Help please - engineered flooring problem .

[MikeJhn]

It does not look as though the boards have shrunk/expanded, but have moved sideways this could be due to a recent change in the room environment if laid some time ago, suggest checking the gaps at the edges to see if movement material was used.

As others have said, it could help if the flooring is fully floating to remove the skirtings and lever the boards back together, new boards may be needed at the lever edge and new "larger" expansion material at the edges.

Cradle and brace floor, new one on me and I was a Chartered Structural Engineer in my fifty years of working, brace fine, but cradle, could they mean joists with herringbone bracing?

 

[NormanB]

Looks very much like it was fitted incorrectly combined with a poor quality product. If they cannot live with it - start again.

 

[Bingy man]

It will of course only get worse. I think due to the replacement cost I would attempt 1 repair but if that fails then no choice but to rip out and start again. Given the cost of engineered flooring maybe use a decent quality laminate instead.

 

[bansobaby]

It does not look as though the boards have shrunk/expanded, but have moved sideways this could be due to a recent change in the room environment if laid some time ago, suggest checking the gaps at the edges to see if movement material was used.

As others have said, it could help if the flooring is fully floating to remove the skirtings and lever the boards back together, new boards may be needed at the lever edge and new "larger" expansion material at the edges.

Cradle and brace floor, new one on me and I was a Chartered Structural Engineer in my fifty years of working, brace fine, but cradle, could they mean joists with herringbone bracing?

The 'cradle' probably refers to proprietary levelling cradles that carry the joists, and the 'brace' to noggins.........

 

[MikeJhn]

Cradle? normally called Joist Hangers, never heard them called a cradle ever, or bracing called noggins, they are horizontal in a plasterboard timber framed wall, although I have heard the vertical supports for radiators/wall cabinets inside the wall called noggins.

 

[Ollie78]

It will of course only get worse. I think due to the replacement cost I would attempt 1 repair but if that fails then no choice but to rip out and start again. Given the cost of engineered flooring maybe use a decent quality laminate instead.

But with laminate you can see the repeated boards, the same photo repeated. I know some people don`t notice this but my brain can`t not notice it and it does my head in.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

There's a lot to be said for top class vinyl.

 

[macca]

Just a thought, a very quick attempt without the destruction of skirting (I have never done this and would only attempt it on my own floor in dire circumstance) lay masking tape perpendicular to the boards, glue a decent length timber to the tape and tw#t it with a sledge a decent length timber should make enough contact to stop you separating more runs of boards. this is a strange approach but its only 20minutes work and levering off walls can quickly escalate to popping drywall screws etc.

Before anyone slates me for the above, I'm quite aware its rough as a cats tongue, but if it works...

 

[JimTaylor]

The images are not clear to me, but is that not the tongue you can see?
The way the groove has opened across the floor, the floor has moved, as you can see the short edge has shifted on one joint as well. I had to seal my concrete floor with a two part resin coating by Sika, without doing that on a concrete floor the adhesive to concrete bond would have failed. If laid on a frame was it secretly nailed?
Most engineered flooring is very dimensionally stable, unlike solid.
I had to leave my flooring to stabilise in the rooms for atleast a week prior to laying. The short edges had to be glued with PVA and the long edges free to move. Was the skirting removed for laying or is there scotia trim fitted to the skirting?
As said earlier it my be possible to knock the flooring back together.

 

[Chrispy]

The answer to a problem is often found when you fully understand the cause, to help with this can you provide a rough sketch of the floors shape along with dimensions.