Charles & Hudson - Latest Comments in Buckled Wood Floor Solutions

Re: Buckled Wood Floor Solutions

Luckyteck — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 12:05:37 -0000

who is responsible for the repair of a newly bought home

Re: Buckled Wood Floor Solutions

Josephinemarchant — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:20:28 -0000

I live in flordia. I have a house with wood floors.My house was build 20 yrs ago.I don't use air condition.My wood floors started to buckle up about 3yrs. ago. I don't know what has cause this problem.I hope someone can tell me what to do.

Re: Buckled Wood Floor Solutions

anthonyris — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:37:52 -0000

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.

Re: Buckled Wood Floor Solutions

jenni — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:23:01 -0000

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.

Re: Buckled Wood Floor Solutions

kelly — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:37:28 -0000

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...