Loose laminate joints are a rather noticeable and unpleasant problem, because in this case the integrity of the coating is lost and deteriorated. appearance, and the cracks begin to spread, covering everything large area. Let's look at why the seams are coming apart and what to do if the laminate on the floor is coming apart, how to fix it without dismantling the entire floor.

Laminate flooring can come apart or lift for several reasons. Most often they are associated either with the premises, or with the coating itself, or with a violation of the installation technology:

Dry indoor air

Insufficient humidity can cause joints to diverge. In this case, gaps will appear mainly in winter, when the batteries are turned on and the air becomes drier. The laminate boards begin to actively dry out, shrink, and the joints between them diverge.

The problem is that even when the board is back to normal, the gap often remains. It is very important to choose when laying correct board and lay it so that climate changes in the apartment do not affect the quality of installation.

Any instructions for laying laminate flooring say - lay it perfectly flat surface. Often this is not taken literally, and the basis is old chipboard or just a plank covering, assembled somehow.

In this case, the discrepancy of the boards is explained by natural unevenness under the coating. Moreover, the joints of the boards in this case can break, and this damage is much more serious.

Laying technology is not fully followed

A common reason for laminate flooring to come apart immediately after installation or over time is incorrect gaps near the wall. They may be more or less than optimal, which ultimately leads to an uneven distribution of the load on the coating, the boards “walk”, looking for a comfortable position, and diverge in places of greatest stress.

This includes grains of sand, sawdust and pebbles. Such gaps will be almost unnoticeable, but the characteristic creak of the laminate will definitely appear over time. The best way prevent similar situation is to coat the underground and end joints with glue or wax, which will prevent the ingress of debris.

A common cause of cracks is the installation of laminate flooring yourself. Poor fit of parts to each other, as well as failure to complete certain stages of work that are known only experienced craftsmen, and lead to these problems in the future.

These are the main reasons why laminate boards begin to come apart. But what to do if a gap has already appeared, because going through the laminate is very expensive, difficult and time-consuming? Eat simple ways, which will solve this problem in just a couple of minutes.

What to do when the laminate has already come apart

For each situation there is a solution. What solves one problem does not always solve another. In some cases, the only solution The problem is the bulkhead of the floor.

If the cause of laminate discrepancy is dry air, then this problem can be easily solved. It is necessary to purchase an air humidifier and use it. Over time, small gaps will disappear on their own. It is better to do this at the moment when the cracks have just begun to appear, but if large gaps have already formed, this method may not help.

If the laminate has come apart due to the substrate (incorrect thickness of the substrate, poor quality, incorrectly selected or laid), then only a bulkhead of the laminate remains. The covering is carefully removed, a new concrete stretch is made - only after this the covering is laid back.

Even if it is temporarily possible to cope with the cracks, an uneven substrate will lead to their permanent formation. Accordingly, the sooner the cause is eliminated, the better.

With a “walking” laminate, there is no need to completely disassemble the floor. Gaps form at the point of greatest resistance. In this case, where the gaps are small, it is necessary to increase them by sawing the boards.

Where the laminate has seriously come apart and the gaps are large, the gap needs to be reduced; in this case, pegs are placed and placed under the baseboards.

Single cracks can form over time for various reasons. They can also be eliminated in just a few minutes. If left as is, debris accumulates in them, which leads to an increase in the gap, and if water gets in, the laminate will most likely swell.

Connecting the locks is very simple; all you need is a hammer, double-sided tape and wooden block.

The work is carried out as follows:

• From the gap you need to remove dust and debris that will interfere with the tight connection of the locks - a vacuum cleaner works best.
• Tape is applied to a wooden block on one side and removed protective film, after which it is applied to the desired laminate strip. It is advisable to mount it 5 centimeters from the gap.
• The block is held by hand, after which several blows with a hammer are applied to its back in the desired direction. This allows you to move the laminate boards without disassembling the coating. This is how you need to move along the entire laminate, eliminating the cracks until they disappear.

If the laminate has been lying around for a long time and the locks have stopped working, PVC glue can help, which is applied to the ground locks, after which the boards are joined.

These methods will allow you to cope with the appearance of cracks in the laminate. Depending on the complexity of the case, it may be necessary to disassemble the coating, but most often, if the laminate has come apart, the problem can be solved quickly and easily.

Our reader named Mikhail sent the following question:

Why did the laminate begin to wear out after a year of use? Moreover, they did not lay it with their own hands, but hired seemingly qualified workers.

Our expert's answer:

Without a specific picture, we can assume several options: low humidity in the room, uneven surface under the laminate, violation of installation technology (even the most venerable professionals can make mistakes), manufacturer defects, etc.

Let's take a closer look at the most probable reasons. So, why does laminate flooring come apart?

• The size of the discrepancies is small, barely noticeable to the eye. The reason most likely lies in low air humidity in room. In winter, when central heating is on, people more often begin to notice that the laminate flooring is walking. The floor covering dries out and micro-gaps appear. They can be easily eliminated: just turn on the humidifier.
• Uneven surface. Many "masters" underestimate preparatory stage works and suggest laying laminate flooring on the old chipboard floor. Even if the floor seems level, it does not mean that it is. The result: in some places the laminate sags, diverges, or becomes a fur coat. The floor also cracks in such cases. This method of installation will not save you from such a problem as creaking floors, and if everything works out, it will not last long. Our advice: disassemble the coating and eliminate any unevenness. The best option for laminate flooring is a concrete screed.
• Violation of laying technology. Incorrect wall clearances around the perimeter of the room. Too big or too small - they do not allow you to properly distribute the load on the floor. In some places the laminate is starting to come apart. You can correct the gaps by filing boards where there is little space, or by inserting small “wedges” where there is free space.
• This also includes small, unnoticed by the master, debris (stones, sawdust) that got into the joints of the boards, as a result, some of them do not fit tightly together. The floor crunches due to friction. To avoid such problems, many people coat the locks with a little glue or wax when laying them for more reliable adhesion.
• Manufacturer defect. Simply put, you bought low-quality laminate. During operation, the unreliable fastenings broke. And so we have to look for the answer to the question of why the laminate is coming apart. Tip: choose an option click locks, it is more reliable. Lock locks make laminate cheaper, but the installation process is more labor-intensive and often these locks cannot withstand the load during operation.

We hope that this information helped you find out why the laminate was falling apart and allowed you to eliminate this problem.

When carrying out finishing after completion of construction or repairs in Lately our compatriots often use this finishing material like laminate. It is suitable not only for residential buildings and apartments, but also for retail outlets and offices.

But the average consumer does not always know how to properly lay laminated flooring.

Therefore, it is not surprising that various troubles arise during operation. For example, many are interested in what to do if laminated coating swollen.

Why does laminate flooring lift?

There are many reasons for such troubles, so there are also quite a few measures to eliminate them.

The most common causes of swelling of laminate flooring

• The laminate used for the floor was too low class.
• The seams were not processed properly.

• The surface under the laminate is not smooth (with slopes, potholes).
• The humidity level in the room is constantly increased (water enters from the window or a humidifier is constantly used).

• The gaps where the flooring meets the walls are too small (there is no room for the laminate to expand).
• The furniture in the room with laminate flooring is too heavy.

Troubleshooting

If the coating is swollen due to water contact

If swelling occurs for this reason, it is noticeable immediately. All corrective measures must be carried out immediately.

Sequencing:

• Remove the baseboard, being extremely careful;
• Disassemble the coating to the point of swelling (it’s better even a little further);
• Remove water from the base and dry it;
• Dry or replace the substrate.

Advice: When dismantling, it is necessary to number the lines and note the order in which the panels are placed. This will allow reverse installation Immediately place each panel in its place, while avoiding cracks at the joints.

• Upon completion of dismantling, carefully inspect the wet panels. Most often, simply drying them is enough. If the panels become very wet, they will have to be replaced. No problems will arise if the material was purchased with a reserve during the previous repair.
• If there are no new panels in the house, you will have to buy them. And this can turn out to be a serious problem, since most often there are no completely similar boards in the store, you have to select them, matching them as much as possible in shade and texture. But still, the new panels will be different from the old ones. But replacement panels are also different from those that have already served for some time.
• The only way out is to lay boards in visible places, which until the moment of swelling were located in places inaccessible to view. In this case, stock or newly purchased material is installed in “hidden” places. But using stock or buying a few new panels is still cheaper than replacing the entire flooring.

Attention: The way out of such unpleasant situations is to lay laminate flooring with increased moisture resistance (you can use the highest class material or treat the seams with a sealant).

If the floor is swollen due to the fact that there is no gap between it and the walls. In this case, the edges or joints of the coating rise.

To eliminate the problem, it is absolutely necessary to take several actions:

• Remove the baseboard.
• Carefully inspect and mark the places where the laminated boards rest against the walls.
• If a door lock was used during installation, you must check whether it is secured correctly. To avoid damaging laminated boards, to attach the clamp, it is best to drill holes in them, that is, attach the clamp to the base.
• Inspect the distance between the floor covering and heating pipes(it must compensate for the increase in material due to thermal expansion).
• Trim the boards in the marked places so that there is a gap of 1.5 cm between the flooring and the walls (in practice, the width of the gap is determined based on the width of the plinth - it must completely cover the gap).
• To prevent the problem from happening again, do not screw it to the flooring. heating radiators or furniture legs. It is best to do the same as in the case of the door lock - drill holes in the laminate and attach everything necessary to the base.

In this case, the panels are not deformed, so after re-installation the coating looks great.

If the causes of swelling lie in the laminate or base

• The two situations discussed above require partial repair or partial replacement laminated panels. If the cause of swelling is poor quality laminate or poor preparation grounds, then the only way out is complete replacement floor covering.
• If the floor is made of low-quality material, then there is nothing left to do but dismantle the covering, throw away the material and lay a new one. When installing a new coating, do not forget about the benefits of sealant!
• If the problem is caused by an uneven base, then the coating must be dismantled, the backing removed and the surface leveled. Can be used for re-installation old material or buy a new one.

Another common problem is that the laminate has come apart.

If the laminate flooring begins to come apart at the seams, it is not as easy to detect the cause as if it gets wet or there is no room for expansion.

There are several reasons, so there are also many options for action

1. If the cracks are barely noticeable, then most often the reason is too low level humidity in the room. Gaps usually begin to form when heating season. To prevent cracks from appearing, install a humidifier or ventilate the room more often.
2. Laminate panels may sag and come apart if installed on uneven surface. To eliminate the problem, the coating must be dismantled, the surface leveled, and the panels reinstalled.
3. Contrary to the installation instructions, there were too large gaps between the flooring and the walls. To correct the situation, you need to install additional expansion wedges.
4. During installation, small debris was left at the joints, so the panels do not fit tightly enough to each other.
5. If panels with factory defects were used during installation, it may happen that several locks are broken.

Why does laminate flooring squeak?

There are only two reasons for this problem: an uneven base or debris in the joints. In the first case, the creaking occurs immediately after the lining has been compressed, increasing the load on the locks. Most often it is the locks that creak.

If there is debris left in the joints, the process is almost the same - the substrate loses its elasticity under load, and the load on the locks increases, causing them to creak.

Advice: If you need to buy laminate, choose material with click locks - they are the most reliable. Material with locks is cheaper, but difficult to install and does not withstand loads well.

Laminate flooring is not difficult to install and repair. It is quite possible to carry out all the work on your own. In addition, the Internet is full of photographs and video materials on installation and repair topics. After carefully studying them, problems usually do not arise.

Difficult to find best alternative parquet board or parquet than laminate. This material is safe, economical, easy to maintain and easy to install. However, often, after a certain period of time after installation, laminate flooring begins to show unpleasant surprises. What to do if you encounter such “laminate tricks”?

Situation one – cracking and creaking laminate

When we step on a laminate that has just been laid on the floor, we immediately hear the characteristic cracking and creaking of the panels. Sometimes such manifestations can occur a month or two after installation work. Such a defect does not distort or spoil the interior, but is the most annoying, annoying problem with laminate flooring.

There are several reasons why laminate flooring squeaks. When moving to a new building, the floor will creak due to the process of natural shrinkage of the house, which lasts several years (usually 2-3) after the facility is put into permanent use. In addition, there may be cases of significant changes in humidity and temperature, for example, when a heating system is placed under a covering. Then there is a high risk of spoiling the laminate due to frequent activation of high-speed heating. You can avoid such an error by slowly, gradually increasing the temperature (no more than +1C per day), before. How will a comfortable level be achieved?

Read also: Thermal insulating wallpaper made of polystyrene: advantages and disadvantages, features of wall insulation

Also common cause are distortions in installation technology or room preparation. It could be:

- not very thorough organization of the concrete floor base;

— too thick a substrate is used;

— installation is carried out without the use of special thresholds under the coating slats;

- the required distances from the walls were not observed, etc.

Important! The immediate cause of the squeak may be that the baseboard is too long. After laying tightly, it may expand a little, which will cause the formation of curves that are invisible to the eye, the protrusions of which will “rub” against the slats while walking around the room!

What to do?

There is no need to abuse the “warm floor” system. The presence of the required perimeter wall setback (minimum 7.0–10.0 mm) required for free expansion of the laminate material should be checked. Thresholds between adjacent rooms must be used.

Creaking can be caused by dust particles formed from the destruction of a low-quality concrete screed or one that was not completed using the proper technology (a leveling mixture was not used). In this case, you must initially follow the principles of proper installation. And if this fact is discovered, you will have to re-pierce, scrupulously clean the main surface, locking mechanisms, contacting ends of the plates, and then re-lay the laminate.

Circumstance two – diverging seams of the laminate

Since the laminate contains wood (cellulose), it is necessary to create certain compensating gaps prescribed by the instructions. Also, the height difference between adjacent panels should not exceed (as a rule, not > 2.0 mm). If, for various reasons, the height discrepancy becomes larger, there is a risk of unintended expansion of the seams between the laminate boards. Here, the joints will be on the fracture line, where intense friction occurs, accompanied by an audible crack.

Read also: Brushing wood: advantages, stages of doing wood brushing yourself

In the opposite situation, when the builders left an excessively large perimeter gap, it provokes an expansion of contacts between the panels, which also causes friction with characteristic sounds under vertical load.

How to fix?

Most effective option Correcting a defect involves disassembling the floor covering, cleaning surfaces and contacts, followed by re-installation. But when laying it is already necessary to use a special mastic, the representation of which is large on the modern market.

Advice! When laying laminate boards, avoid using off-cuts, especially those with multiple sawn edges. They are especially susceptible to rapid deformation!

Often, the reason for this “behavior” is low-quality products, the lamellas of which have locks that do not hold the connection and the seams between them come apart. There are several solutions – from radical replacement to indifferent resignation:

— you can forget about the defect if it is visually insignificant;

- try to eliminate the deficiency with mixtures that smooth out the seams;

— replace the entire coating with a high-quality analogue.

Case three - deforming swelling of laminate boards

This problem is a mirror image of the previous one. There is not enough freedom for natural expansion. For this reason, in the most stressed areas, the plates “bulge”, protruding above the general level of the entire floor. This is also observed due to the contact of boards with water or the influence of high humidity.

Renovating an apartment is usually quite a troublesome task. Although, no less pleasant, because it is a fact of updating the atmosphere in the house, laying the foundation in new stage the lives of the apartment owners. Somebody

Quantity calculator

Prefers to do repairs on his own, trying to save money family budget for hired workers. Some people prefer to entrust the work to the craftsmen, guided by the latter’s experience and professionalism, and their ability to foresee the maximum possible difficulties in carrying out repair work.

In both the first and second cases, there is a chance, after time, to see obvious repair defects. For example, guests who come to your place for a glass of tea may notice that the seams on the laminate are coming apart. It is possible that you yourself will see the defects some time after the repair.

The reason for discrepancies in laminate flooring is not always in the “crooked hands” of the installer. There may be several of them - and we will look at all of them in this article, and also tell you what to do and how to correct this unpleasant circumstance.

Why laminate flooring diverges - reasons

1. The indoor air is too dry. Residents of apartments where flooring was installed often notice small gaps between the floor boards in winter time years, when houses begin to be actively heated using central heating. The coating dries out and discrepancies form in the seams between the boards. The likelihood of such defects also increases if the installation was carried out in the rainy off-season, when the air humidity is quite high. Therefore, when repairing, it is important to take into account even such a factor as weather conditions.
2. Uneven base for laminate flooring. Under no circumstances agree to the proposal to lay a laminate floor on old chipboard boards, or, even better, on plank flooring in old houses made from ordinary wooden planks. Underestimating the preparatory stage for laying laminate flooring is the same as agreeing in advance to further periodic repair work.

It is absolutely important to carry out all measuring activities with basic equipment and make sure that the floor is truly level. If the master convinces you that he has a “diamond eye”, that he simply sees that everything is fine, you can lay the floor without thinking - drive such a master in the neck. Promises without calculated confirmation in 95% of cases have nothing to do with reality. Otherwise, you can end up with a laminate that sags in “pits” even at the end seams or rises like a “fur coat” in selected places. Which, moreover, also creaks in best traditions old school horror movies about old haunted houses.

1. Failure to comply with installation technology. It's about about incorrect gaps at the walls. By “wrong” gaps we mean both too large and too small. They cause uneven load on the floor. As a result, the boards seem to “walk” around the room, looking for a comfortable position.
2. Getting small particles into the joints between boards construction waste: pebbles, grains of sand, sawdust. This will not create large gaps, but the boards will constantly creak due to incorrect and loose closure of the locks. To avoid this, many craftsmen coat the end and longitudinal joints special glue or wax composition. What to cover, what composition to choose - you better consult with a specialist in the store. This improves traction, reduces the chance of debris getting caught, and also prevents squeaking in the future.

What to do if the laminate has come apart?

If the seams on the laminate are coming apart due to its drying out, then this problem can be easily eliminated: just turn on the humidifier. Using a dampener on a regular basis will eliminate small gaps at the end and longitudinal joints and prevent large cracks from forming between the seams of the boards. If you use “warm floor” technology, then the use of such a device becomes mandatory.

If the laminate locks come apart for the reason described in point 2 (that is, if the base under the floor was not level enough), then we recommend carefully disassembling the floor and making a new one concrete screed– this is considered the best option bases under the laminate floor - and lay everything again. Such radical measures will cost effort and money. However, you will get a long-lasting result that is pleasing to the eye. It is better to disassemble the laminate board by slightly tapping it from the edge of the room, in the least visible place. You should not disassemble the floor from the middle of the room, even if there are major discrepancies between the locks between the boards.

When the laminate “walks” due to non-compliance with the flooring technology around the perimeter of the room, then carry out full analysis no covering needed. It is enough to determine where the gaps are large and where they are too small, saw the boards in the second case, and in the first case add wedges, hiding them under the baseboard. This will redistribute the load on the coating and make it denser.

Laminate discrepancy due to manufacturer defects

Sometimes it happens that everything was done according to technology, but the laminate still creaks, diverges, and has unpleasant look. In this case, it is worth talking about the original defect of the batch that came to you. During operation, the fasteners break. This is not always noticeable, and many owners struggle to find out why the floor creaks when the reason, in the literal sense of the word, lies on the surface.

You can figure out how to choose the right coating yourself. U different brands laminate there are two options for locks that are cut on the boards: “click” and “lock”. They differ in shape, and their price also gives them away - the second locks, as a rule, belong to cheap brands. In the end, all the information is indicated on the packaging label, and any consultant will be able to answer your question “What kind of lock is installed on the board?”

“Lock” locks reduce the cost of the material, but require a more scrupulous approach to installation. If you still decide to use the labor of a floor laying specialist, then purchasing laminate flooring with “lock” locks will suit you. If you are laying the floor yourself, and you do not have much experience in this matter - only a video or photo of a master class on laying a floor from the Internet, then you should give preference to laminate with “click” locks. Then the likelihood of avoiding gender discrepancy becomes much lower.