CJ wrote back to get a bit more help with his problem. The original advice I gave him with his Westhollow Cork Problem involved the two most common problems for his issue: using too much cleaner or having an uneven subfloor. CJ sent a follow up with some pictures in hopes we could get a better idea of what is going on.
Q: Hopefully you can see the gaps in the floor, it is only happening in
these places. The gap is probably about 1/8 to 1/4 inch wide and one of the
boards sticks up slightly higher than the other. Any suggestions would be
appreciated.
Thanks
CJ
A: Unfortunately its hard to tell what precisely is going on. I sat down with Tad Amell, who is our Director of Installation and an old school pro when it comes to flooring. He mentioned one thing that I want you to keep in mind as I discuss what we see “without being there, we can only speculate. The pictures allow for a good view, but the problem itself is hard to determine.”
Here’s what we saw. The first thing we noticed is that in some places the tiles are not staggered as much as they should be. With cork, the rows should be staggered roughly 1/3 the length of the board. What this means is that by being less staggered than the norm, the strength of the locking mechanism is weaker than desired and can make it more likely for a problem to occur, but it will not directly cause the problem you are encountering. One thing Tad mentioned here is that the raising near the corner of the wall in the first photo could be caused if someone was moving quickly across the floor and placed too much pressure (such as a jump) to one part of a nearby tile, which could disengage the lock some and raise it up.
Also, near some of the raised areas, we saw a bit of streaking that looks like it is from cleaning. This could indicate a cleaned spill or too much cleaner like I had mentioned. However, this could also occur from your home’s lighting since this is only a photo. So we can’t instantly say “there’s the problem.”
In the third photo it looks like your floor runs up to some cabinetry or something similar. My question here is if this was placed over the top of the floor or not. If so this can hold a few planks in place while allowing others to move (as they should move some being a floating floor), which can also lead to something similar to what is happening, but again not an instant “there it is.”
Now I do have a tip that might help here. One way to try to get the planks back down would be to clean out the gap (vacuum should work best here, no liquid cleaners) then apply pressure to engage the locks back to normal. If it resists a bit to this, do not push too hard as you do not want to break the locking mechanism.
The final option here would be to have a licensed inspector come out to take a look at the floor and determine the cause of the problem. Being on site would give all the information needed to crack the case here.
