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This thread brings back a lot of memories, like flooring over the return air. Good thing we found some 1 inch quarter round. Fortunately, the next floor turned out much better.
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I'm getting to the point where I'm going to do it myself following exactly the steps you laid out. The area is about 12-18 inches from the wall. It's not worth it to have a carpenter do it unless I can lure dtc here to do it for a 6-pack of Natural Light, which should work well for him.That happens, too. Is it in a corner or in the middle? Middles are much harder to fix. In a corner, you can pull up, recut, and relay the floor, which is the better solution. However, if it's in the middle, you could pull up the quarter round and using a vibro-blade to slice off the end of each board close to the base boards and put the quarter round back. Then you would just have to touch up the quarter round and base boards... I mean if you are interested in doing it yourself.
I'm getting to the point where I'm going to do it myself following exactly the steps you laid out. The area is about 12-18 inches from the wall. It's not worth it to have a carpenter do it unless I can lure dtc here to do it for a 6-pack of Natural Light, which should work well for him.
@staphory explained it, but maybe not clear enough, so I'll extrapolate what he's saying.
For a floating floor, the floor ends just under the molding on either side of the room. This is so that if the floor expands, it doesn't push against the bottom plates of each wall and buckle. Depending on how thick your drywall and molding is, the floor could have a good 3/4" to 1" gap on each side away from the wooden bottom of the each wall. This gap is not seen because it's covered by molding and drywall. You kicked your flooring together towards the middle, but what you may have also done is push the whole row of flooring towards the wall on the opposite side of the room, closing the 1" gap and possibly hitting the wood on the other side. This has caused the gap on the wall you are looking at. What you need to do is "kick" the whole row back towards the wall that now has a gap so that row tucks back under the molding, but be careful not to go too far as to create a gap at the other wall.
I hope this makes sense.
Also, if your flooring is pulling apart in the middle, it's possible either the end click joint on that piece either broke off or was never properly clicked in. If it broke off, that floor is never going to stay together where it separated if it's in a high traffic area. Might be wise to glue that joint.
I dont think vinyl plank should have the same expansion /contraction that real wood does, but it is a possibility. Or it was cut too short. Could you hide it with bigger quarter rounds?
We have the opposite problem. The laminate in the kitchen is too tight in one area, causing it to buckle when the indoor humidity gets high. Recently high temps have been in the 70's with lows in the 50's meaning neither the AC nor the heat is coming on very much. The indoor thermometer also has a hygrometer showing the humidity in the 66-70% range, where it is normally 45-50%.
Ima git me a carpenter out here to fix this mess. @dtc where you at??