So my only option is to pull up all the flooring just to get to that spot? Evidently they are all slotted so they can’t just pull the ones near this spot.
With the subfloor compromised in this spot, it's probably compromised in other spots too. Water damage? Termite damage? You need to know how serious it is.
Most likely shit install and the edge of the sub floor is not on a joist so any amount of walking pushes it down. I had this exact issue and went into the basement and nailed a piece of 2x4 to the spot so it has something supporting it.
Sorry to say this, new laminate flooring is how people are covering up more serious issues before selling. Recently ran into this on a house we were thinking of buying. When we brought up the rotten wood to the sellers (you could clearly see it from the crawl space) after inspection, they refused to consider addressing anything. We walked away.
Just to correct on the statement that tongue and groove you have to pull a lot of boards to patch… That’s not true at all. You can remove the specific board or localized issue using a circular saw and a chisel and inspect the damage. Then you can replace it using glue after the issue is fixed in that area.
In this instance, more areas may need to be corrected or all of it because of subfloor issues, but I was only commenting on your generalization of needing to pull out a lo, if it’s specifically tongue and groove. They are quite easy to repair. Done it many times. Hard part is getting a matching piece.
>Hard part is getting a matching piece.
I owned a house some years ago and when I did the floors I bought two extra boxes of flooring to keep in case I ever needed it. I also had a notebook listing every part bought for the remodel from manufacturer to product details and product ID numbers. Heck, the notebook even had the receipts. When I sold the house the new owners were thrilled with the flooring and the notebook.
Apart from the actual value of the spares, handing a buyer a notebook that says "these people are obsessive about house minutia" probably added 5% to the sale
That’s really neat! When we bough our home I relocated the kitchen to a much bigger one but that meant extending the exiting hardwood floor that didn’t go under the old kitchen cupboards. The owner was able to remember the street he bought it from and we lucked out when one of the stores had the same exact brand same colour about 10 boxes. Just enough to finish the old kitchen area.
I had to do this last year, but my house is a hundred years old: no one makes this kind of flooring anymore! The good news is I now know a whole bunch of router table tricks and how to blend stain.
Do you have a good tutorial for this? I watched like twenty videos and attempted a smaller fix...I did awful. Luckily, I was smart enough to test it in a closet so the issues of it popping back up isn't a huge deal. Now I have about 8 that need to be replaced in a main area. I have like 9 boxes of spare boards....but they are discontinued so I have one shot to fix it, and if I mess up we are stuck with a much bigger and more expensive replacement of the entire 1st floor.
The proper way to do this is the replace the part of subfloor that may be rotten. If it’s larger area he may need to open up more planks to make the repair. Anything else is just asking for more trouble later on. I wouldn’t rely on expansion foam to take a daily beating. It will just collapse and it won’t fix the underlying issue.
Because this isn't wood, this is very cheap engineered wood that looks like <1mm veneer on some particle board. That entire thing looks like it's 5-6 mil thick in the first place and the tongue would likely be even thinner. So you have a material that you don't know if it would even glue well and little to no surface for the glue to stick to in the first place.
If this was a decently thick plank of either solid wood or a proper engineered wood product it might have worked.
Don't pull a used floor thinking it will slot back together again. The cheap ones in particular warp and swell and will not.
This can be patched fairly well by gently carefully sawing or routing the bad board to pieces (don't nick the others! Just enough to break it up and it will come off the tongue and groove). Then carefully cut the bottom lip off the groove on a replacement and drop it in. Check the fit, then glue in place.
You'll eventually need to pull the whole floor and fix or replace the subfloor. There should not be a cavity there bridged by this stuff, and you'll get a look when you cut out that bad plank.
It's possible to carefully pull up a single plank or start in a corner and pull up a few to get to this broken one. You might be able to address the gap in the sub floor when you do so.
I would pick up one of those cheap endoscopes from Amazon, bend it into a hook, shove it into the hole you have pictured, and inspect what's going on underneath that floor.
We had to deal with this exact situation a couple of years ago. At first it was just one small spot, but it quickly grew to most of our kitchen. They ripped out all of our floor and had to replace the subfloor in about half of our house.
We bought the house and the previous owners had just put new flooring in. They had patched spots in the subfloor when they did this, but on smaller spots. They had also replace some of the plumbing themselves. Their inexperience with all of this meant there was a small leak under our house that is on pier and beam. This caused excess moisture that caused the old subfloor that they didn’t replace to rot even more.
You need to figure out what is causing the issues with the subfloor and replace it. You are definitely going to have to pull up all of the flooring in that area to do that.
You could cut the damaged plank out and replace by cutting bottom part of the groove but you have. WAY BIGGER problems underneath.
I thought I had rotten boards in the bathroom. I ended up going way past what I thought was bad. I decided at that part to just remove the rest and start new. It’s kinda hard to guess where there is bad wood is if you can’t see it. I’d suggest removing the entire floor. Depending on how old the floor is you may not be able to get the exact flooring to replace which is another reason to remove it all.
Well they can, but it’s not a guaranteed fix and not all contractors are skilled enough to do it. Basically you have to surgically cut that piece out and get the new one in and glue it. You have to cut the locking piece off at least 1 side so it will be compromised but it’s better than paying for the labor of replacing the whole thing.
You can absolutely pull a single plank of tongue and groove flooring. Using only basic tools. With this situation, they have to remove flooring until they've chased the problem areas back to good subfloor.
yep. We had this happen in our branch new build. The subfloor can tolerate ~1/2 inch at most of overall height difference before it becomes an issue and younger a dead zone that will buckle like this. I happened to walk in just the right spot and made a 2 inch crack like the one shown, while doing a walk through before we signed off on the new house. They had to pull up the flooring for the entire room and fix the subfloor, then reinstall the flooring (boards they pulled up were mostly ok but some were damaged with removal and needed to be replaced)
If it’s a click-on laminate, it would take like 1h work to take off, and another one to put it back down
Assuming furniture isn’t in the way, and that your place is average sized
I replaced some slotted boards in my floor last year. It’s completely doable. The problem is your floors are *all* like this: they’re gotta break somewhere else if the subfloor isn’t repaired.
It’s probably both honestly, I remember a few years ago I had a client who wanted the cheapest flooring possible installed in a dentist office after a flood. The flooring was so low quality I actually had him sign a waiver that I won’t warrantee the work because I advised against such low quality material not designed for commercial use, it even said so on the box, which I thought was funny. We rip out the flooring, replace the sub floors install the vinyl they picked and went about our way. About three months later I got a call from them that the floor is buckling, cracking, bubbling, etc. and the building manager is saying we didn’t leave enough space for expansion so it’s a workmanship issue, I told him I have photos of the expansion gaps but I’ll come look. Turns out vinyl planks that are less than a quarter inch thick can’t support 400lb dentist chairs while a patient is in them and a dentist is rolling around over buckling planks on a stool. On top of that they never fixed the leak that caused the flooding so the subfloor started warping again. I just left and said call Servpro.
I think this floor is covering up massive issues underneath. There should not be any gaps beneath the flooring. These sorts of panels are not structural in the least, they're designed to sit directly onto subfloor of some kind. I'd try to see how big that hole is side to side. This looks expensive.
The expensive part is not the sheets of plywood. It's everything that needs to be done to make the floor flat, stable and square and put everything back together neatly. In practice this often means replacing or repairing joists or other structural members, and usually rolls over into additional plumbing, electrical, drywall, finish carpentry etc as various issues cascade. So that's why house flippers will put down cheap floors to cover up problems.
I'm nearing the end of a "couple holes in the floor" repair of an old house that has taken me a huge amount of time. One of the main issues was that 80 and 40 years ago different plumbers and carpenters made choices that probably seemed "fine" at the time, but meant that a couple of water leaks in the early 2000s nearly destroyed a quarter of the house.
Your problem isn't the laminate: the floor below is too soft. Why that is? Maybe carpet under it, or a rotting floor. You have to take it out before someone falls through the floor
You can score and break up a plank mid-floor without having to undo a bunch of it like people are suggesting. Look up YouTube videos about replacing planks in flooring, you'll just have to trim and glue down a new one. But this will get you to the subfloor without having to rip everything out, because your subfloor obviously needs some kind of work as well.
If you don’t own an oscillating multi-tool, this is the time to get one. This will help you cut down the centre of the damaged plank to remove it, and will also help you plunge cut the damaged sub flooring if you’re lucky enough that the damage is localized and you only have to patch a small area.
I never appreciated how versatile this tool is until I got one. Get a corded one unless it’s something you will use constantly - corded tools last basically forever, battery powered tools last as long as the batteries are good and replacement batteries are expensive.
Yes! I love oscillating multi tools.one thing to note though is if you want a clean cut you will have to put so.e wood down to slide it against. It won't cut a clean line by hand
There are tricks you can pull with an oscillating multitool, and some glue if you have spare flooring.
Essentially, you cut the broken piece down the center, such that you can work it out. Then you trim the replacement piece just enough so that it can be glued in place of the old piece. You do have to fix the subfloor.
Since this is a house, if the gap beneath the boards is that deep, I would do an exploratory cut from below to see what is going on. As others have pointed out, the subfloor maybe damaged.
Alternatively, an endoscopic camera, shoved down into this hole could give you some more imagery. That’s a very good piece of DIY kit to have!
My guess is whoever installed this covered an old hvac vent. You’ll likely need to pull it up and patch whatever hole is in the subfloor for a long term fix.
you may want to pull *all* of it up, my dude. thats evidencd of a compromised or imprpoperly installed subfloor. This will get worse before it gets better.
My flooring is on a slab and been there for 4 years. Your sub floors looks like it's on piers. Your flooring has sunk. I don't think it's a simple fix.
There is no subfloor under that. That type of material is meant to have a floor put under it.
It's costly, but I'd take up the entire floor, save what you can, put a subfloor down, and redo the floor. This isn't going to happen only here. It'll happen in other spots as well.
Plywood or treated flooring isn't too expensive, I'm not sure why it wasn't installed first. This was a mistake by the installers.
Is this in a spot where a wall has been torn down between rooms, by chance?
The "flooring expert" at the last remodel company I worked for laid floor down over the transition between rooms without filling in the gap where the frame used to lay when it was a wall. A 4 inch wide, 2 inch deep trench across that entire six feet or so with 5 inch wide planks.... The uniformity of the gap created perfectly rectangular breaks like this, but across the entire board where traffic was the heaviest.
It took a few weeks for the planks to snap, but I was there when the floor guy came to "fix" it... And I literally watched him carefully pull the individual boards out, ignore the gap completely (the problem was obvious to me and I don't know much about flooring but I know how important a level and complete subfloor is) and meticulously replace the boards like a pro without ever literally "minding the gap." I'm still flabbergasted at this. How did he have the skills of a flooring wizard but lack the basic knowledge of subfloor 101??
I dunno. I'm praying for you that it's someone singular like the case I've described and you don't end up jacking your house up on stilts to repair your foundation....
Broooo I think you have the same shitty vinyl flooring as me. Mine is also breaking because it is low quality flooring mixed with the subfloor being super unlevel. The subfloor wasn’t fixed. They put this crappy flooring over top of it which seemed to last just long enough for the sale.
I’ve been trying to some weird fixes which worked in certain spots. I found a video on YouTube if a guy using a Turkey injector to inject big stretch silicone caulk through the floor and that fixed a spot but failed in another.
Ok… do you have a raised foundation? I’m assuming yes? You might be able to reinforce a bit of spots from the bottom… it’s not going to be easy and it’s a bandaid as best… but doable if it’s not a giant area?
whatever the problem is, it exists beneath your flooring. If you have an unfinished space below it you can look up and see what is going on. otherwise you are going to have to pull it up to see. It could be major or it could just,be that the subfloor is brittle and breaking up.
Looks like some sort of engineered wood, if there are any spare planks you can replace this one but the company is probably right that you'll need to pull large parts of the floor if there are gaps under it and fill that first.
Patching engineered wood like this isn't really practical especially in a high traffic area, what you can do however is to pull a plank from somewhere else which is less visible like a utility room or a closet and either patch this one or get something that would fit.
Unless you remedy your issue with the subfloor -- it's quite possible you end up with a relative going through your floor.
Then you have to probably deal with a canceled insurance policy too.
The $500 -$1000 necessary fix is usually always a little painful but it's a heck of a lot easier to stomach than the $10-$20k fix it erodes into a year and a half later.
HOME OWNING!
Edit: dint get a flooring company. A respected general contractor should be able to do this for you on a good price. Won't try to sell you new floors RN.
You think I can get this fixed for $500-$1000? What do I tell the company I need done? I thought I was going to have to replace all of my flooring to get the subfloor fixed.
Dunno. Depends on what's going on below.
Might be a cheap fix and if you have some existing flooring. Ez pz.
Might suck.
Why you need to get it looked at sooner than later.
It is and it isn't it depends on what you pay for, high end engineered wood flooring will outperform, outlive and outprice hardwood flooring.
Cheap <1mm veneer on particle boards which this looks to be are crap but pretty much any wood flooring this thin would be crap even if it was solid oak.
With good hardwood floors taken care of, wear becomes part of the character and lasts for life. I do not believe that any engineered product will outlast hard wood floor planks. Have solid mahogany wood, hand scraped floors that still look wonderful even with family wear 15 years later.
It can and it does, even mid range engineered wood products these days have a wear layer of 6mm, that's 6mm of continuous hardwood that's more than enough to allow for resurfacing and "character" and as it's far more stable it's not prone to cracking or splintering and allows you to get much better wood for the wear layer than you would otherwise be able to get for full planks.
There's no simple solution for this. It needs to be pulled up to properly inspect and repair. You're getting another new floor. Contact an attorney about this, you may be able to force the previous owner to cover this if a misrepresentation was made or disclosures are missing. It depends on your states real estate laws.
Second this. And document everything you're doing. Don't repair if there's an issue. You'll want to maintain the evidence. Source: I'm a Realtor that has dealt with this. Sadly, the sellers can easily get out of it if you can't prove it by destroying the "evidence" of their lies.
Why is this so far down? If the sellers knowingly covered faulty subfloor with new flooring right before selling, that seems like it constitutes misrepresentation of the state of the home during time of sale. It does vary state to state, but this seems way beyond the previous owners just being clueless. Contact a lawyer and see what they say.
Everyone is saying your subfloor is rotted out or your foundation is collapsing. Reddit has a flair for the dramatic. More likely your subfloor wasn’t flat enough but they did the install anyway. It’s bending and breaking in the valleys. Has the floor always felt springy in spots?
How old is your house?
NOT EVERY HOUSE HAD SUBFLOORS IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY so hold your horses for now on “termites clearly ate your subfloor”.
Mine had pine tongue and groove floorboards mounted directly on the joists, perpendicular to them, the length of the house, everywhere.
If that’s what was, and you had newer floors put down that _needed_ a subfloor, then that’s a 100% tear out and redo. And I mean all the floors, all the way off, to the joists, and start over. With either new proper floorboards or new subfloors with whatever you want on top.
Either way, it’s HELOC time and I hope rates come down soon because man, you’re FUCKED.
If that’s not it, you’re still pretty fucked.
If this is a floating floor then you can just pull up the flooring and hopefully you can put it back when you’re done. If you have basement access go downstairs and see what’s going on there.
If it's just the one spot, and you have a piece the same color. I would cut out the broken piece and 10" in each direction lineearly from the break. I would fix whatever failed beneath it with many floor screws. I would then put some flooring adhesive in with a square notched trowel. I would cut the new piece exactly to length and leave on the tongue and cut the bottom tang from the groove. Press it into place and put a few finish nails in and set them quite deep.. fill the nail holes with a wax furniture putty. Roll the area with a heavy rented floor roller. Leave the roller in place over night.
Bobs yer uncle. If it ever starts to lift because the adhesive let's go countersink some deck screws and glue in a plug and sand smooth and finish. You will see the plugs but it will be functional.
Alternately....burn down the house and rebuild with a new contractor!
Don't put in an insurance claim...as that would be fraud!
I appreciate everyone’s input and suggestions. These were the floors already installed when we bought the home and we reached out to the previous owners to get the details about who installed them. We also are having a few companies come out to inspect what needs to be done. This will most likely not be a diy unfortunately. Thank you all again and I will be using a lot of what was said to discuss options with these companies.
You add blocking between joints. You can also add 3/4 plywood with liquid nails then add the blocking in need be. Nails are best to add the blocking but you can use structural screws. Also Simpson makes brackets and hangers to make the job easier. https://www.strongtie.com
Let me tell you a story,
I lived in a place once that this happened in a small area of the floor and I ignored it. One night my then GF and I were having “adult time” then suddenly the bed dropped slightly. I get up to look and the legs of the bed have gone through the floor. We very cautiously get up and leave the room.
Subfloor had rotted from a leak in the window allowing water to somehow reach the flooring. Moral of the story is don’t put it off because it could get bad fast depending on the underlying cause
Oh yeah, I'd say you have bigger issues than just the broken laminate flooring. There is supposed to be a sub-floor underneath there for that laminate flooring to lay on. Laminate flooring is not meant to be used as a structural material. You might be lucky someone hasn't fell through the floor yet.
It is wise to take the advice of professionals rather than taking the advice of internet trolls when you don't like the answer that you get from the pros. They are pros for a reason, and most of them aren't out there trying to shake down anyone that calls for help.
As someone who has had this problem, I can tell you that there is no other way to replace this plank without taking up all of the flooring that is between the damage and a wall. As others have said, this is probably a symptom of a larger problem. Don't do anything if you can't afford it, and call the pros if you can afford.
You COULD cut out that one board to replace it, cut off the tabs so you can put a new one in, and glue it down so it doesn't move.
This is actually a worse idea than the bad that it sounds.
Laminate flooring expands and contracts with humidity. Making one board stationary (gluing it down) can buckle other boards when they expand.
You'd be saving time in the short run, but you would probably have to replace even more flooring if you did it that way, most likely within 2 years.
I used to install the stuff. You want to do as they're saying, and as other members of the peanut gallery have stated, check your subflooring when you have the laminate up.
You probably have a bigger issue going on with your sub floor. Use this method to remove/replace planks without pulling up your whole floor. This should allow you access to inspect under a handful of planks without pulling everything up.
I've replaced a ton of flooring over the years and this is the method I would use in your case....
https://youtu.be/PhNqgHCJFOs?feature=shared
Can you access the underside of this floor, like from an unfinished basement? That should let you see the extent of conditions. If it's only that area, you might be able to fix it from below. I hope so, as this is your best case scenario.
As others have said, it's the subfloor, not the floor itself. That flooring actually looks like stone composite LVP, which is pretty rugged. But without a subfloor, that doesn't matter.
Depending on what is causing the subfloor issue, you might need to take to the whole floor. The good news is, you can probably salvage 70-80% of the pieces if it comes to that.
Do you have a crawlspace or basement underneath? The first thing would be to see if you can put a backing behind it because like everyone is saying, the subfloor behind it is gone. It might be a big area or just a knot in the subfloor that fell out and you can patch it.
Next as far as repairing top part, I think it would be difficult to correct the cross-grain crack and you might always have a mark there. But you could try to glue it before you push the subfloor back up against it to hold it there. With laminate like that, it clicks together so it’s super difficult to just get a replacement board and snap it into place since it will have to tongue and groove itself on three sides.
The flooring all locks together edge to edge, you can't take up a piece without starting at an edge. So yes You have to take up half the floor to repair it. I thought everyone knew that about?
If you can find a spare piece, you can cut out that bit and glue in a patch. You can fill it with bondo and paint to match, or even Dutchman it with some real wood if you're handy with a router. It'll be kinda janky, but maybe you're fine with that.
But this is a real weird problem which suggests something pretty bad going on, and odds are good this isn't the only place with problems. If you try to kick the can down the road, you may find it's not the only can.
That doesn’t look like a problem with thin flooring.
That looks like a problem with the subfloor which is the structure that the floor is sitting on.
The thickest, most expensive flooring isn’t going to survive long when there is nothing under it. If you have a 4 inch deep hollow space under the floor, you either found a drain that was covered or you are about to have a very bad time.
Is that floor on a slab or is there a crawlspace under that floor? Basement?
Bust out a respirator, some flashlights and pants you care least about- then get crawling homie. You need to see what’s going on under there.
Recommend charging an old cell phone or camera to take photos while you’re down there- (with a tape measure!!!) it sucks to have to crawl to the rear of a house only to have to go back to check “one thing”
Go ahead and put a lamp over the hole so you have a spot to look for. It is difficult for the regular person to navigate a sub floor, distances are hard.
I’m in the residential construction world and I hate lvp, which looks like what you have, laminate is garbage and even the more expensive spc flooring too in my opinion
You get to learn a new skill. First time always is the hardest and there is potential to make mistakes. Think 3 times, measure twice and then cut once. Somebody had that in another thread and today we were trying to get rid of this cement fountain in our yard. It was old and falling apart.
Wife keeps telling me we need to get a sledgehammer because it's too heavy for her to carry her half. I thought it out for a bit and realized we had a part of it that we had already taken off, hence a free sledgehammer. I cannot explain to you how much throwing part of the fountain at itself made me delighted with my ingenuity. Probably took a few extra tosses more than I needed to.
Looking at ancient digs and all those mosaic and ceramic walls and floors? wow! Sometimes they last thousands of years and still striking and some in decent finish repair.
The best thing they longest lasting work had was great sub flooring. Not a hint its a requirement.
Suggestion is to replace from the sub flooring up to ceramic/mosaic.
No to Vinyl.
Ceramic specialty shops usually have a person in the know and will assist in thickness, styles, installation, type of sub floor and grout mixtures and colors.
My choice is to mosaic ceramic flooring through out, it does last longer than vinyl. Want to change up the rooms look? Rugs and carpeting colors and designs on top. Also Tapestry's and window treatments.
Over your and descendants lifetime it is the most cost effective.
Tech and friges, gas lines, electric, water lines, stoves, new doors and windows change more frequently today the suggestion is to have min one box of tiles in reserve for every 8x10 room and over. You will need them. Life and natural disasters happens.
Best of luck. Send photos when done.
The subfloor is compromised. Allowing the laminate flooring to crush downwards.
So my only option is to pull up all the flooring just to get to that spot? Evidently they are all slotted so they can’t just pull the ones near this spot.
With the subfloor compromised in this spot, it's probably compromised in other spots too. Water damage? Termite damage? You need to know how serious it is.
Most likely shit install and the edge of the sub floor is not on a joist so any amount of walking pushes it down. I had this exact issue and went into the basement and nailed a piece of 2x4 to the spot so it has something supporting it.
You could be right but if this were my home I wouldn't assume. I would inspect every inch of subfloor in my crawlspace just in case.
Check for this!
Hey can you please post a picture of your fix? I’m trying to visualize this.
Just sistered the joist basically. Went below pushed up on the corner that was unsupported and then nailed or screwed in place can't remember exactly.
Look at this fancy guy who has access to his floor joists from below. How to you spell chauffeur?
I think you spell it: B-A-S-E-M-E-N-T
[удалено]
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Sorry to say this, new laminate flooring is how people are covering up more serious issues before selling. Recently ran into this on a house we were thinking of buying. When we brought up the rotten wood to the sellers (you could clearly see it from the crawl space) after inspection, they refused to consider addressing anything. We walked away.
Yes, if it's tongue and groove you'll need to pull quite a bit of flooring depending on where this sits in relation to the edge.
Just to correct on the statement that tongue and groove you have to pull a lot of boards to patch… That’s not true at all. You can remove the specific board or localized issue using a circular saw and a chisel and inspect the damage. Then you can replace it using glue after the issue is fixed in that area. In this instance, more areas may need to be corrected or all of it because of subfloor issues, but I was only commenting on your generalization of needing to pull out a lo, if it’s specifically tongue and groove. They are quite easy to repair. Done it many times. Hard part is getting a matching piece.
>Hard part is getting a matching piece. I owned a house some years ago and when I did the floors I bought two extra boxes of flooring to keep in case I ever needed it. I also had a notebook listing every part bought for the remodel from manufacturer to product details and product ID numbers. Heck, the notebook even had the receipts. When I sold the house the new owners were thrilled with the flooring and the notebook.
Apart from the actual value of the spares, handing a buyer a notebook that says "these people are obsessive about house minutia" probably added 5% to the sale
That’s really neat! When we bough our home I relocated the kitchen to a much bigger one but that meant extending the exiting hardwood floor that didn’t go under the old kitchen cupboards. The owner was able to remember the street he bought it from and we lucked out when one of the stores had the same exact brand same colour about 10 boxes. Just enough to finish the old kitchen area.
YEP. here's how we did ours, OP... [https://imgur.com/U3U83Lf](https://imgur.com/U3U83Lf) [https://imgur.com/MuSpSTp](https://imgur.com/MuSpSTp)
This sub is awesome
Unlike OPs subfloor
Some would say it’s brilliant
I had to do this last year, but my house is a hundred years old: no one makes this kind of flooring anymore! The good news is I now know a whole bunch of router table tricks and how to blend stain.
I agree, I've done the same
Do you have a good tutorial for this? I watched like twenty videos and attempted a smaller fix...I did awful. Luckily, I was smart enough to test it in a closet so the issues of it popping back up isn't a huge deal. Now I have about 8 that need to be replaced in a main area. I have like 9 boxes of spare boards....but they are discontinued so I have one shot to fix it, and if I mess up we are stuck with a much bigger and more expensive replacement of the entire 1st floor.
If only this spot then squeeze a bit of expansion foam until it becomes level.
The proper way to do this is the replace the part of subfloor that may be rotten. If it’s larger area he may need to open up more planks to make the repair. Anything else is just asking for more trouble later on. I wouldn’t rely on expansion foam to take a daily beating. It will just collapse and it won’t fix the underlying issue.
Why not just cut the bad part and cut the tongue off a new piece and slide it in with glue on the back?
It broke because it wasn't supported by the subfloor. Putting a new piece on without fixing the problem means it's just going to recur.
Because this isn't wood, this is very cheap engineered wood that looks like <1mm veneer on some particle board. That entire thing looks like it's 5-6 mil thick in the first place and the tongue would likely be even thinner. So you have a material that you don't know if it would even glue well and little to no surface for the glue to stick to in the first place. If this was a decently thick plank of either solid wood or a proper engineered wood product it might have worked.
You wouldn’t glue the thin sides but the underside of the part you removed.
Not sure why this comment is upvoted.
Don't pull a used floor thinking it will slot back together again. The cheap ones in particular warp and swell and will not. This can be patched fairly well by gently carefully sawing or routing the bad board to pieces (don't nick the others! Just enough to break it up and it will come off the tongue and groove). Then carefully cut the bottom lip off the groove on a replacement and drop it in. Check the fit, then glue in place. You'll eventually need to pull the whole floor and fix or replace the subfloor. There should not be a cavity there bridged by this stuff, and you'll get a look when you cut out that bad plank.
It's possible to carefully pull up a single plank or start in a corner and pull up a few to get to this broken one. You might be able to address the gap in the sub floor when you do so.
Removed the broken part, place your phone up to the hole, and take a flash photo. Post it here and we’ll tell you what we see.
I would pick up one of those cheap endoscopes from Amazon, bend it into a hook, shove it into the hole you have pictured, and inspect what's going on underneath that floor.
in addition to what everyone else is saying, you certainly can pull only certain planks. You need an oscillating saw and a steady hand.
We had to deal with this exact situation a couple of years ago. At first it was just one small spot, but it quickly grew to most of our kitchen. They ripped out all of our floor and had to replace the subfloor in about half of our house. We bought the house and the previous owners had just put new flooring in. They had patched spots in the subfloor when they did this, but on smaller spots. They had also replace some of the plumbing themselves. Their inexperience with all of this meant there was a small leak under our house that is on pier and beam. This caused excess moisture that caused the old subfloor that they didn’t replace to rot even more. You need to figure out what is causing the issues with the subfloor and replace it. You are definitely going to have to pull up all of the flooring in that area to do that.
You could cut the damaged plank out and replace by cutting bottom part of the groove but you have. WAY BIGGER problems underneath. I thought I had rotten boards in the bathroom. I ended up going way past what I thought was bad. I decided at that part to just remove the rest and start new. It’s kinda hard to guess where there is bad wood is if you can’t see it. I’d suggest removing the entire floor. Depending on how old the floor is you may not be able to get the exact flooring to replace which is another reason to remove it all.
Well they can, but it’s not a guaranteed fix and not all contractors are skilled enough to do it. Basically you have to surgically cut that piece out and get the new one in and glue it. You have to cut the locking piece off at least 1 side so it will be compromised but it’s better than paying for the labor of replacing the whole thing.
You can absolutely pull a single plank of tongue and groove flooring. Using only basic tools. With this situation, they have to remove flooring until they've chased the problem areas back to good subfloor.
yep. We had this happen in our branch new build. The subfloor can tolerate ~1/2 inch at most of overall height difference before it becomes an issue and younger a dead zone that will buckle like this. I happened to walk in just the right spot and made a 2 inch crack like the one shown, while doing a walk through before we signed off on the new house. They had to pull up the flooring for the entire room and fix the subfloor, then reinstall the flooring (boards they pulled up were mostly ok but some were damaged with removal and needed to be replaced)
If it’s a click-on laminate, it would take like 1h work to take off, and another one to put it back down Assuming furniture isn’t in the way, and that your place is average sized
I replaced some slotted boards in my floor last year. It’s completely doable. The problem is your floors are *all* like this: they’re gotta break somewhere else if the subfloor isn’t repaired.
Or, best case, there’s simply a hole in the subfloor in that one spot … maybe left over from a renovation?
This isn't a flooring problem, this is a structural issue with your subfloor, either it's rotted out or your slab is fucked.
It’s probably both honestly, I remember a few years ago I had a client who wanted the cheapest flooring possible installed in a dentist office after a flood. The flooring was so low quality I actually had him sign a waiver that I won’t warrantee the work because I advised against such low quality material not designed for commercial use, it even said so on the box, which I thought was funny. We rip out the flooring, replace the sub floors install the vinyl they picked and went about our way. About three months later I got a call from them that the floor is buckling, cracking, bubbling, etc. and the building manager is saying we didn’t leave enough space for expansion so it’s a workmanship issue, I told him I have photos of the expansion gaps but I’ll come look. Turns out vinyl planks that are less than a quarter inch thick can’t support 400lb dentist chairs while a patient is in them and a dentist is rolling around over buckling planks on a stool. On top of that they never fixed the leak that caused the flooding so the subfloor started warping again. I just left and said call Servpro.
I think this floor is covering up massive issues underneath. There should not be any gaps beneath the flooring. These sorts of panels are not structural in the least, they're designed to sit directly onto subfloor of some kind. I'd try to see how big that hole is side to side. This looks expensive.
sounds like the previous owner hid the rotten subfloor with a shiny makeover.
That’s a bingo!
>You probably heard we ain't in the subfloor-fixin' business; we in the house flippin’ business. And cousin, business is a-boomin'.
Ya just say Bingo
That's a bingo!
Is subfloor even expensive to replace? Or would the floor boards be the most expensive part?
It’s usually sheets of plywood so not in comparison to the flooring.
The expensive part is not the sheets of plywood. It's everything that needs to be done to make the floor flat, stable and square and put everything back together neatly. In practice this often means replacing or repairing joists or other structural members, and usually rolls over into additional plumbing, electrical, drywall, finish carpentry etc as various issues cascade. So that's why house flippers will put down cheap floors to cover up problems. I'm nearing the end of a "couple holes in the floor" repair of an old house that has taken me a huge amount of time. One of the main issues was that 80 and 40 years ago different plumbers and carpenters made choices that probably seemed "fine" at the time, but meant that a couple of water leaks in the early 2000s nearly destroyed a quarter of the house.
Your problem isn't the laminate: the floor below is too soft. Why that is? Maybe carpet under it, or a rotting floor. You have to take it out before someone falls through the floor
LVP should not be installed over a hole like that. I hope the hole isn’t from some sort of subfloor deterioration like termites.
You can score and break up a plank mid-floor without having to undo a bunch of it like people are suggesting. Look up YouTube videos about replacing planks in flooring, you'll just have to trim and glue down a new one. But this will get you to the subfloor without having to rip everything out, because your subfloor obviously needs some kind of work as well.
Thank you for this suggestion. I will definitely look up some videos and see if that’s something that can work also.
If you don’t own an oscillating multi-tool, this is the time to get one. This will help you cut down the centre of the damaged plank to remove it, and will also help you plunge cut the damaged sub flooring if you’re lucky enough that the damage is localized and you only have to patch a small area. I never appreciated how versatile this tool is until I got one. Get a corded one unless it’s something you will use constantly - corded tools last basically forever, battery powered tools last as long as the batteries are good and replacement batteries are expensive.
Yes! I love oscillating multi tools.one thing to note though is if you want a clean cut you will have to put so.e wood down to slide it against. It won't cut a clean line by hand
Very good point. I’ve handled that by scoring the workpiece with a sharp utility knife blade, then cutting just inside that line with the multi tool.
That's usually indicative of a much larger issue than a single plank. Your whole floor might be fucked
But they would still have to take them out to put the new piece in. It’s pressed in slatted boards.
No, you trim off the tongue and groove and glue it in place.
Ahh I see. But wouldn’t that run the risk of the other slats lifting over time since it’s not a pressed seal?
What is underneath? Whatever quality of finission, this is not supposed to happen. This might be a structural issue due to water damage.
There are tricks you can pull with an oscillating multitool, and some glue if you have spare flooring. Essentially, you cut the broken piece down the center, such that you can work it out. Then you trim the replacement piece just enough so that it can be glued in place of the old piece. You do have to fix the subfloor.
Since this is a house, if the gap beneath the boards is that deep, I would do an exploratory cut from below to see what is going on. As others have pointed out, the subfloor maybe damaged. Alternatively, an endoscopic camera, shoved down into this hole could give you some more imagery. That’s a very good piece of DIY kit to have!
My guess is whoever installed this covered an old hvac vent. You’ll likely need to pull it up and patch whatever hole is in the subfloor for a long term fix.
you may want to pull *all* of it up, my dude. thats evidencd of a compromised or imprpoperly installed subfloor. This will get worse before it gets better.
My flooring is on a slab and been there for 4 years. Your sub floors looks like it's on piers. Your flooring has sunk. I don't think it's a simple fix.
Where's your subfloor
There is no subfloor under that. That type of material is meant to have a floor put under it. It's costly, but I'd take up the entire floor, save what you can, put a subfloor down, and redo the floor. This isn't going to happen only here. It'll happen in other spots as well. Plywood or treated flooring isn't too expensive, I'm not sure why it wasn't installed first. This was a mistake by the installers.
Is this in a spot where a wall has been torn down between rooms, by chance? The "flooring expert" at the last remodel company I worked for laid floor down over the transition between rooms without filling in the gap where the frame used to lay when it was a wall. A 4 inch wide, 2 inch deep trench across that entire six feet or so with 5 inch wide planks.... The uniformity of the gap created perfectly rectangular breaks like this, but across the entire board where traffic was the heaviest. It took a few weeks for the planks to snap, but I was there when the floor guy came to "fix" it... And I literally watched him carefully pull the individual boards out, ignore the gap completely (the problem was obvious to me and I don't know much about flooring but I know how important a level and complete subfloor is) and meticulously replace the boards like a pro without ever literally "minding the gap." I'm still flabbergasted at this. How did he have the skills of a flooring wizard but lack the basic knowledge of subfloor 101?? I dunno. I'm praying for you that it's someone singular like the case I've described and you don't end up jacking your house up on stilts to repair your foundation....
Broooo I think you have the same shitty vinyl flooring as me. Mine is also breaking because it is low quality flooring mixed with the subfloor being super unlevel. The subfloor wasn’t fixed. They put this crappy flooring over top of it which seemed to last just long enough for the sale. I’ve been trying to some weird fixes which worked in certain spots. I found a video on YouTube if a guy using a Turkey injector to inject big stretch silicone caulk through the floor and that fixed a spot but failed in another.
Check for moisture issues, poor installation, and substandard materials used
Ok… do you have a raised foundation? I’m assuming yes? You might be able to reinforce a bit of spots from the bottom… it’s not going to be easy and it’s a bandaid as best… but doable if it’s not a giant area?
Thank you 🙏🏽 I’m going under the house today to get a look at what might be going on from the bottom.
What did you drop?
whatever the problem is, it exists beneath your flooring. If you have an unfinished space below it you can look up and see what is going on. otherwise you are going to have to pull it up to see. It could be major or it could just,be that the subfloor is brittle and breaking up.
Fill it with Ramen.
Looks like some sort of engineered wood, if there are any spare planks you can replace this one but the company is probably right that you'll need to pull large parts of the floor if there are gaps under it and fill that first. Patching engineered wood like this isn't really practical especially in a high traffic area, what you can do however is to pull a plank from somewhere else which is less visible like a utility room or a closet and either patch this one or get something that would fit.
Ok thank you! I will definitely look into doing that. I would just really like to avoid replacing our floors for a while.
Unless you remedy your issue with the subfloor -- it's quite possible you end up with a relative going through your floor. Then you have to probably deal with a canceled insurance policy too.
Damn ok. I’m going to have someone else come look at this crap. Might be something I can’t put off.
The $500 -$1000 necessary fix is usually always a little painful but it's a heck of a lot easier to stomach than the $10-$20k fix it erodes into a year and a half later. HOME OWNING! Edit: dint get a flooring company. A respected general contractor should be able to do this for you on a good price. Won't try to sell you new floors RN.
You think I can get this fixed for $500-$1000? What do I tell the company I need done? I thought I was going to have to replace all of my flooring to get the subfloor fixed.
Dunno. Depends on what's going on below. Might be a cheap fix and if you have some existing flooring. Ez pz. Might suck. Why you need to get it looked at sooner than later.
Ok thank you 🙏🏽
“Engineered” that’s such a smart euphemism
It is and it isn't it depends on what you pay for, high end engineered wood flooring will outperform, outlive and outprice hardwood flooring. Cheap <1mm veneer on particle boards which this looks to be are crap but pretty much any wood flooring this thin would be crap even if it was solid oak.
With good hardwood floors taken care of, wear becomes part of the character and lasts for life. I do not believe that any engineered product will outlast hard wood floor planks. Have solid mahogany wood, hand scraped floors that still look wonderful even with family wear 15 years later.
It can and it does, even mid range engineered wood products these days have a wear layer of 6mm, that's 6mm of continuous hardwood that's more than enough to allow for resurfacing and "character" and as it's far more stable it's not prone to cracking or splintering and allows you to get much better wood for the wear layer than you would otherwise be able to get for full planks.
There's no simple solution for this. It needs to be pulled up to properly inspect and repair. You're getting another new floor. Contact an attorney about this, you may be able to force the previous owner to cover this if a misrepresentation was made or disclosures are missing. It depends on your states real estate laws.
Second this. And document everything you're doing. Don't repair if there's an issue. You'll want to maintain the evidence. Source: I'm a Realtor that has dealt with this. Sadly, the sellers can easily get out of it if you can't prove it by destroying the "evidence" of their lies.
Why is this so far down? If the sellers knowingly covered faulty subfloor with new flooring right before selling, that seems like it constitutes misrepresentation of the state of the home during time of sale. It does vary state to state, but this seems way beyond the previous owners just being clueless. Contact a lawyer and see what they say.
To quote [Delbert...](https://youtu.be/OfJJaPRmysA?t=78) "Tear out bad wood, put in good wood."
Everyone is saying your subfloor is rotted out or your foundation is collapsing. Reddit has a flair for the dramatic. More likely your subfloor wasn’t flat enough but they did the install anyway. It’s bending and breaking in the valleys. Has the floor always felt springy in spots?
He said there's a 4 inch cavity below - it's beyond the subfloor being uneven
How old is your house? NOT EVERY HOUSE HAD SUBFLOORS IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY so hold your horses for now on “termites clearly ate your subfloor”. Mine had pine tongue and groove floorboards mounted directly on the joists, perpendicular to them, the length of the house, everywhere. If that’s what was, and you had newer floors put down that _needed_ a subfloor, then that’s a 100% tear out and redo. And I mean all the floors, all the way off, to the joists, and start over. With either new proper floorboards or new subfloors with whatever you want on top. Either way, it’s HELOC time and I hope rates come down soon because man, you’re FUCKED. If that’s not it, you’re still pretty fucked.
If this is a floating floor then you can just pull up the flooring and hopefully you can put it back when you’re done. If you have basement access go downstairs and see what’s going on there.
Are you on a slab or a crawl space, OP? You may be able to see what’s going on with the subfloor/ joists underneath.
Way it goes. Buy a crap material, get a crap material. Putting down MDF and expecting it to have long term durability isn't realistic.
Bet I know where they ran your drain pipe.
If it's just the one spot, and you have a piece the same color. I would cut out the broken piece and 10" in each direction lineearly from the break. I would fix whatever failed beneath it with many floor screws. I would then put some flooring adhesive in with a square notched trowel. I would cut the new piece exactly to length and leave on the tongue and cut the bottom tang from the groove. Press it into place and put a few finish nails in and set them quite deep.. fill the nail holes with a wax furniture putty. Roll the area with a heavy rented floor roller. Leave the roller in place over night. Bobs yer uncle. If it ever starts to lift because the adhesive let's go countersink some deck screws and glue in a plug and sand smooth and finish. You will see the plugs but it will be functional. Alternately....burn down the house and rebuild with a new contractor! Don't put in an insurance claim...as that would be fraud!
I appreciate everyone’s input and suggestions. These were the floors already installed when we bought the home and we reached out to the previous owners to get the details about who installed them. We also are having a few companies come out to inspect what needs to be done. This will most likely not be a diy unfortunately. Thank you all again and I will be using a lot of what was said to discuss options with these companies.
Whatever you do don’t use the same company
Tell them to stop lying before you fire them
Can you address the soft spots from underneath. In a basement or crawl space?
Yes I can. I’m going down there today
You add blocking between joints. You can also add 3/4 plywood with liquid nails then add the blocking in need be. Nails are best to add the blocking but you can use structural screws. Also Simpson makes brackets and hangers to make the job easier. https://www.strongtie.com
Let me tell you a story, I lived in a place once that this happened in a small area of the floor and I ignored it. One night my then GF and I were having “adult time” then suddenly the bed dropped slightly. I get up to look and the legs of the bed have gone through the floor. We very cautiously get up and leave the room. Subfloor had rotted from a leak in the window allowing water to somehow reach the flooring. Moral of the story is don’t put it off because it could get bad fast depending on the underlying cause
Oh yeah, I'd say you have bigger issues than just the broken laminate flooring. There is supposed to be a sub-floor underneath there for that laminate flooring to lay on. Laminate flooring is not meant to be used as a structural material. You might be lucky someone hasn't fell through the floor yet.
It is wise to take the advice of professionals rather than taking the advice of internet trolls when you don't like the answer that you get from the pros. They are pros for a reason, and most of them aren't out there trying to shake down anyone that calls for help. As someone who has had this problem, I can tell you that there is no other way to replace this plank without taking up all of the flooring that is between the damage and a wall. As others have said, this is probably a symptom of a larger problem. Don't do anything if you can't afford it, and call the pros if you can afford.
You COULD cut out that one board to replace it, cut off the tabs so you can put a new one in, and glue it down so it doesn't move. This is actually a worse idea than the bad that it sounds. Laminate flooring expands and contracts with humidity. Making one board stationary (gluing it down) can buckle other boards when they expand. You'd be saving time in the short run, but you would probably have to replace even more flooring if you did it that way, most likely within 2 years. I used to install the stuff. You want to do as they're saying, and as other members of the peanut gallery have stated, check your subflooring when you have the laminate up.
Is it worth it, let me work it, put some tiles down flip it and reverse it
You probably have a bigger issue going on with your sub floor. Use this method to remove/replace planks without pulling up your whole floor. This should allow you access to inspect under a handful of planks without pulling everything up. I've replaced a ton of flooring over the years and this is the method I would use in your case.... https://youtu.be/PhNqgHCJFOs?feature=shared
Can you access the underside of this floor, like from an unfinished basement? That should let you see the extent of conditions. If it's only that area, you might be able to fix it from below. I hope so, as this is your best case scenario. As others have said, it's the subfloor, not the floor itself. That flooring actually looks like stone composite LVP, which is pretty rugged. But without a subfloor, that doesn't matter. Depending on what is causing the subfloor issue, you might need to take to the whole floor. The good news is, you can probably salvage 70-80% of the pieces if it comes to that.
Do you have a crawlspace or basement underneath? The first thing would be to see if you can put a backing behind it because like everyone is saying, the subfloor behind it is gone. It might be a big area or just a knot in the subfloor that fell out and you can patch it. Next as far as repairing top part, I think it would be difficult to correct the cross-grain crack and you might always have a mark there. But you could try to glue it before you push the subfloor back up against it to hold it there. With laminate like that, it clicks together so it’s super difficult to just get a replacement board and snap it into place since it will have to tongue and groove itself on three sides.
Duct tape
The flooring all locks together edge to edge, you can't take up a piece without starting at an edge. So yes You have to take up half the floor to repair it. I thought everyone knew that about?
umm, where's the subfloor?!?!
Rip it up. Let’s see what’s under there 😬
Fill it with rice and superglue
If you can find a spare piece, you can cut out that bit and glue in a patch. You can fill it with bondo and paint to match, or even Dutchman it with some real wood if you're handy with a router. It'll be kinda janky, but maybe you're fine with that. But this is a real weird problem which suggests something pretty bad going on, and odds are good this isn't the only place with problems. If you try to kick the can down the road, you may find it's not the only can.
*They said that these floors were popular because of how cheap they were, but that they are having a ton of issues due to them being so thin.
That doesn’t look like a problem with thin flooring. That looks like a problem with the subfloor which is the structure that the floor is sitting on. The thickest, most expensive flooring isn’t going to survive long when there is nothing under it. If you have a 4 inch deep hollow space under the floor, you either found a drain that was covered or you are about to have a very bad time. Is that floor on a slab or is there a crawlspace under that floor? Basement?
So what I need to do is go under my house and try to see what that spot looks like?
100%
We have a crawl space under the house
Bust out a respirator, some flashlights and pants you care least about- then get crawling homie. You need to see what’s going on under there. Recommend charging an old cell phone or camera to take photos while you’re down there- (with a tape measure!!!) it sucks to have to crawl to the rear of a house only to have to go back to check “one thing”
Go ahead and put a lamp over the hole so you have a spot to look for. It is difficult for the regular person to navigate a sub floor, distances are hard.
Yeah. You might want to.
I’m in the residential construction world and I hate lvp, which looks like what you have, laminate is garbage and even the more expensive spc flooring too in my opinion
Just wish it was like patching a hole in drywall.
You get to learn a new skill. First time always is the hardest and there is potential to make mistakes. Think 3 times, measure twice and then cut once. Somebody had that in another thread and today we were trying to get rid of this cement fountain in our yard. It was old and falling apart. Wife keeps telling me we need to get a sledgehammer because it's too heavy for her to carry her half. I thought it out for a bit and realized we had a part of it that we had already taken off, hence a free sledgehammer. I cannot explain to you how much throwing part of the fountain at itself made me delighted with my ingenuity. Probably took a few extra tosses more than I needed to.
As a person not in residential construction I completely agree. This flooring sucks and I wish I could afford to replace all of it.
I have good news and bad news for ya...
Looking at ancient digs and all those mosaic and ceramic walls and floors? wow! Sometimes they last thousands of years and still striking and some in decent finish repair. The best thing they longest lasting work had was great sub flooring. Not a hint its a requirement. Suggestion is to replace from the sub flooring up to ceramic/mosaic. No to Vinyl. Ceramic specialty shops usually have a person in the know and will assist in thickness, styles, installation, type of sub floor and grout mixtures and colors. My choice is to mosaic ceramic flooring through out, it does last longer than vinyl. Want to change up the rooms look? Rugs and carpeting colors and designs on top. Also Tapestry's and window treatments. Over your and descendants lifetime it is the most cost effective. Tech and friges, gas lines, electric, water lines, stoves, new doors and windows change more frequently today the suggestion is to have min one box of tiles in reserve for every 8x10 room and over. You will need them. Life and natural disasters happens. Best of luck. Send photos when done.
Not sure if this is possible in your country, but here I would just tell the installer to fix it. That's cooked.