Mine does the same thing. Since its loose laid I slide the pieces together using a rubber soled shoe. Try it. There is enough wood at the wall to eliminate the gap. I do it while wearing the shoe but you could try sliding it with your hand and see if the gap closes.

I believe the installer knocked off the tabs when putting them together. Very common. Contact the store..something is wrong with the install..guaranteed. We have done this many times and end up replacing. Tabs are most likely knocked off. Not a climate thing.

What are tabs, echoflooring? I have a few pieces of laminate left so I can check them out.
thanks.

What are tabs, echoflooring? I have a few pieces of laminate left so I can check them out.
thanks.

My laminate does this in places. Usually it does this where hubby installed. The places where I installed the laminate are less likely to do this.
I install each peice separately, and hubby links a length of planks end to end, and joins them on the long side all at once.
While hubby's method may be quicker, I think it makes a less secure joint.

In the summertime when the joints are tight, I removed the baseboard along the wall, then filled the expansion gap between the wall and the end of the laminate plank with some tiny bits of scrap wood. When winter came the planks did not have as much room to slide away from each other.
It's not perfect, but it's much better.

I have seen this in other people's homes as well, and theirs were professionally installed.
In my opinion, laminate flooring does not need as much of an expansion gap as the manufacturers say it does.

Sometimes, when an installer forces the ends together, it wrecks the locking system. With these new locking system, you can not force them to snap in place, sometimes you must just be real patient until they snap in. Many installers Rough Tough theirs to go together and end up smashing or knocking of the lock system. Looks good at 1st then constantly separates. Every time we have major areas separating , we go and check and find that our locking system was disturbed by a rough install. Certain laminates get disturbed much easier than other. Berry is brutal, you have to work it with Kid Gloves. I am betting that something happened to the end joint locking system on certain boards. Or it wasn't snapped in place properly since he did not do it piece by piece. You can uninstall and check to see what is going on.. Its a shame to kick it back with your shoe forever. We have a Berry Display floor that we had a gorilla break the tabs when he installed. i constantly am banging it back together..makes me sick to have to do that. Also, I have seen a small hint of glue put on the joint and then kicked back and that ends the problem. You won't find that on an install manual but it works. Good luck.

if you eliminate the expanision gap as you have done it will force the floor to rise up so its not a good idea to eliminate the expansion. its there for a reason.

We've got the same problem. For us, the problem has manifested itself only in large rooms. The small rooms are fine. And I can personally guarantee the tabs did not break during installation. They just are not sufficiently effective for keeping the planks together as they grow/shrink with weather.

We have very heavy furniture (very heavy TV stand, dressers), which are probably preventing the planks from moving together as desired. Even as they were being installed, it was apparent that it did not take much force to pull them apart.

I'd guess that the problem is more severe with cheap laminate flooring that is especially thin. Thicker planks should have a stronger interlock. This is not something we were warned about when we bought it, but it makes sense.

The best you can do now is to knock the pieces together when they come apart and keep the temperature/humidity constant if you can afford it.

Also, tabs can break after installation, if there is too much vertical movement caused by not flattening the floor to manufacturer's requirements.

Echoflooring, why are you trying them that it was a bad install. Because it's a laminate flooring, it expands and contracts due to humidity, or lack there of. If you leave it tight up against sll sides, when it expands, the flooring will buckle, bec as use it will find the easiest place to go. The wall won't ( shouldn't ) move, so it forces it back into the floor, and will find the weakest place to exit. The manufacturer generally calls for 1/4- 1/2" total gap around the perimeter of the flooring.

I have gaps that occurred also. Mine were caused by my foundation settling and humidity changes. The first time i took the moulding off. The next time, I looked online and ordered the "Handle on Demand", it didn't work on my 3" wide floor. It was too wide to stick to the flooring piece. The next time, I ordered a tool online, the "floor gap fixer". It worked on closing up all of my gaps. It was easier than taking the moulding off and hitting from the end. I was worried about damaging the end of the flooring pieces and the moulding when removing and re-installing. It worked great and the floor is gap free again. They now have some videos on youtube.