Are clic and lock planks supposed to be glued together? How did the flooring people do the upstairs floor?

Acclimation and following proceedure. The professionals knew what they were doing. The GC's laborers on the other hand take the direction from the GC, and everyone involved in the downstairs installation, were clueless about the needs of cork and radient heated floors.

Sounds like the in floor heating downstairs was not turned on until after the install, causing gapping, as it shrank the cork planks.

hard to tell what the problem is.

If they glued a product that was only designed to be clicked together, the moisture from the glued could have swollen the planks, then shrunk after the moisture evaporated.

another possibility is that the radiant heat ran too hot and shrank the wood, in which case humidity would need to be added to close up the gaps. Do you have a climate control system that regulates hmidity ?

another consideration is product acclimation. Was the product acclimated to THE ROOM heated condition prior to install until the product achieved humidity/moisture equalibrium with the area or was it sotred elsewhere then move in on install day ?

was the heat running before and after the instalaltion?

was there a change in humidity since the install ?

does the manufacturer of the plank even recommend radiant heat floor ?

if so, is the substrate temerature within the flooring manufacturers specified limits ?

were moisture/humidity test performed on the sunstrate and the flooring product prior to install to ensure both were withing limits ?

My GC's guys came today to begin repairs on the flooring with the gaps and cracks. I have a couple of comments and questions if anyone would care to comment. After pulling out a couple of the planks it is pretty obvious that the GC's installers glued some of the planks to the concrete floor, not just to other planks. I don't think all the planks were glued down, just some critical or troublesome ones. Of course this means the floor doesn't float! Secondly in order to repair some of the gaps they have routed out the original exposed top layer of cork and glued down onto the HDF layer a new top layer of cork. This looks fine cosmetically.
My questions:
1. if the floor has been glued down to the concrete in some places what keeps us from getting new cracks over the next several years? We do have radiant floor heat.
2. will the quick fix of gluing some top layer of cork down be a long term solution. Will the glue be affected by the floor heat?

Finally I can't begin to manage how angry I am over this. We have about 3500 square feet of cork. The 900 upstairs looks great the majority downstairs in the public spaces is awful, new gaps appearing constantly. What sort of recourse do I have? The GC has been claiming all along that the problem is from the floor heat and this is just the way it is with cork, gaps happen. In all my research no one ever complained of this problem. The cork was properly acclimated, on the job site for weeks before, and stored less than a mile away for months. We have yet to pay the final bill pending all the punch list items. Advice?

Like I said before, the GC is not a flooring professional. He doesn't have a clue, and is now trying to back track and still trying to save a buck. Had he let the professional flooring guys handle it, instead of thinking he could do it cheaper(it is now going to cost him triple) You wouldn't be where you are now.

Personally, it would all come out, and the professional flooring guys would be installing new planks, where the damaged planks are.

They are giving you a hacked up piece of crap floor.

I would be pissed too.

If it were me, I would refuse any payments, kick them all out, hire an inspector to submit a report, then hire someone else to do it right, then when they sue me in court for non-payment (becasue I wouldnt pay them a dime without a court order and exhausted appeals), I would file a countersuit with the instpectors report as evidence ... but thats just me.

as to your questions ....

1. nothing is to prevent further problems ... you are going to have problems for the life of that floor ... they are hpoping to fix (improperly just as with the install) it just enough to last the installation guarantee period, then they can claim the isntallation guarantee has expired.

2. I do not believe that to be a long term solution. It is unknown how the heat will affect the adhesive because we have no idea what adhesive is being used.

the moment they anchored any part of a floating flooring system voided the warrenty and placed the entire installation in jeopardy.

Flooring Inspectors

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Thanks for the input. It always helps to have validation. This is not the first problem we have had with our contractor. Unfortunately we are already holding back on payment to get many other issues resolved, this is just one item on the laundry list.