Son’s Kitchen #5 Flooring

C

Calculus

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The solid kitchen floor has been covered with tongue and groove boards, but these have not been abutted up to the units, leaving large gaps with plastic underlay sticking out. My son’s idea is to take up the boards and replace with vinyl or similar. There is a problem with this you can’t see on the picture. The floor is so uneven that you can feel yourself walking downhill as you walk across them towards the back yard. I fear the boards are hiding a multitude of sins and the base beneath them might not be suitable for any other kind of flooring. So what to do? The builder who did this has left two spare packs of these boards so is it feasible to carefully cut piece ot to fill the gaps (cutting off the tongues)? Or maybe some other cosmetic solution?

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foxhole, it does indeed look a mess, but replace it with what? See post for pitfalls of taking it up.
 
foxhole said:
You said you don’t know what’s underneath ?
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I can see from the exposed edges it's a black hard floor, and it's easy to discern from the seasickness you get when you walk front to back that it has not been laid down properly. The tongue and groove boards are about 10mm thick and I fear they are hiding an unevenness too severe for vinyl flooring of any kind. My inclination is to leave these boards in place but do something cosmetic about the dreadful edges. Attempting to fill those gaps with accurately cut out bits of board does not sound very easy, so maybe the solution is some kind of horizontal skirting (though not sure that would be much easier).
 
The existing boards don’t look like they were put down correctly , very little or no stagger and lose joints.?
 
foxhole said:
The existing boards don’t look like they were put down correctly , very little or no stagger and lose joints.?
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The builder who sold the house did a lot of renovation and it was done in a hurry. Earlier in the year the kitchen was flooded when some of his pipework burst. I think you are right about the insufficient stagger and boards not abutting to each other properly. But that's liveable with if something can be done about the horrible perimeter gaps.
 
That's a complete mess and totally unsuitable for a kitchen - those planks of wood will soon get water under and go mouldy. It needs pulling up and the floor investigating - repairing if necessary and levelling before installing a suitable floor covering.
 
cdbe said:
That's a complete mess and totally unsuitable for a kitchen - those planks of wood will soon get water under and go mouldy. It needs pulling up and the floor investigating - repairing if necessary and levelling before installing a suitable floor covering.
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Levelling the floor is not so easy. I haven't measured the slope but it is more than tangible just walking across it. It isn't just a matter of filling in undulations. There is probably a drop of a few inches front to back. It is beyond repair. Your phrase 'a complete mess' is accurate.
 
Off the shelf leveling compound can cope with up to 50mm in one layer - it's not an unusual variance in an older property.
 
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