood and then laminate

Eddy Dumire · Answer

some very cheap laminate I bought from lowe's was very tricky to install correctly.  If you didn't have the piece at the exact right angle when installing then it wouldn't go together exactly right.  You also could easily overlook it if it were just a little bit off.  I ended up having to get a rubber mallet and a rubber block and pound almost every piece in until it joined correctly.

This was after my budget handyman that I found on craigslist had actually nailed it down because he couldn't get it to install right.

If that's not the case, then some other options to consider:

1.  Did you leave it in the room long enough to acclimate to the humidity?

2.  Did it get wet?

3.  Did you leave the correct spacing between the floor and the wall so it could float properly?

I hope this helps.

Marc Murchison · Answer

I have never dealt with this problem but I would guess it is one of two things.  There may be excessive moisture coming from the slab or subfloor causing the laminate to warp or as Michael stated the installer may not have left enough room for expansion.

If it's a floating floor I would try pulling up the last row and see if you can get it to lay down. If it does you can just rip the final row down to allow for more movement.

Laminate flooring peaking and tongue/groove separating!?

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