Caution! When Using Laminated Flooring (especially From A Lousy Contractor!)

[Look Till Blur 0]

I have renovated my home 9 months ago with laminated flooring for all my bedrooms. I hacked the tiles and laid with concrete 1st because the tiles were popping up.

When the renovation was being done, I suspected that the concrete was not completely dry since they laid the lamination tiles on the concrete the next day after the concrete was done. The contractor (AriseCreation) denied that it was still wet and said that it should not cause any problems. A few days after that, the lamination tile edges started to pop upwards. The contractor came and losen the tiles saying that it should be better after a while.

I did not gave much thought to it but after a few weeks, small lumps started to pop up near the toilet area regardless of how careful I was not to wet the floor in any way. I eventually fell sick and the sickness got more and more serious one after another. I did not relate it to the floor then.

9 months later, my aircon leaked and water sipped throught the lamination tiles. I decided to redo the whole floor since there are so many problems from it. To my greatest shock, I saw lumps of mold grown underneath the lamination tiles near the toilet area! The smell was terrible. After removing half some of the tiles from my master bedroom, I realised that the concrete floor was actually still wet!

The worse thing was that the mold grew all the way underneath my built-in wardrobes and I had to tear down all of them as well! Imagine how much $$ I wasted and how much more I need to spent!

So readers out there, please make sure the floor is very dry with your own eyes before the lamination is laid! And invest in a dehumidifier to prevent mold from growing. The best is don't use those lamination tiles with paper core.

Take care.

[zapped 0]

sorry to hear about this.. it must've been so painful seeing the molds and having to redo your wardrobe and room flooring. Did you complain to your contractor?

Edited October 15, 2009 by zapped

[khengjoo 1]

I have renovated my home 9 months ago with laminated flooring for all my bedrooms. I hacked the tiles and laid with concrete 1st because the tiles were popping up.

When the renovation was being done, I suspected that the concrete was not completely dry since they laid the lamination tiles on the concrete the next day after the concrete was done. The contractor (AriseCreation) denied that it was still wet and said that it should not cause any problems. A few days after that, the lamination tile edges started to pop upwards. The contractor came and losen the tiles saying that it should be better after a while.

I did not gave much thought to it but after a few weeks, small lumps started to pop up near the toilet area regardless of how careful I was not to wet the floor in any way. I eventually fell sick and the sickness got more and more serious one after another. I did not relate it to the floor then.

9 months later, my aircon leaked and water sipped throught the lamination tiles. I decided to redo the whole floor since there are so many problems from it. To my greatest shock, I saw lumps of mold grown underneath the lamination tiles near the toilet area! The smell was terrible. After removing half some of the tiles from my master bedroom, I realised that the concrete floor was actually still wet!

The worse thing was that the mold grew all the way underneath my built-in wardrobes and I had to tear down all of them as well! Imagine how much $$ I wasted and how much more I need to spent!

So readers out there, please make sure the floor is very dry with your own eyes before the lamination is laid! And invest in a dehumidifier to prevent mold from growing. The best is don't use those lamination tiles with paper core.

Take care.

Sorry to hear about your unfortunate experience, and it is good for others to take note of that.

I would like to add these 'pre' installation conditions which are very important for laminate floorings:

1) The boards should be allowed to acclimatized to room temperature before installation (12hours). This will minimized expansion/contraction of the boards when they are laid.

2) Floors should be swept clean and dry, as well as reasonably even.

3) As above incident, newly cemented floor must allow for moisture contents to escape before being covered.

[blackcar 0]

Just wanna confirm, u mean yr tiler using wet method to do the Laminate Wood or tiles? For tiling there are 3 techniques, dry, wet and semi dry method. Wet method are usually applies to save time. If for laminabe woods, using wet methods is something new to me. For yr case, if the cement are not dry after so many days or weeks, something is really wrong with the concrete flooring. Could it be a seepage somewhere which resulted this problems. I could be wrong, just wanna share with you the possibility of this problems. So after u had redo everything, yr problem has been resolved??

[kevincheng 0]

Hi Sorry to hear about the problem. Mind telling me which supplier it is? I am in the process of trying to get a laminate floor supplier to do up my house when i start reno next month. I have so far visit Inovar in July and yesterday, but sad to say, my experience is far from satisfactory. Almost got fleeced. Luckily I still keep my quotation from them that i receive in July 09.

I am thinking of getting Pergo, Fllor Options or Supreme. But again, I am also sceptical about how laminate flooring can actually live up to expectations. I am starting to doubt whether pieces of compressed wood fibers can actually hold up as a floor--whcih takes daily grind from the family. Maybe parquet should be better as it is eventually natural stuff, and not some man made stuff. Anyone has any experience with laminate that swells up like bread in water? I have heard, but have not really seen or know any one who experienced that. Scared my hard earned money will be wasted if eventually lamionate floor does not live up to expectation. It has been quite popular in the last 5-8 yeatrs but of late, i think it is dropping? Nevertheless, hope some experienced home owner can give some feedback. Still trying to overcome my anger of dealing with the Inovar people.....hai......wasted a few months of my time waitinf for their warehouse sale which turns out to be a fake.