Floor Repairs: Damaged Planks, Lifting Seams, Squeaks and Stair Nosings

On a click-together laminate or vinyl floor, a damaged plank near a wall is reached by taking off the baseboard or shoe moulding along that wall, unclicking the rows in between, swapping the board and clicking everything back.

Further into the room, the damaged plank is cut out in place. The replacement has its locking edge trimmed so it can drop in from above, and it's glued to its neighbours. Glue-down vinyl is simpler again: the plank is warmed to soften the adhesive, lifted out, and a new one glued in its place.

Seams that open, peak or lift almost always come back to one of three things: the subfloor isn't flat enough, there's no expansion gap at the walls, or the floor has been pinned down. Pinning comes from a kitchen island or heavy cabinets set on top of it, or trim and transitions fastened through it. A floating floor has to move a little with the seasons. Stop it moving and it pushes up or pulls apart.

The fix is to let it move again. That means cutting back the edge to restore the gap, freeing whatever is pinning it, or lifting the section and filling the low spot underneath. Pushing a gap closed without doing any of that just means it reopens next season. Where the locking edges have already snapped, those boards get replaced.

Water is its own case. Standard laminate has a wood-fibre core, and once water gets into it the edges swell and stay swollen. They don't dry back down, so those boards come out.

Vinyl plank won't swell, but it hides a quieter problem. Water gets through the seams and sits underneath with nowhere to evaporate. The floor can look perfect while the subfloor below it stays wet, which is how mould starts. After a real leak, the affected area should come up so the subfloor can be checked and dried.

Either way, the leak gets fixed first. If the subfloor has swollen or gone soft, that has to be dealt with before any flooring goes back down, and we'll show you what we find before going further. If a laminate room is past saving, waterproof laminate is worth considering for the replacement: it's built to resist water at the surface and the joints, which is where standard laminate lets it in. It's made for spills rather than floods, though, and it won't protect the subfloor from a leak nobody notices.

Most squeaks come from the subfloor, not the flooring: a panel moving against a joist, or rubbing on a nail that has worked loose. On a floating floor, a crackle or click underfoot is more often boards flexing over a dip.

Where the ceiling below is open, as in an unfinished basement, a subfloor squeak can sometimes be fixed from underneath without touching the floor. Otherwise the section comes up, the subfloor is screwed down to the joists or the dip is filled, and the boards go back. Click boards usually survive being taken up and relaid, though not always, which is another reason to keep spares.

An honest note: a floating floor sounds a little more hollow than one that's glued or nailed down. That comes from how it's built rather than from a fault, and a repair won't change it.

Transition strips, where your floor meets carpet, another floor or a doorway, get kicked, cracked and pulled loose. The usual fix is to reset or replace the track and fit a new strip. The strip should hold the edge of the floor down without being fastened through it, because a transition screwed through a floating floor is one of the common causes of lifting seams. When the original profile is discontinued, a neutral strip that suits both floors usually looks better than a near-miss.

Stair nosings take more impact than any other part of the floor. On laminate and vinyl stairs they loosen when the adhesive lets go, or crack along the front edge. A loose nosing is a trip hazard right where your foot lands on the way down, so it's worth fixing promptly.

A loose nosing is pulled off, cleaned back to bare material and reset with adhesive and fasteners. A cracked one is replaced. If the original nosing is no longer made, or you're tired of the bulky overlap moulding that comes with most floors, custom square nosings made to match the floor are an option, usually across the whole flight so every step matches.