Gaps between flexing floorboard and wall trim

[theprizelamb]

Hello,

We have had laminate floorboards installed. The flat is in an old building so the floors are not even which means the floor trim is not flush with the floor. In addition, in certain areas the floorboards move down to leave a gap of up to 0.5mm when weight in applied.

We need to seal the gaps, as the building has had problems with cockroaches, so need to seal off gaps where we can.

To fill the gaps, pest control have applied silicon sealant but this is quite messy and is a trap for dust - so just looks terrible, especially when it starts to flake.

I'd appreciate any alternative suggestions. I am going to experiment with foam tape . Hopefully this would fit neatly under the gaps and and expand when weight is applied to the boards when weight is applied. Any views on this or any other alternatives would be greatly received.

Thanks!

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Your link isn't working. But are you talking about something like Compriband? This isvl used to seal perimeter gaps, for example between scribed laminate flooring and exposed natural brick or rough cast stonework walls, and is a very good product. But those sorts of products require a 3 ir 4mm gap to start with

As t silicone sealant, it shouldn't look messy - that is just poor installation - and flaky? Are you sure it is silicone, because I don't think I've ever seen good quality silicone do that

Also TBH floorboards flex naturally by a small amount, but laminate flooring should be laid onto some form of underlay to take out unevenness. If that wasn't installed the gfloor might well creak in future

 

[theprizelamb]

Your link isn't working. But are you talking about something like Compriband? This isvl used to seal perimeter gaps, for example between scribed laminate flooring and exposed natural brick or rough cast stonework walls, and is a very good product. But those sorts of products require a 3 ir 4mm gap to start with

As t silicone sealant, it shouldn't look messy - that is just poor installation - and flaky? Are you sure it is silicone, because I don't think I've ever seen good quality silicone do that

Also TBH floorboards flex naturally by a small amount, but laminate flooring should be laid onto some form of underlay to take out unevenness. If that wasn't installed the gfloor might well creak in future

Thanks for your reply

Apologies, the link for the tape I've ordered is here. My plan was to stuff it between the trim and the floorboard where the gaps are more than a couple of millimetres.

Re. the sealant. The pest control used a clear silicon. With cleaning and general movement, this has started to lift. And I found that it caught a lot of dust so became really unsightly. In an effort to do something more cleanly, I used this Soudal decorator's caulk (I appreciate this is not silicoln). I preferred this as it gave a smooth hard finish that didn't catch dust, and as it was white it blended in with the floor trim. It stated as being flexible so I thought it would do the job. But after a while it has proved brittle and cracked with the movement of the floorboards. Picture attached.

Would you be able to recommend a good silicon that might work for my purpose? Could I apply the silicon over the caulk or would I need to remove first?

I'll try and lift the floorboards to see what is underneath. It may be that I can place some additional support beneath the boards that are flexing too much?

Thanks again.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

I'll try and lift the floorboards to see what is underneath. It may be that I can place some additional support beneath the boards that are flexing too much?

I find myself a bit nonplussed about your flooring. Before laying and sort of finished flooring it is good practice (i.e. normal practice) to fix down all loose boards and then carry out any necessary repairs to the floor to deal with uneveness, such as you might get if a sparkie (electrician) or plumber (the "usual suspects" as we joiners say) has lifted a board and not put it back properly. Any unevenness remaining, up to 3 or 4mm, can generally be taken out by laying an appropriate laminate underlay. That means your floor boards shouldn't be moving and the sunb-floor beneath the laminate should have been reasonably flat before the laminate was laid. In point of fact the floor boards shouldn't be moving at all...

To get to the floor boards you will have to lift the laminate flooring, then the underlay and rhe laminate will need relaying afterwards

Floor boards which aren't fully fixed down need to be nailed or screwed down onto the joistsembut you must take care not to hit any pipes or wires beneath them

As far as the silicone is concerned, Soudal is a good brand, but silicone joints can only handle so much movement before they fail. Additionally, silicone needs time to cure (12 hours or more, ideally 24 hours after application) before you do anything which generates dust - and it should be applied to a clean, dust-free joint area. Any money neither of those requirements were observed

Adding decorator caulk on top doesn't help. The caulk is not compatible with silicone and isn't as flexible, so with excessive movement it will just crack.

Sound like you need to lift the laminate and sort the floor out (i.e fix down where it isn't fixed), levelling any dips. If the floor is really uneven it may even need to be ply covered. Once the laminate has been relaid, the joints at the skirting can be re-siliconed, however all traces of old silicone and caulk must be thoroughly expunged.

If the gap between floor and skirting is more than 3 or 4mm I'd recommend packing it with an appropriate diameter round cellular foam packing strip, such as Fossa Caulk Saver before applying the silicone. The silicone joints can be smoothed out using a "silicone finger" or sealant smoothing set (plenty of vids showing how to apply silicone on YouTube). The reason for using the caulk saver is that sealants and caulks won't normally support themselves when you exceed 5 or 6mm in width - a cord such as the Fossa provides something to both support the sealant and for it to adhere to

An alternative to silicone is to fix a thin timber beading (e.g. 18 x 6mm radius edge flat) to the bottom of the skirting with panel pins all round the room. Thin timber such as this is flexible enough to be bent down to fill the gaps in hollows before it is pinnef