UKC

I had an oak floor put down about 18-20 months ago. It has now "tented" and I spent a few days tripping over it before taking up a few planks and having a look.

The insurance company sent some dude round with meters and rulers. His assessment is that - as the flooring is flush to the irregular stone hearth and there is only 2-3mm gap on the opposite side of the small room - the lack of an 8-10mm expansion gap is the cause of the tenting.

Of course, the company who fitted it disagree and say it's because Frank the Husky had a bladder related accident once and I didn't clean it up properly.

The question is this:- when fitting a wooden floor round a stone hearth, is it standard industry practice to leave a gap of 8-10mm?

In reply to Frank the Husky:

Yep it is definitely imperative to leave an expansion gap around any solid objects such as walls and obviously a stone hearth, I would go and argue the case with the flooring company and ask them weather they know that wood being a natural product tends to expand and contract. Good luck

In reply to Frank the Husky:

No problem fitting flush to the hearth as long as you have a good ten mil + free at the other end...shrinkage can be more of an issue with solid flooring in modern warm houses...Is it solid oak boards? engineered or thin laminate? Any damp issues?? Hard one to call without knowing the whole fitting history but I would be personally mortified if flooring I'd fitted ever did this!

In reply to Frank the Husky:

If its real wood ,I always leave a gap.

I usually cut a channel at the bottom of the plasterboard ,so I maintain my clearance ,and allow the skirting to adequately cover the boards.

At a hearth , I would leave the gap ,but think up a tasteful way of covering it.

Lacquered Oak boards I use fairly often instruct you to leave the gap. So I do .I get twitchy when laying floors and make sure I follow the instructions.unless there's a very obvious humidity issue ,I've never seen a floor expand yet.and I always leave some faint marks for future reference.

The company who fitted it should know about allowing for expansion.

Nowadays ,I prefer fitting engineered boards; just as effective as real wood ,and much more stable.obviously

In reply to Frank the Husky:

Consider what size the expansion gap was before it expanded. How does Mr Insurance know what it was?

How is the floor laid? Joists/Battens/floating/glued? Vapour barrier?

To be honest, I've never seen a modern mass produced solid floor expand, they normally shrink in the winter when the heating is on. You can get problems if non-glued gaps open up and fill up with general grit and stuff. When the boards expand again, this is trapped and the floor gets bigger overall.

Steve

In reply to Frank the Husky:

The gap varies with manufacturer instructions, and should depend slightly on room dimensions, larger the room bigger gap required. More gap required across than along boards. It varies with floor type but rooms over 8m wide may require additional intermediate expansion gap.

Floor I've just fitted (engineered oak) required minimum expansion gap of 10-15mm.

Presumably you can find out the floor manufacturer, get their instructions from them/or the web. Present this to the installer and insist they rectify....

You may be able to easily sort yourself, if the floor is not too badly damaged. If it is an engineered oak with 'uniclic' type fit you may be able to: Option 1: carefully dismantle saw the board ends for the offending boards and relay. It's fairly easy stuff to do. Just be careful to slide apart board *ends* rather than break apart.
Option 2: Remove a skirting on one side, use a oscillating multi tool saw to cut the boards at one end to provide required gap. Get at floor fitting tool (Z-shaped bent metal about £10 from B&Q) to tap the boards to re-align the gap evenly.

In reply to Frank the Husky: Hi Frank, had a similar issue with oak floor. This was solid oak floor, not engineered, with quick clips to fasten. After 2 months it was like a small rabbit was trapped beneath! As we had found out our original builder was not reliable, so we asked local flooring shop guy to review. I had taken off one wall skirtng and there was no gap. Flooring guy recommended removing all skirting and chopping down by 8 to 10 mm using biscuit jointer. I am quite hands on so this is what I did, voila, issue sorted.

Going forward, make sure you do not get your wooden floor installed by an idiot!

HTC Davey

In reply to Frank the Husky:

I've always left a 5-10 mill gap and that's on 'engineered' flooring. Wood expands and contracts, that's part of the charm really. So yeah, I'd be surprised that the fitters are arguing about that. I'm also surprised that they didn't leave a larger gap.

In reply to Frank the Husky:


That was no doubt your reaction at their stance of not leaving a proper gap! As others have said, I'm afraid a reasonable gap is definitely required; 10mm is sensible and that should be masked by a skirting or mouse moulding. You could suggest to the fitting company that you ask the question of TRADA or a similar organisation and see what they say.

http://www.trada.co.uk/

In reply to sbc23: Hi Steve. The floor is glued to a screed laid by the company. The boards at the side of the room with the 2-3mm gap are still glued and completely immovable, so I believe they're in their original position.

In reply to everyone: Thanks for your replies, much appreciated. The company wants an independent assessor to come round and make a judgement. That will cost about £300+VAT to be paid for by whoever is at fault.

Given the amount of tenting (and both of the inward opening doors at either end of the room are now scraping the floor) I struggle to understand how a relatively small amount of liquid that was cleaned up within about 5 minutes could have caused such damage. There is evidence that it leaked though to the screed.

I can only assume that, if it is down to the flipping dog, that they did not use enough adhesive and/or they didn't leave enough expanion gap. Either way they look responsible. I would have thought spillages in the home are pretty common, so should not be able to cause such damage.

I don't know how much of a gamble this independent guy would be. The company have suggested Chris Taylor of Taylored Flooring, Sid Bourne or J.R. Roberts.

Any thoughts/suggestions?

In reply to Frank the Husky:

solid timber will move (widthways with respect to the grain direction) in response to the humidity content of the surrounding atmosphere-this will happen regardless of any varnish/treatment available (even boat varnish is still somewhat porous) so blaming the dog is bullshit. If the guys that fitted this don't know this (and make allowance for it) they must have turned up wearing stetsons-if the situation is as described you have them bang to rights.
ps, don't get them to fix it if they are that clueless.

In reply to Frank the Husky:


A screed.? Hmm.

How long did they leave it to dry?

I would leave a screed at least a month before thinking of putting oak on top of it.

They should have been using a moisture meter.

The moisture is coming from the screed,IMO.

And Frank the dog is innocent (ish)

In reply to Frank the Husky:
Yep Frank... Would take a lot of moisture for a floor to expand to the point where it buckles....washing solid wood floors is no problem so unless your dog is actually an elephant he/she is blameless. If glued right there is no way that a spill could get through to the screed though glue adhesion can be a problem if there are any issues with the screed finish. Flooring should have been acclimatised in the room pre-fitting as well as screed being totally dry...if you got underfloor heating this should have been on prior to but not during fitting. This will not have been a cheap job...anyone with a conscience would put it right.

In reply to Frank the Husky:

Any idea what sort of screed was it that they laid - conventional sand-cement say 50mm thick, or a thin bed, latex-type, more in the order of 3-5mm? If it's the former, then I'd agree with andymac in that it would need a lot longer to dry out before putting any sort of floor finish on it. If they've jumped the gun, then the inevitable will happen and you, or they (hopefully) will pay the price. Good luck with the independent adjudicator.

In reply to Fraser: I'll ask the question of them, but it is laid on top of a DPM, it is grey and about 2-3mm thick, and seems to my innocent eyes to be like thin cement.

In reply to Frank the Husky:


Are they glued to the floor, and therefore unable to allow movement?

In reply to Billy the fish:

being glued to the floor will not prevent movement-it just means the bond will fail as the timber expands/contracts. I recall a tutor at London college of Furniture where i studied cabinet making 23 years ago (my day job ever since) showing us students a picture of a six inch thick steel bank vault door which had buckled to such an extent that it would not close. the cause? A decorative veneer of 3 mil thickness which had been stuck onto the door using contact adhesive, but still moved enough to bend steel.

In reply to Billy the fish:
They are glued. On the boards that tented (and have now been taken up) the adhesive obviously failed, but the remaining boards are stuck fast and immovable.

In reply to Frank the Husky:

We had a solid wood floor that we aclimatised (?) for several weeks in the house before it was laid - across the entire ground floor. In the area where we had an extension (and underneath the floorboards, there was a cavity and then down to the ground about 1m below) we had some "tenting". It happened in spring and autumn when it was wet outside but quite warm and so we didn't have the heating on. In summer and winter we were fine. In other parts of the house where we had cellars below we had no such issue. In fact in areas where we had heating pipes below the wood dried out even more and left quite big gaps.
I saw the wood floor being installed and know that they left decent (8-10 mm) gaps - but also I can see that over fairly big expanses (10-15m or so) the potential for expansion if there is a fair amount of moisture around can easily expand by way, way more than the 10mm. At one point the "tent" must have been about 30cm high! Lifted our heavy table right up in the air.
We dealt with this problem very effectively by moving house in the summer....
Good luck.

Sound advice...I had an oak floor laid once over a very uneven subsurface which needed screeding first...said idiot didn't let the screed dry out. Tenting? It was like the bloomin' O2!

As a postscript did get a new floor out of the supplier, who had also recommended the freelance idiot. Best comedy moment was when, a few months later, I got a letter from the administrator looking after the idiot's company, now not surprisingly bust, asking me to pay the unpaid invoice. A few choice words sent them on their way...