Inconsistent expansion gap for laminate flooring

uesen

New Member
Hello everyone,
I've just had laminate flooring fitted by a joiner. After he finished last night I noticed that around sections of the wall and the doorways, the expansion gap was not consistent. He also screwed the door threshold right through the laminate.

I have attached some photos to demonstrate the gap left by the joiner. The small piece of foam underlayment is 5mm for reference.

The laminate is from wickes and 14mm thick. The box of the laminate suggests 12mm gap around. The room is roughly 32m2 and the subfloor is a suspended T&G chipboard. This guy wasn't cheap at £600 for fixing squeaks and fitting laminate so I am wondering if this is ok.

My only worry is that the boards will buckle as the expansion gap is half of the recommended - some boards are right against the tiles in other rooms/wall. I will be painting the skirting boards and walls so it is quite a hassle to redo all of this if the laminate buckles in 6 months.

Thanks


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Short answer is just ask him to cut a slightly bigger expansion gap to keep you happy, he shouldn't object too much as he should have done it first time around, though just for reference the laminate would expand very minimally as it's a man made board, a couple of mm gap would be ok to leave but as skirting covers it most of the time it's easier to leave a bigger gap. Screwing down through the laminate isn't advised though, should have siliconed the strip down.
 
+1. Have fitted many laminate floors, and yes you do need an expansion gap, but the manufacturers 10-12mm is very generous for worst case. As long as there is a gap, and it isn't fitted hard tight I'm sure it will be fine. It really doesn't move about very much.
 
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