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Floating Floor Problems and Repairs: Gaps, Bounce, Buckling and Peaking in Vinyl Plank and Laminate, Why Each Happens, Who Is Responsible, and What the Fix Costs
Flooring & Tile
Floating Floor Problems: A Floor That Floats Has to Be Allowed to Float, and Every Failure on This Page Is Somebody Not Letting It
A floating floor is a few hundred planks clicked into one sheet that lies loose on the subfloor. The sheet grows in summer and shrinks in winter, and it has to have room at every wall to do that. Pin it anywhere, at a baseboard nailed too tight, a kitchen island screwed through it, a door jamb it was cut around instead of under, and when it grows it has nowhere to go but up. That is a peak. Starve it of a flat subfloor and the joints flex every time you walk past until they break. That is a gap. Here is what each problem looks like, what caused it, and what fixing it costs.
The four problems and their causes
| What you see | What it usually is | Whose fault, most of the time |
|---|---|---|
| Gaps opening between plank ends or along the long joints, usually in winter | The floor shrank and something held one end. A pinned run, a heavy island, a floor laid too dry and tight, a run over 30 to 40 ft with no T-mould, or a heated slab taking the plank well past the sheet’s cap. Sometimes a joint that was never fully locked. | Installer, if pinned or no transition. Homeowner, if the house ran at 20% humidity all winter. Product, rarely, if the lock is weak. |
| Bounce or a hollow drumming sound under foot in one area | A dish in the subfloor the planks are bridging. Two pads stacked. A soft spot in the plywood. The floor is flexing into the void. | Installer, for not flattening the subfloor or for doubling the pad. Builder, in a new house, if the subfloor was out of spec. |
| Peaking: a ridge where two planks meet, lifted in a tent | The floor grew and had nowhere to go. No expansion gap at a wall, baseboard or quarter-round nailed down through the plank, a jamb or a cabinet sitting on it. Common after the first humid summer, and after a south window heats dark planks. | Installer, nearly always. Occasionally the cabinet installer who came after. |
| Buckling: a whole section lifted, planks popped out of their locks | Peaking that went further, or water. A dishwasher leak under laminate swells the core and the whole floor rises. Under vinyl, a flood lifts the floor and floats it. | Water is the house. Pinning is the installer. |
Nearly every one of these can be diagnosed with a flashlight, a putty knife and ten minutes at the baseboard. If the plank is tight against the wall behind the trim, the installer skipped the gap. If the quarter-round is nailed down into the floor rather than back into the baseboard, same.
What the floor needs to float
- A gap of 1/4 to 3/8 in. at every wall, post, pipe and jamb, covered by trim that is fastened to the wall, never to the floor. The manufacturer’s sheet gives the exact number.
- A T-mould every 30 to 40 ft of run, and at every doorway between rooms, so no single sheet of floor is longer than the product is designed to move as one piece. Open-plan houses hate this rule and break it constantly; glue-down is the honest answer for a 50 ft great room.
- A subfloor flat to 3/16 in. in 10 ft. The joints are the weak point, and a joint over a dish is a hinge. Levelling costs.
- One pad, not two. Attached pad or loose pad, never both. Doubled foam lets the joints rock.
- Nothing heavy screwed through it. An island, a built-in or a toilet goes to the subfloor, and the floor is cut around it with the gap. A floor pinned at the island peaks at the far wall.
- A house kept at 35 to 55% RH all year, which is the same number that keeps the hardwood upstairs and your sinuses happy.
- Over radiant, a product that says radiant in writing, a floor sensor so you know the surface temperature, and a clear head about the sheet’s 27 to 29 C cap being where the warranty ends, glued down if the sheet prefers it. Vinyl over radiant.
Who is responsible
The manufacturer warranties the plank: the wear layer, the print, the lock, the core. The installer warranties the installation: the gap, the flatness, the pad, the transitions. The homeowner is on the hook for the house: humidity, floods, the fridge that was rolled across it. Nearly every floating floor failure I have looked at is an installation problem, and the manufacturer’s inspector will say so in a two-page letter that quotes his own installation sheet back at you. He is usually right. That letter is the end of the manufacturer’s involvement and the start of yours with the installer.
This is why the installer’s warranty matters more than the plank’s lifetime one, and why a good installer photographs the gap and the subfloor before the trim goes on. In a new house, the flooring is the builder’s for the first year under Tarion, and a peaked floor at month six is a warranty item; after that, it depends on whether the cause is a defect in work or a defect in your humidifier. Flooring warranty problems goes through how claims go wrong, and the workmanship inspection on this site is what to check before you pay the final bill.
What the fixes cost
A peak at a wall, floor pinned by the trim. Pull the quarter-round or baseboard along that wall, cut 3/8 in. off the plank edges with an oscillating tool, put the trim back fastened to the wall. The peak drops in a day or two once the pressure is off, usually entirely. Baseboard off and back on is $2.50 a linear foot, so a 20 ft wall is $50 of work plus the trip, and every installer has a minimum for a repair call that is bigger than $50. If he installed it, it should be free.
Gaps from a missing T-mould. Cut the floor at the doorway, install the transition at $35 each, and close the gaps by tapping the run back together from the far wall. Half a day for a house.
Bounce over a dish. No fix without lifting the floor. Take up the planks back to the dish, which is $1.25 a square foot if they are coming out for good and slower if they are coming back, level the dish with compound at $3.00 a square foot, relay. On a 150 sq ft area with planks reused: lift about $190, level $450, relay at $2.75 about $415, roughly $1,055 plus any planks that broke coming out.
A whole floor relaid. When it was pinned everywhere and the planks are intact, lifting and relaying a floating floor is about $4.00 a square foot: $1.25 to take it up carefully and $2.75 to put it back with the gap it should have had. A 600 sq ft basement is $2,400, plus new transitions and trim. When the planks are damaged or the locks are broken, it is a new floor, and the vinyl plank cost page has that number. Flooring repair costs covers single plank swaps and the minimums.
Questions people ask
Why is my vinyl plank floor separating?
It shrank in the winter and one end was held, or the run is too long for one sheet of floor, or a joint never locked. Check the gap at the walls first, then the humidity, then look for a missing T-mould at a doorway.
Why is my laminate floor lifting in the middle?
It grew and could not. The floor is pinned at a wall, a cabinet or the trim, and the extra length has to go somewhere. Free the pinned edge and the peak settles, unless water is the cause, in which case the swollen planks have to come out.
Can a floating floor be fixed without replacing it?
Peaks and gaps from pinning or missing transitions, yes, by freeing the edges and adding T-moulds. Bounce from a bad subfloor needs the floor lifted and the subfloor fixed. Water-swollen laminate is replaced; water-soaked vinyl can often be dried and relaid.
Is a gap in a floating floor the installer’s fault?
Usually. If the floor was pinned, laid tight to a wall, run too far without a transition, or laid on a subfloor out of flat, it is. If the house sat at 20% humidity all winter with the floor laid at 50%, it is the house.
Should I glue a floating floor to stop it moving?
Not after the fact; glue in the joints of a click floor voids most warranties and does nothing about the cause. If you want a floor that does not move, choose a glue-down product and install it that way from the start.
Before it becomes a repair
The subfloor inspection checklist is the list of things to see and photograph before the first plank goes down, which is when every problem on this page is still free to fix. The flooring cost calculator prices the floor with the prep, the transitions and the trim it needs to float properly.
Sources and further reading
- Torlys: Canadian maker of engineered, vinyl and laminate floors; the installation and radiant-heat instructions are a good example of what the sheet in the box says.
- Tarion warranty coverage: what a new-home warranty covers for flooring gaps, cupping, cracked tile and squeaks in year one and year two, and the Construction Performance Guidelines it measures them by.
- Your rights when starting home renovations or repairs: Ontario government: the 10-day cooling-off period, the written contract rule, estimates, and what to do about a contractor who walks.
