[gwrightson]

Hope one of you hard floor experts can help,  

I have a customer who has a club ,he has an area of flooring where some of the pieces have become loose and when walked on make a clicking sound , if that makes sense!!! The loose pieses are completly random and not defined to any one area.
The question i have , is there any sort of remedy/solution to solve this with out taking  the flloring up?
I likely to be far from the answer but was thinking perhaps some thing that could be applied and flowed into the gaps and set !!
any suggestions apprietiated .
geoff

[Jamie Pearson]

Hi Geoff,

This will need each loose block lifting one at a time, the back of them scraped, the same with the floor underneath and then glued back into place.
Then repeat the process with the next block, then the next etc etc.
Are any of the blocks cupped or swollen looking? Often they fail like this because of water ingress.

As for filling the gaps this is something normally done as part of a sanding and re-finishing.
The filler is mixed with clean sawdust then trowelled in, fine sanded to remove the excess before lacquering or waxing/oiling.

[gwrightson]

Thanks for the reply,

 just to clarify some thing ,  so are saying every tile has to be lifted  or can just the loose be prized up and  be lifted ?

 i am assuming as they will be tounge and grooved taking individual tiles up may well be a problem, 
 or is this not as difficult as i am guessing ?
Geoff

[Jamie Pearson]

they are normally tongue and groove but not always. just do them one at a time and yes only the loose ones.

[BDCS]

Mine all have dowels in them so they cannot be lifted. There is a product for this exact job but I cannot remember what it was

[Mike Hamer]

Hi, this is a common problem with wood floors stuck with bitumen based adhesives, which has dried out. The problem is when you start to uplift, or to mechanically sand the floor, the problem can become worse.

Modern lacquers are very adhesive and old hands in the wood refinishing business keep their out of date product for such an eventuality. A liberal application of waterbased lacquer can seep between the gaps and re-adhere the blocks. It is not a recognised technique but if the only other option is to lift and relay, it may be worth pursuing.

If you have to lift and relay, re post and i will walk you through the process.

[StoneSealersHQ]

Hi Geoff,

Have you tried lifting one of the loose blocks? It'll either come out easily or not, if the block comes out easily then as Jamie suggested, scrape the backs and re-fix.

If they are loose but wedged in and look as though they'll all come loose, if you try. Then a possible (but not ideal) solution would be to use a quality liquid polyester resin, something like a tenax product, stonetools.co.uk sell plenty of these. Vacuum out the gaps between the blocks, mix the resin as per the instructions and dribble into the gap.

Not perfect, but it does work.

[Kev Martin]

Yes it may work temporarily but doing it properly as Jamie suggests is the better method

Kev Martin
Marblelife Ltd
Tiling Logistics

[Jamie Pearson]

Geoff.

Take Mike up on his offer of advice.
His company Pallman make a range of adhesives which will be suitable for this task.
I personally wouldnt go down the epoxy/polyester resin route as it may prove too hard.
An elastic/flexible polyurethane should be better.
Hopefully Mike will come back to the thread to clarify.

[Mike Hamer]

Hopefully the job is now done and all is well!...the default specification for this work is to lift all the blocks, remove the adhesive residue from the subfloor assuming that it is sound, prime and dpm if necessary, apply a high quality elastic wood floor adhesive, dress blocks or replace and then re stick, sand, fill and coat. So not straight forward.

We had good success though by lifting whole sections of loose blocks, laying them out jigsaw like in the exact pre removal pattern. Then vacuuming out loose material from the hole. The adhesive residue on the back of each block usually corresponds with the hole in the sub floor from which it came....is this making any sense?

Anyway using bitumen based dipping adhesive, which sadly we don't make, each block can be put back into its original position, allowed to set in the adhesive bed, then finished.

[gwrightson]

hi thks for all replys ,
and thanks for your offer Paul, sorry not got back to this thread , I am actualy seeing the guy in question regarding the job tommorow and will put mention the suggested methods, I do feel he wil want to go down the route of a tempory repair as he is retiring in the near future and sellling the club.
could you guys give some indication of what price to charge for either method ?   I do know he does want the floor stripping and resealing once the tiles are fixed.
Paul, i shall np doubt be intouch to take you up on your kind offer.

Geoff

[Mike Hamer]

From the photo they look like very care worn maple blocks, the wood species is probably the reason that the gaps are so wide as it is very susceptible to dimensional change. It will definitely need gap filling, sand and recoat when re-laid, and the cost of that is dependent floor condition, the coating system chosen and on the size and complexity of area (as more edges means dispraportionately more work).

A good standard subfloor system for wood can cost you around £13.00 per square metre but of course until the floor is lifted you wont know what you are up against, so warn your customer that you may need to review the costing. Obviously you need to charge for your time.

Labour is the largest cost and whilst uplift of loose blocks is quick and easy, dressing them and relaying is a dirty and time consuming job. If your client wont chance the temporary options it is better to offer new blocks, or even a new floor covering (sorry) particularly if you are re-establishing the sub floor.

So it is difficult to offer a per square metre price, better to calculate labour hours plus materials plus margin.

Hope that this helps. If not feel free to ring me or e mail.