Vinyl Plank and Laminate Floor Repair in Phoenix

How a floating floor works

Most luxury vinyl plank and all laminate is a floating floor. The planks lock to each other, not to the slab, and the whole floor sits loose on top. It expands and contracts a little with the temperature, so it needs a small gap at every wall, cabinet and doorway. The baseboard covers the gap. When that gap is missing, or something pins the floor down, it has nowhere to go.

Buckling and peaking

A floor that peaks up in the middle, or buckles along a line, is pushing against something. Usually a wall with no gap, a cabinet or island set on top of it, a door stop or transition screwed through it, or a nail through the baseboard into the planks. Direct sun through a patio door heats the planks and makes it worse, which is why so many Phoenix floors buckle in July.

The fix is to free the floor: find what's pinning it, remove or trim it, cut back the edge where the gap is missing, and relock the planks that popped. Then the floor lies down again. If the planks got damaged while they were peaked, those get swapped.

Gaps and lifted seams

A gap between two planks, or a seam that's lifted, means the locking edge has let go. Sometimes it's a damaged locking tongue, sometimes the floor shifted. A gap near a wall can often be closed by pulling the planks back together from the wall side. A damaged plank gets replaced.

Replacing a plank

A single plank can be swapped. Because the planks lock together, replacing one in the middle of a room means either unlocking the rows back to the nearest wall, or cutting the damaged plank out and gluing a new one in place with its locking edges trimmed. Which one makes sense depends on where the plank is and whether you have spares. A box of leftover planks from the install makes this easy.

Clicking, creaking and soft spots

A floating floor that clicks or creaks where you step is bridging a low spot in the slab. The planks flex down to the slab and back, and the locking edges rub. The fix is to lift the planks over that spot and fill the low area with a floor patch, then relay. A soft spot is the same thing with a bigger low area.

Laminate and water

Laminate is a wood-based core with a picture of wood on top, and it swells when it gets wet. A dishwasher leak, a pet accident, or mopping with too much water leaves the edges puffed up. Swollen laminate doesn't shrink back. The swollen planks get replaced. Vinyl plank doesn't swell, which is why it's replaced laminate in most Valley kitchens.

Problems we fix on this page

• Vinyl plank lifting at a seam
• Planks separating with gaps
• Floor buckling near the patio door
• Floor peaking in the middle
• Laminate swollen from water
• Plank scratched or gouged
• Floor clicks or creaks when walked on
• Floor bouncy in one spot
• Want one plank replaced
• Transition strip loose
• Transition strip missing
• Threshold cracked
• Gap under the baseboard after new floors
• Floor uneven at a doorway
• Want a reducer between two floors

How it starts

Send a photo of the problem and one of the room showing where the floor meets the walls. Tell us whether you have spare planks and whether the problem started in hot weather. We send back a fixed price, you say go, and Levi shows up to do it.