But, it can also be one of the big disadvantages of floating floors if you live somewhere that experiences extremely high humidity. This is also due to the space between the floor and subfloor. If a lot of moisture accumulates in there, it may contribute to warping, pitting, or mold growth.
If you're planning on installing the flooring yourself, or you want to minimize your labor costs when having engineered flooring put down in your home, your best option is floating hardwood flooring. That's because this type of flooring goes down faster and easier and is more cost-effective overall.
At the very minimum, your new laminate flooring should last eight years. However, most laminate can last well over a decade, especially if you take good care of it and keep it protected. The lifespan of your laminate floors may also depend on how much foot traffic is in a particular room.
You might wonder what keeps a floating floor from moving if it's not secured. The individual planks or tiles are heavy and when they are locked together the weight is dispersed over a wide area and the floor acts as one big heavy flat object.
A floating floor can have a slight bounce or give underfoot, but it should not feel excessively bouncy or unstable. A small amount of deflection is normal and can be caused by a number of factors, such as the type of subfloor, the thickness and quality of the underlayment, and the installation method.
This back-and-forth movement can wreak havoc on a floating floor if it's not installed correctly. The snapping sounds are almost always traced to an uneven subfloor. Laminate flooring materials don't tolerate humpy and bumpy subfloors. Subfloors need to be quite flat.
One of the most common reasons why laminate flooring develops space between floorboards is temperature. A rise in temperature leads to expansion, while a decrease in temperature leads to contraction.
Moisture and water damage are the most common causes of buckling, as they can cause the planks to swell and lift up from the subfloor. Temperature changes can also cause buckling due to the expansion and contraction of the laminate planks.
Usually nailing is the cheapest method but the subfloor is limited to wood. The floating method is affordable because it does not require too much labour, materials or time to be executed. Glueing is the most expensive and the rate is determined based on the glue type and the total square footage.
Floating floors whether vinyl, hybrid, or engineered timber are fairly durable but compared to solid hardwood floors or tiles, they don't last as long. In addition, some types may be prone to warping over time if exposed to too much moisture or humidity which could lead to costly repairs down the line.
Comfort and Convenience
Because the materials simply lay on the subfloor and are rather thin, floating floors typically feel somewhat hollow and are sometimes loud underfoot—especially laminates.
Weight is the biggest concern for floating floors and the appliances you can put on them. With direct pressure on the flooring joints, buckling may occur due to blocking of the expansion and contraction spaces. Hence, it is advisable to stick to items below 500 pounds for your flooring.
Floating floors are not designed to hold the extra weight of cabinets, and over time they can damage the floor and cause more issues in the long run. Therefore, we recommend that you install the cabinets before the floating floor.
In order to prevent an excessive build-up of moist air in the underfloor space in a suspended timber floor, underfloor ventilation is necessary. An even distribution of vents will ensure the elimination of stagnant air pockets where moisture might accumulate.
To stabilise the floating floor, the tongue and groove floor must be strengthened, the use of cement tile backer boards are a good option here, No More Ply or Hardi Backer board is an overlay board that will do the job well.
We'll show you three ways to stiffen up your bouncy floor—by adding bridging, installing plywood along the joists and adding a wall or beam under the floor. Any one of the three can solve your problem, depending on your situation. It's not a lot of work or expensive.
Most floating interlocking engineered wood floors often squeak due to movement between floor boards (in some cases T&G floating floors will also create crackling noises when insufficient amounts of glue are used and or uneven subfloors) . Uneven subfloors can cause flooring planks to dip and move when stepped on.
A laminate or wood floor will 'bounce' when there is a substantial gap between the underside of the wood/laminate plank and the sub-floor. The feeling of bounce is caused by the flooring moving downward when weight is applied (stepped on).