About 9 months ago we installed stand-woven bamboo floors throughout our whole house. The floor is a click-lock system (which I would not recommend, but that's a differentmatter).

The problem we are currently trying to address is that in certain places the planks...give. I'm not quite sure how to explain it, but there is a certain bounce to the plank, or rather a hollow under the plank that allows the floor to move up and down. I am not talking about side-to-side, expansion movement. This is purely vertical. In some of the more extreme cases, you can even see the plank moving up and down, mostly from the way the light reflects off of the wood.

The problem is not due to expansion or contraction; it is purely due to what seems like an uneven subfloor and the floating, click-lock system combining for a poor floor in general.

The "company" (I use the term loosely) we paid to install the floor also leveled our concrete slab subfloor. We've since called them to address this vertical movement of some of the planks, and their solution is to drill into the wood (in an inconspicuous area, like in the cracks between planks) and inject glue under the plank to fill the hollows. They did one test spot, though I don't think they used enough glue. It's not quite as bad as it was, but it still gives some and squeaks.

My questions:

1. Does injecting glue under a floating floor have any reasonable expectations of success for such a problem? It seems a silly solution to us...

2. What would be a reasonable solution? We were thinking of pulling up the offending and surrounding planks, cutting out the underlayment, having them level out the hollows, and then replacing the underlayment and wood. This might be excessive... or is it?

Well it can be other issues besides floor flatness. It could be just a few planks curled after installation.

I've witnessed planks curling right out of the box when left out for a while. These homes had ambient conditions were addressed properly prior to installation; ie rh and temp in the required zone yet at the lower end of the requirement. Still this should not happen and really is a manufacturing issue, not an installation issue.

There is no way to tell if the floor flatness is true on a floating floor unless you pull it up and examine it.

First I would check the rh and temp in the home to see if your maintaining the house properly, with a quality professional thermohygrometer. Then check to see if the floor is locked in somewhere, ie lack of expansion space.

So whats yoru current rh and temp, what was it when installed?

floaters are normally easier to remove repair and replace than most other types of flooring. All floating floors have a small amount of deflection due to the fact that they are not attached mechanically and they are on a foam pad. Some deflection is to be expected with that type of product. It shoundnt bounce but it will move slightly by design. HAs the floor had the issue from the start?

Yes, the problem has existed from the start. At the beginning, we had severe cracking noises all throughout. We were told those were the wood burrs on the click-lock rubbing themselves out. Those noises are gone. Now we have the occasional creak and bounce over what seems to be hollows under certain planks.

We showed the floor company the DriTac website, which says their product (What they used on the test spot) will not fix problems with floating floors. The owner's response was, essentially, "We've used it on floating floors before, and it's worked." I'm not sure that's true, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, even though I feel sorry for whatever clients he's referring to. They've promised to come back and pull up some baseboards near the problems to make sure none of the planks are pinched against the walls. I guess that's something, right?

It is most likely an uneven subfloor. They should remove the flooring, level it out and reinstall the floor.

Why is it that once there is a problem, all of sudden the installer or company sucks?

they leveled the floor, which in my experiecne, most hardwood guys DON'T do.

they installed it and now 9 months later,and were paid(obviously satisfied then) there is an issue, in which they have responded and tried to remedy and are still trying..of course without ripping out the floor as it is costly..(im sure everyone here would rush right in and rip the floor out and start from scratch again.

yea sure..


times are tough..and they are trying to find an easy and low cost alternative right now and I believe
anyone else would be doing the same..

we dont know the conditions of the subfloor, if within tolerance or not..nor what was discussed upon execution of the job.

Floating click hardwood floors have had a noise issue since day one. I think it was Armstrong who came out with it first.

Like I mentioned before, bowed planks can easily cause this and they do not have to be bowed when installed, planks can bow/curl after installation. It is caused by unbalanced construction (manufacturing issue) or a moisture imbalance in the planks.

Can there be a moisture imbalance, of course and we have seen this many times in solid nail down, glued engineered so why not a moisture imbalance in a click?

Here's a couple discussions on this same issue over at the Hardwood Floors Mag forum where leading experts around the country have also chimned in. That grooving guy really knows his stuff.

http://hardwoodfloorsmag.com/forum/topi ... noise.aspx

http://hardwoodfloorsmag.com/forum/topi ... is-it.aspx

http://hardwoodfloorsmag.com/forum/topi ... rling.aspx