I recently installed a glueless clicking T&G engineered wood floor and it makes a crackling noise like walking on peanuts anywhere you step on the floor. I've had professionals come in and tell me the wood was defective, and had the manufacturer and retailer tell me it was humdity (I have a meter, humidty is fine). Bottom line is the manufacturer is shady, and I don't have the money for new wood, so am contemplating unclicking the floor and trying to fix it somehow.

Does anyone know if there is anyway to fix the noise problem?

I have an OSB subfloor and was considering using a patching concrete leveller compound to flatten the subfloor and perhaps also try gluing it down with adhesive, but am new at this and not sure if it's too complicated and if it willl fix the problem?

Do Not attempt to glue your click floating floor down to the subfloor. Very diificult! If you can label the boards and remove them EXACTLY as they were installed, great!. Leveling/Flatening the substrate should have been done in the first place. If you can reinstall the flooring, you may want to try gluing the panels together as well as clicking them in. Use a quality yellow carpenter's ( Elmer's or Titebond) glue and remove excess as you go with a wet rag. This will solidify the joints making for a quieter floor. Good Luck, you'll need it!

Noises like that are from movement in the joint or too tight of joint and the floor is actually trying to lift, giving it some movement, and the edges are so tight they screetch agains each other.

Substrate must meet the 3/16" in 10' radius, or the flooring will flex too much.

The flooring must be allowed to sit in your installation area to acclimate, before installing it. This varies on the amount of time. It is a moisture content thing. If the flooring arrives at 7% Moisture content, and the temperature and humidity in your home say it should be 12% and they start to immediately install it, that floor will grow. If a plank swells 1/16" because it gained the moisture content to reach the 12%, how much has the floor grown in 16 planks wide? An entire inch. This takes up any expansion space you left at the time of installation. It locks the floor in and then once locked it has no where to go but up and is squeezing the planks edges. You step on it and the edges squeak against each other.

I'm glad I found this forum, at last some unbiased advice. I have had so much conflicting and misdirected advice about this. The flooring inspector (from the retailer and wood manufacturer told me I should have glued the planks down, (which thought was strange since it was sold as a floating floor). I asked the retailer if the subfloor needed prep work/ levelling and they said No, through down the foam underlayment and click it in. I went to buy some cement leveller anyway and the salesperson at Home Depot said noone ever buys that stuff, you don't need it! (I wondered in that case, why do they carry it).

Could I trouble the flooring experts for some more advice so I can guage if it is worth unclicking and relaying this floor?

- I acclimatized the wood beforelaying so I think the issue must be with the subfloor. Is there a particular type of cement leveller to use with OSB subfloor?
- Do I need to use an acrylic additive and a primer?
- Do you need skill to get the floor level using this stuff?

Lesson learned for other newbie DIYers - retailers often do not give accurate advice, so do your homework I guess. Also, I asked a number of floor installers if they would do the job and they were not interested because they didn't want to do the subfloor prep, so check with your installer that he will be checking the levelness of the subfloor.

Thanks for the advice Gary and Flooring Guy!!

Also because of what you were told by the unscrupulous corner cutting retailer, it is very hard for us installers that want to do it right, to explain floor prep and the cost involved with it to the homeowner.

I have lost more jobs because "the other guy wasn't going to do that, how much is it going to cost" But ½ of them call me for the repair. ½ don't want me to say "I told you so"

Depending on the plank width, the flatness specification could be 1/16" in 6' radius.......... The wider the plank, the more subfloor flatness becomes critical. Noise could also be due to lack of expansion gapping, so check that first. Make sure no edges are tight to fixed objects.

In the latest Hardwood Floor magazine, there was an article with this exact same problem, a crackling under the floating floor. The installer removed some flooring; only to find his helper had left a bag of potato chips under the pad.