DISQUS

Charles & Hudson: Buckled Wood Floor Solutions

  • kelly · 10 months ago
    As this is tongue and groove, wouldn't' it be possible to float the floor on a layer of foam the way Pergo type floors are? Or would these pieces come loose?

    You'd just have to make sure you leave a 1/2 gap around the edges under the baseboard for expansion.

    You could still glue the tongue and grooves together...
  • jenni · 10 months ago
    We once lived in an old house built in the 1920's that the floor did this. No concrete or plywood. Crawl space had become wet somw how. We told the owner who did nothing and we later moved.

    The sub floor was the cross boards with about a 1/4 gap between.
  • anthonyris · 10 months ago
    Ouch.
    The floor was improperly glued to the concrete substrate. You *can* lay wood flooring directly over concrete, but it must be a "floating floor":
    - lay moisture barrier, with seams taped together, on top of concrete
    - lay foam cushioning made for floating floors to prevent squeaks
    - install wood floor (click together type or traditional tongue-groove)
    - leave 1/4" expansion space around the entire perimeter

    The mass of the floor holds it in place, but allows the wood to expand/contract freely.

    Another method is to install "sleepers" onto the concrete, then plywood subfloor, then add wood flooring. But that raises the floor height...

    I would remove the buckled ones and replace without gluing down. If it continues to happen, pull up all the existing flooring and just re-lay it as a floating floor.