Bowing in engineered flooring

MathsManiac

I'm looking for an opinion from anyone with experience in laying engineered flooring.

I just took delivery a few days ago. I've openned the packs in order to leave the boards aclimatise in the room. I noticed as soon as I openned them that there is a consistent bowing in all of the boards in all packs (concave up). It's not extreme, but it's there nonetheless. Is this normal enough or a cause for concern?

They're single-plank mixed lengths, and I'll be floating them on a 3mm foam underlay on a concrete floor.

mad m

Well any defects noticed before laying them is much better than noticeing it when its down. I would ring the place where you bought them and ask them to send a rep out to inspect them....

Martron

any bowing in those types of floors will make it a pure nightmare to lay. as it will be quite hard to line up the grooves.

i would contact where you got them and see what they will do. they might have beens stored incorrectly in the shop with weight onj them .

CJhaughey

That sounds like cupping as opposed to bowing, cupping is where the board will curl across the face of the timber, bowing is where the timber will warp along the whole length.
cupping will go away in time provided the surface it is laid on has a DPM and foam.
It is common enough IME.

slimjimmc

Curious to know why you opened the packs, were you advised to do so? The reason I ask is that the instructions with any engineered flooring I ever bought and the guys in any place I ever bought it from all said the same thing... don't open the packs to aclimatise, store them in the room unopened and only open when about to lay them.

gsxr1

slimjimmc wrote: »

Curious to know why you opened the packs, were you advised to do so? The reason I ask is that the instructions with any engineered flooring I ever bought and the guys in any place I ever bought it from all said the same thing... don't open the packs to aclimatise, store them in the room unopened and only open when about to lay them.

or just open the ends. still wrapped.

MathsManiac

Thanks for comments thus far.

I had conflicting advice as to whether they should be left open to aclimatise. Anyway, they're in the room they are going to be laid in, so one would imagine that at least it shouldn't do any harm. I presume the real problem would be with openning them and leaving them out in the garage. If they're likely to warp while sitting in their destination room, then surely the matter of whether I laid them on Tuesday or Saturday would be a side issue!

Anyway, the point is, they were like this when I openned the packs, irrespective of whether I was ready to lay them immediately.

They were not in stock at my local builders suppliers, so they were ordered from the distributer and delivered to me within a day or two of them getting them. The packs appeared to me to be properly sealed so I can't imagine that there was a dodgy storage issue along the way.

There is no cupping that I can detect. It's bowing only. The boards are of mixed lengths. The longest are about 1200 mm. Laying a straight edge along the board shows a gap of about 4mm in the middle. Moderate pressure by hand flattens it, so i don't think I'll have trouble laying them.

I do intend to go back to where I bought them to see what they say, but I'm still interested in comments from other experienced people.

slimjimmc

Just finishing laying a floor myself, some long boards had bowed a lot more than 4mm and I had no problems laying them whatsoever. I could easily line up the tongue with the groove, no bother. Only the long boards were bowed, the shorter ones stayed flat so I didn't even consider contacting the shop about it. I wouldn't worry about it, sounds like they're fine.

Didn't have any issues with a few very mildly bowed boards, and anyway once it's glued together it is effectively one huge sheet. Hard to see how - in normal use - they'd ever warp after that. (Also, IMO, engineered is a far better product than full timber floor)

MathsManiac

The supplier said it would be fine when I brought a piece back to check.

I put the floor down yesterday and it seems grand (so far!).

Thanks for all the comments.