Anyone ever have a problem with vinyl floors after wood stove was installed?

[rosencra38]

Ok, so I had my Quadrafire installed back in 2008 and absolutely love it. In the spring of 2009 I purchased and installed laminate rolled flooring in my kitchen, dining room, entry way and spare bathroom (around 500 sq ft). Upon purchasing the flooring from Lowes I was told by their flooring "specialists" that since this was a "floating" floor material that I had the option of either not gluing the floor at all or I could just glue around the perimeter and seams. Since I have 3 little kids I was afraid that I'd come out from the bathroom once and find my floor peeled up by the kids so I chose to glue around the perimeter and seams. Starting in the fall of 09 and all through the winter my floor started to rise up and have rolls/ripples in it. After some extensive research I found that the information I was given from Lowes was incorrect. The installation guide from Armstrong says to either not glue at all or glue the entire floor. I showed this information to Lowes and they admitted their mistake and gave me new flooring and a big tub of glue for free (lucky me...). This past spring I tore up the flooring from the previous year and installed the new floor gluing the entire floor using the exact specifications of the Armstrong installation guide. Again this fall I slowly started to notice rolls/ripples (picture waves on a lake I guess) in the floor. Now that we are full bore into the winter my entire floor looks like crap. The only thing I can figure is that the glue dried out once I started the stove or the floor got too dry and is having issues. I do have a full house humidifier running in the kitchen almost 24 hours a day. It sickens me to see my home look like this and I wish there was an easy simple solution. Unfortunately I know that my only option at this point is to spend some more money and install wood plank flooring in its place (the current floor is a wood like finish). So... I'm wondering if anybody has heard of or encountered the same issue in their homes and if they were able to do anything to make it look better.

 

[Willman]

Did you acclimate the flooring to house before install? Did you leave enough room around perimeter for expansion? Wood moves with the seasons. The trick is to leave room for it to move to. The glue down might be making things worse. I have a floor down that is full float. Not certain about anybody easily tearing it apart. Use baseboard and shoe moldings to prevent access to edges and hide the expansion joint.
Will

 

[rosencra38]

Did you acclimate the flooring to house before install? Did you leave enough room around perimeter for expansion? Wood moves with the seasons. The trick is to leave room for it to move to. The glue down might be making things worse. I have a floor down that is full float. Not certain about anybody easily tearing it apart. Use baseboard and shoe moldings to prevent access to edges and hide the expansion joint.
Will

I don't have wood flooring now, it's just a rolled laminate/vinyl or is it called linoleum??? Either way it came on a 12' wide roll and I bought 55 linear feet of it. I have about a quarter inch of room all the way around with baseboards installed above that. The waves/ripples/rolls in the floor are right in the middle of the floor itself not by the walls.

 

[Renovation]

they admitted their mistake and gave me new flooring and a big tub of glue for free (lucky me...).

:lol:

This past spring I tore up the flooring from the previous year and installed the new floor gluing the entire floor using the exact specifications of the Armstrong installation guide. Again this fall I slowly started to notice rolls/ripples (picture waves on a lake I guess) in the floor. Now that we are full bore into the winter my entire floor looks like crap.

As a fellow West-Michigander, I understand your situation, and feel your pain. We have a climate that switches from humid in the summer (air up from the gulf) to arid in the winter (air down from Canada). Combine that with the drying effects of winter heat, and you have a house that is wet in summer, dry in winter. This means that wood will tend to expand during the summer, and shrink in winter, which needs to be taken into account.

For example, my contractor mentor told me to finish my tongue-and-groove wall covering before I install it, or else when it shrinks later it will show unfinished stripes.

Anyway, the upshot is, your wood floor dried out in the winter, shrank, and your vinyl rippled when it couldn't shrink or float. I doubt your stove made much difference, though it might have worsened it, especially if you don't have an outside air supply, so your stove is pulling in dry outside air. It might smooth out in Spring as your floor expands, leaving you with a rippled floor half the year.

My advice is, unfortunately, to rip your vinyl up once again, and install it floating, or some other floating treatment, or one that is solid enough not to ripple.

I suppose you could also try to get humidity to that floor, but that might be hard.

Sorry for your problem and hope this helps.

PS Love your avatar.

 

[Rudyjr]

Was an underlayment installed before the flooring went down? If it is installed over an approved underlayment you should not see any movement in it during changes in humidity.

 

[CTburning]

I want to rip out my carpets upstairs and install wood floors. My stove is in the basement and even with a humidifier, the house gets dry. I have really humid summers living on a lake and my doors start to fit tight. After a couple of weeks in the fall they close right again. I know there is a good chance that wood floors will have trouble in my house. I'm looking into engineereed wood floors. They are wood on top but with several layers that are more impervious to moisture or at least movement. They also make laminate flooring with the click type installation. It is fully floating and can usually be installed in a day. $2-3 a sq ft it should run you.

 

[jimbom]

In addition to humidity, room temperature may make a difference. I have sheet vinyl glued directly to a heated concrete floor. There are three or four places in the house where a little ripple appears in the floor each winter. I think the vinyl thermal coefficient of expansion is higher than the concrete thermal coefficient of expansion. Therefore, the vinyl layer gets slightly longer than the concrete layer. What has always intrigued me is why it only appears at specific places. The floor has been in place for 20 years without developing cracks or seams. So we just live with it during heat season. My wife is accommodating since the warm floor is her favorite thing about the house.

 

[Lighting Up]

Did you acclimate the flooring to house before install? Did you leave enough room around perimeter for expansion? Wood moves with the seasons. The trick is to leave room for it to move to. The glue down might be making things worse. I have a floor down that is full float. Not certain about anybody easily tearing it apart. Use baseboard and shoe moldings to prevent access to edges and hide the expansion joint.
Will

I don't have wood flooring now, it's just a rolled laminate/vinyl or is it called linoleum??? Either way it came on a 12' wide roll and I bought 55 linear feet of it. I have about a quarter inch of room all the way around with baseboards installed above that. The waves/ripples/rolls in the floor are right in the middle of the floor itself not by the walls.

The ripples are the glue if you didn't roll it. Two things, one no matter what product it is it needs to be acclimate to the room before any gluing and it sounds like you use to much glue. Did you use the proper trowel and did you use a roller to roll it for that linoleum? You don't need much glue at all. If you first glued the ends the first time I 'm not sure how you could of rolled it properly the second time. No fix that I know of but live with the rolls or rip it out.
md

 

[rosencra38]

Did you acclimate the flooring to house before install? Did you leave enough room around perimeter for expansion? Wood moves with the seasons. The trick is to leave room for it to move to. The glue down might be making things worse. I have a floor down that is full float. Not certain about anybody easily tearing it apart. Use baseboard and shoe moldings to prevent access to edges and hide the expansion joint.
Will

I don't have wood flooring now, it's just a rolled laminate/vinyl or is it called linoleum??? Either way it came on a 12' wide roll and I bought 55 linear feet of it. I have about a quarter inch of room all the way around with baseboards installed above that. The waves/ripples/rolls in the floor are right in the middle of the floor itself not by the walls.

The ripples are the glue if you didn't roll it. Two things, one no matter what product it is it needs to be acclimate to the room before any gluing and it sounds like you use to much glue. Did you use the proper trowel and did you use a roller to roll it for that linoleum? You don't need much glue at all. If you first glued the ends the first time I 'm not sure how you could of rolled it properly the second time. No fix that I know of but live with the rolls or rip it out.
md

The ripples are not the glue, they aren't that small. You can tell that there is air under the flooring, you can push it back down but it doesn't stick. How exactly would I have acclimated it to the room? I installed it late April and did not use the wood stove until October... I did use the proper trowel and made sure not to have too much glue, I still have just over half the tub of glue left after installing over 500 sq ft of flooring. I also rented a 100lb roller to roll over the floor afterwards. I installed it exactly to the specs from Armstrong this time with totally NEW flooring.

 

[Hanko]

Yes I have had problems with my vinyl floor after my wood stove was installed. They need to be vacuumed much more often. I hate it when that happens

 

[Lighting Up]

Did you acclimate the flooring to house before install? Did you leave enough room around perimeter for expansion? Wood moves with the seasons. The trick is to leave room for it to move to. The glue down might be making things worse. I have a floor down that is full float. Not certain about anybody easily tearing it apart. Use baseboard and shoe moldings to prevent access to edges and hide the expansion joint.
Will

I don't have wood flooring now, it's just a rolled laminate/vinyl or is it called linoleum??? Either way it came on a 12' wide roll and I bought 55 linear feet of it. I have about a quarter inch of room all the way around with baseboards installed above that. The waves/ripples/rolls in the floor are right in the middle of the floor itself not by the walls.

The ripples are the glue if you didn't roll it. Two things, one no matter what product it is it needs to be acclimate to the room before any gluing and it sounds like you use to much glue. Did you use the proper trowel and did you use a roller to roll it for that linoleum? You don't need much glue at all. If you first glued the ends the first time I 'm not sure how you could of rolled it properly the second time. No fix that I know of but live with the rolls or rip it out.
md

The ripples are not the glue, they aren't that small. You can tell that there is air under the flooring, you can push it back down but it doesn't stick. How exactly would I have acclimated it to the room? I installed it late April and did not use the wood stove until October... I did use the proper trowel and made sure not to have too much glue, I still have just over half the tub of glue left after installing over 500 sq ft of flooring. I also rented a 100lb roller to roll over the floor afterwards. I installed it exactly to the specs from Armstrong this time with totally NEW flooring.

Then they are air pockets (without pictures) hard to tell. Plus I'm assuming you used new underlamete not installing over a old floor.
When installing Lino you start from the middle and work out to the walls rolling the glue to the walls taking any air out. Air is the enemy when installing Lino. You said you glued the edges when you first installed it so when you do that you made a air pocket because the air had no where to go.

Acclimating the lino is just making sure it is room temp before installing it because they store it in a cold warehouse and the material is cold and not pliable .

There could be a fix if it is a small area say 12 inch by 12 inch and not in the main traffic pattern of your floor. You must be very very very good at it or you can tell it was repaired. You can cut it out use some left over material by cutting both together MATCHING THE PATTERN. Then glue the new piece and buy seam sealer for lino and seal the four seams. Or call a Lino installer and they can do it for a small fee.
md

 

[rosencra38]

Ok, gotcha on the acclimating deal. The flooring was sitting at room temp for a month before installing it (had to find the time) so I doubt that is the issue. I installed the floor on the same wood subfloor material that has been here all along. I was told that this was plenty adequate. I realize what you are saying about having air pockets under it but this is a LOT of air. I'm talking a bunch of pockets a couple inches wide by 3 to 4 feet in length at some places and quite a few of them. I did just as you said as well by rolling from the middle out, there was no air under it until October so I'm just stumped.

 

[Lighting Up]

Ok, gotcha on the acclimating deal. The flooring was sitting at room temp for a month before installing it (had to find the time) so I doubt that is the issue. I installed the floor on the same wood subfloor material that has been here all along. I was told that this was plenty adequate. I realize what you are saying about having air pockets under it but this is a LOT of air. I'm talking a bunch of pockets a couple inches wide by 3 to 4 feet in length at some places and quite a few of them. I did just as you said as well by rolling from the middle out, there was no air under it until October so I'm just stumped.

Then the glue did not hold, could it have been dirt, dust or oil there? If you did it right with a thin layer of glue something happened to that area where you can push it down and it's not sticking. Could the Lino be coming apart say de- laminating from the top pattern? Is there a warranty left on it?...I've seen that before.

One other thing is the under lament could be coming apart under that area, anything underneath the floor water pipes that could cause moisture? If no your only way if it not a small spot would be to rip it out to see what happen.
md

 

[ansehnlich1]

I installed vinyl flooring for years. Sounds like the underlayment may be lifting. If you did not nail/screw it properly it can lift, the nails can back right out and it'll warp in waves. It may not be the vinyl ya see.

If it is the vinyl that's lifting, then you didn't glue properly for some reason.

What say you get up some pics and post em on here?

Ain't no way woodstove heat will damage a properly installed vinyl floor.