pergo question

[mark]

I am putting pergo click together flooring in the upstairs of my house. The plywood subfloor was pretty uneven in spots, mostly along the seams. Sometimes one sheet was a bit higher than the next. I used a latex leveling compound and got it as straight as I could. I've done about half the floor so far. It's about 500 square feet. I noticed in one place I have a "soft spot" about 6 inches round, where apparently I didn't do such a good job. It deflects a bit when you push on it. I'm just worried that over time, the tab will break off of one side, or a gap will form. There's not a lot of traffic there. I was wondering -- I have an evil plan to fix it, unless someone can tell me a better way. I was going to drill a tiny hole in the darkest grain area right above the soft spot, and then inject something-I-know-not-what into that hole with a glue syringe. My initial thought was an epoxy resin (I'm a boat builder, so have the stuff laying about.) I don't *think* it would swell up, but it WOULD result in at least one or two boards being glued in place, thus negating the entire floating thing. What do you think? Thanks for any opinions....

[Roger]

This is a guess, but injecting "whatever" might raise the floor rather than level the soft spot, a bad outcome. Why not remove the leveling material from that spot, and replace it with something that has less "give" than the latex compound you are using. Rock Hard Water putty comes to mind, or a tougher filler. There may also be a plywood defect there, such as an unfilled knothole on the backside of the ply.

[mark]

The problem is, it's about 6 courses back, and I would have to dismantle half the floor to get to it. I don't think the problem is that the portland and latex mix is too soft, I just think there was a slight dip in the plywood that I didn't notice, so I have an airgap under this one section. I don't think there's a way to just remove a single row of pergo once it's locked in....

something-I-know-not-what

[Roger]

As I said, my advice was a guess, as I have never installed pergo - just pre-leveled plywood subfloor to accept vinyl tile. Got quite a bit of print-thru of the plywood edges, unfortunately. Since the gap is in a low traffic area, you might just live with it, or contact an online Pergo advice site. I suspect there is an "ask an expert" area.

[Nick]

Not that you want to hear this but I'd take the Pergo up and fix the sub floor properly. Might want to mark up the boards as they come up to make replacing them easier but either way it shouldn't take too long and will be worth it in the end.

Nick..

[MLD]

Another alternative before tearing up the floor--drill a hole large enough to fit the nozzles that typically go with spray cans. get a can of foam and spray that into the hole. It will expand and fill every void that's under the floor. It works wonders and when cured, the floor will be as solid as a rock. MLD

[m Ransley]

The floor floats for a reason, expansion - contraction with humidity. Take it up, level the wood properly and do it by the book.

You build boats? Not my boat.

[MLD]

[mark]

exactly. I 'm aware of the expansion properties, and the floating properties. I guess I was just looking to avoid digging up the entire thing. The issue is that I'm not sure how to "take it up." each 'board' locks in on two sides, and it's under a baseboard radiator on one side. I have a feeling "take it up" equates to "destroy about $400 bucks worth of pergo."

As for the boat/canoe, it's just a *little* different than a fake wood floor...boats are pretty much the opposite of flat and level. I should have said, "I've built boats" -- I don't do them professionally or anything.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

You have three options:

1 Take it up and potentially damage the floor. 2 Drill a hold and inject epoxy. It would stabilize and adhere it in place. 3 Do nothing.

If you do nothing, best case is you never have a problem. Worst case you are back to option one above.

If the bow is very slight, I'd go with number 3. Next is #2. I'd not do #1 unless the others did not work.

[mark]

Thanks. I'm thinking I'm going to do nothing and see what happens. It just bugs me that I didn't see it as it was going in.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

I know. I have a spot like that in my floor. It has been a 18 months, but not a problem.

[m Ransley]

Pergo is made to be repairable if a piece is damaged, call Pergo . At least that is my opinion it can be by cutting out a center board and snapping a new one in place, just a thought.

[mark]

It's tongue and groove on 4 sides. you could probably manage to cut one out, but there's no way you could snap a new one in. I'd love to hear how someone actually did that. Seems impossible to me....the guy at Lowes (yeah, I know...but he actually seemed like he knew what he was talking about) said yeah, it's repairable, but you basically have to disassemble from the wall out.

[mark]

It looks pretty good, but in retrospect, if it weren't for my wife's allergies, I probably would have saved for another year and done real hardwood. The subfloor was impossibly unlevel, and I was cursing the contractor who just slapped carpet over it and hoped nobody would notice. I went through about 5 25lb bags of leveling compound, and in some places, there were actual humps that I would have had to grind down to floor level if I were to truly level this thing. I have a few "bad" spots that crackle a bit when you walk over them. They don't flex much, just a tiny bit, but apparently enough to make a noise. In looking at the design, I notice that even though there is a built in "pad" attached to each floor piece, it doesn't go edge to edge. Wouldn't that leave an unsupported line on every seam? I'm not happy I went this way, and wouldn't do it again unless the floor was dead straight. What seemed like it would be a 2 day job took two weeks. We'll see how long it lasts.