HELP! Floor problems....any suggestions?

[alex.southpole]

Well....things just seem to be going from bad to worse. After 2 months we finally "finished" putting down our floor last weekend. The floor warped and now we have a massive dip in the main area that will have foot traffic. Dip (without anyone standing on either end) is between 3/4" and 1" at the worst spot. Located near the factory floor seam (in the beam of sunlight in the photo). Seems like one massive piece so if you step on one side of the dip the other side lifts up and visa versa. Can't get it all to lay flat. Husband and I are disagreeing on how to move forward and would love some advice.

This is what we did:
Minicell to fill the ridges, 1/2" closed cell foam, factory floor, Roberts 2310 adhesive and RecPro coin flooring.
We are in Colorado and temps were close to freezing after we glued the floor down so we set up heaters and slept out in the van for 3 nights.

Has anyone else run into this issue of the floor warping? Should we start over or assume that once we put in cabinets and such it will be ok?

Kicking ourselves for using the factory floor. I'm not going to go into all the other issues (like the anchor bolts breaking off or not going back in to their spots).....

 

[RVBarry]

Seems like one massive piece so if you step on one side of the dip the other side lifts up and visa versa.

Sounds to me like the foam isn't supporting the floor properly.
Exactly what foam did you use?

 

[Glenn233]

Well....things just seem to be going from bad to worse. After 2 months we finally "finished" putting down our floor last weekend. The floor warped and now we have a massive dip in the main area that will have foot traffic. Dip (without anyone standing on either end) is between 3/4" and 1" at the worst spot. Located near the factory floor seam (in the beam of sunlight in the photo). Seems like one massive piece so if you step on one side of the dip the other side lifts up and visa versa. Can't get it all to lay flat. Husband and I are disagreeing on how to move forward and would love some advice.

This is what we did:
Minicell to fill the ridges, 1/2" closed cell foam, factory floor, Roberts 2310 adhesive and RecPro coin flooring.
We are in Colorado and temps were close to freezing after we glued the floor down so we set up heaters and slept out in the van for 3 nights.

Has anyone else run into this issue of the floor warping? Should we start over or assume that once we put in cabinets and such it will be ok?

Kicking ourselves for using the factory floor. I'm not going to go into all the other issues (like the anchor bolts breaking off or not going back in to their spots).....

When you reused the factory anchor bolts were they long enough? Ill be doing my floor soon

 

[alex.southpole]

When you reused the factory anchor bolts were they long enough? Ill be doing my floor soon

No....we bought new ones. Let me know if you need the source.

 

[Glenn233]

No....we bought new ones. Let me know if you need the source.

Source would be great, thank you

 

[alex.southpole]

Source would be great, thank you

I think that we got this information from the wonderful Hein -
Bolts - M8-1.25x45 Metric Class 10.9 Hex Flange Bolts Frame Cap Screws Phos & Oil

Amazon.com: (6) M8-1.25x45 Metric Class 10.9 Hex Flange Bolts Frame Cap Screws Phos & Oil: Industrial & Scientific

Amazon.com: (6) M8-1.25x45 Metric Class 10.9 Hex Flange Bolts Frame Cap Screws Phos & Oil: Industrial & Scientific

smile.amazon.com

 

[alex.southpole]

Sounds to me like the foam isn't supporting the floor properly.
Exactly what foam did you use?

We used R-Max 1/2" Polyisocyanurate Rigid Foam Board. Picked this over the pink one because it had a little higher strength per square inch than the Owens Corning pink board. One thought I had was that the glue was melting the foam at the seam location but it doesn't seem to be the case in other locations that we can see....

R-Matte Rmax R-Matte Plus-3, 1/2 in. x 4 ft. x 8 ft. R-3.2 Polyisocyanurate Rigid Foam Insulation Board-754404 - The Home Depot
Rmax R-Matte Plus Polyiso Rigid Foam Insulation Board is perfect to use with wall sheathing applications in new residential and commercial buildings.
www.homedepot.com

 

[RVBarry]

We used R-Max 1/2" Polyisocyanurate Rigid Foam Board. Picked this over the pink one because it had a little higher strength per square inch than the Owens Corning pink board.

I was hoping someone else would respond as I'm not well versed in foam brands.
What are the PSI ratings?

Have you checked the foam for compression or cracking lately?

 

[alex.southpole]

I was hoping someone else would respond as I'm not well versed in foam brands.
What are the PSI ratings?

Have you checked the foam for compression or cracking lately?

PSI....pressure per square inch. I can't remember the site I saw the recommendation on but it talked about making sure that you picked a foam that was strong enough to hold weight. We haven't pulled the floor back up to look what is going on. I am worried if we do it is going to cause more problems (we already have 3 bolts that are not going back in or are broken off in the factory tie down spots). But the foam is brand new so would hope that it isn't the case. Only thing I can think of is that the factory floor warped like crazy with the temperature changes. Other than that I am at a loss. My husband is winning the argument of not starting over and just living with it.

 

[cbaarch]

If you glued the flooring directly to the ISO board it might be an expansion issue.
Did you install the ISO board tight to the walls? good practice is to leave at least 1/4" to 1/2" each side then fill the gap with expandable sealant (caulking) From the pictures looks like there is expansion at the wheel wells but I can not tell if you are tight to the walls.
It you need to hide the sealant then the standard practice is to have a thin plate (alum) called a threshold and tie down one side then let the other side float or have a slotted connection for the screw or bolt and not to tighten that bolt.
FYI the specs I found for that ISO board says it has compression rating of at least 16 psi (pound per sq. in. ) which is about 2,300 lbs per sq. ft. - the design load for a building floor is often about 150 lbs sq. ft. for heavy loads.

 

[creaturecomforts]

I remember from faroutride that an average person will have about 16 psi in their footprint. But plywood on top of the foam board would spread out that weight.

 

[alex.southpole]

If you glued the flooring directly to the ISO board it might be an expansion issue.
Did you install the ISO board tight to the walls? good practice is to leave at least 1/4" to 1/2" each side then fill the gap with expandable sealant (caulking) From the pictures looks like there is expansion at the wheel wells but I can not tell if you are tight to the walls.
It you need to hide the sealant then the standard practice is to have a thin plate (alum) called a threshold and tie down one side then let the other side float or have a slotted connection for the screw or bolt and not to tighten that bolt.
FYI the specs I found for that ISO board says it has compression rating of at least 16 psi (pound per sq. in. ) which is about 2,300 lbs per sq. ft. - the design load for a building floor is often about 150 lbs sq. ft. for heavy loads.

We did not glue anything to the ISO board and that is free floating. Tried to follow the edge of the factory floor for both the foam and coin flooring. Guess we know from what you found it wasn't a compression issue at least. Thanks for that.

 

[VanDerBlasts]

I think that we got this information from the wonderful Hein -
Bolts - M8-1.25x45 Metric Class 10.9 Hex Flange Bolts Frame Cap Screws Phos & Oil

Amazon.com: (6) M8-1.25x45 Metric Class 10.9 Hex Flange Bolts Frame Cap Screws Phos & Oil: Industrial & Scientific

Amazon.com: (6) M8-1.25x45 Metric Class 10.9 Hex Flange Bolts Frame Cap Screws Phos & Oil: Industrial & Scientific

smile.amazon.com

Thanks for sharing this info! Do these also work with the factory seat rail captive nuts in the floor? I plan to raise the seat rails with the floor, so longer bolts there is also a must. Did you use a spacer or standoff under the rails to raise them up and allow for proper torque on the bolts? Any further info on this would be great.

 

[bbensern]

We did not glue anything to the ISO board and that is free floating. Tried to follow the edge of the factory floor for both the foam and coin flooring. Guess we know from what you found it wasn't a compression issue at least. Thanks for that.

That's a significant dip. 3/4" to 1" sounds like that is more than the material between the metal van floor and the flooring itself. Have you verified that the dip isn't in the van floor itself (like checking from under the van)? But to get that big of a height difference, it might be that the dipped section is actually still in proper contact, but the surrounding area is raised?

Other thought is that perhaps the Roberts 2310 adhesive is breaking the ISO board down? Perhaps it made its way down through the seam? Do you have any leftover foam and adhesive you could experiment with?

As someone that is/has been agonizing over flooring setup, I would investigate before proceeding. You might not be able to use factory D-ring locations anymore, but that's not the end of the world. Check out the paul the punter build (10:55 for floor section) for some inspiration on avoiding the locations. Also - don't feel bad about starting over - I recently watched another youtuber replace a very expensive floor 3 times. This person also experienced a lot of issues by not using the factory floor, so don't write that off just yet.

 

[cbaarch]

They said they did not glue the flooring to the ISO board. Even if they had, the R-Max ISO board has a foil top and bottom layer so the glue would not be in direct contact with the polyisocianurate foam.

 

[bbensern]

They said they did not glue the flooring to the ISO board. Even if they had, the R-Max ISO board has a foil top and bottom layer so the glue would not be in direct contact with the polyisocianurate foam.

Right -but there is a seam in the factory floor, right where the dip is occurring, so it is conceivable that the adhesive migrated through the seam (especially if they took out the h-channel that locks the front and rear sections together). and there might be damage to the foil liner? My curiosity is piqued now.. test that glue!

 

[alex.southpole]

Thanks for sharing this info! Do these also work with the factory seat rail captive nuts in the floor? I plan to raise the seat rails with the floor, so longer bolts there is also a must. Did you use a spacer or standoff under the rails to raise them up and allow for proper torque on the bolts? Any further info on this would be great.

Afraid I can't help you with the bolts for the seat rails. We didn't raise our rails...they are now sunken into the floor if that makes sense. I didn't want to do anything to compromise the safety of the seats. If I had to do it over I would replace the entire front half of the floor with thicker plywood and cover the part of the rails that aren't involved in the process of removing and installing the seats. We could have had a seam in the plywood at the start of the garage/lower bed in front of the wheel wells. We are now trying to figure out how to cover the holes as the plastic pieces won't fit back on. I think that we are going to do aluminum edging and then make wood inserts (also with aluminum edging but probably rubber bumpers) that also have the flooring and hold them down with magnets. I think it is going to be a total pain in the butt.

 

[JIB]

I used 1.5 inch XPS Foamular 150 psi foam board and have no issues with dipping. This is under the factory wood floor and I retained the "H or I" shaped aluminum piece that holds the two halves (front/back) of the floor together. I also have a very thin Thinsulate layer above, below and between each of the foam pieces to insure no squeaking and to slow down air movement in the corrugations between the steel floor and the bottom of the foam board. I have a high quality vinyl over the factory floor.

The floor actually has a nice resilient feel to it, but is cold on the feet in socks. Hopefully the temperature issue will be resolved with the Espar install this week.

Jack
p.s. - I think I went with 80mm M8 bolts to go through the 1.5 inches of foam.

IMPORTANT, if you bolt through any resilient insulating floor layer, make a spacer to go from the steel floor to the bottom of the OEM Nut assembly at the floor level or you can/will crank the bolt down tight enough to crush the foam down. I used solid PVC rod, which I drilled out along the centerline for the bolt. The will not take any load on the floor. It will just keep you from overtightening the bolts.

 

[alex.southpole]

Thanks for all of suggestions/input. We ended up staying married. Phew. I chilled out and the dip in the floor did as well. Thinking that the extreme temperature changes caused the major dip. Who knows what it will be like next winter but hopefully our cabinets will help hold it down.

 

[mesohuanny]

The dip being where the factory floor seam is a likely indication that the foam is getting compressed because that where it would likely flex. I similarly used that foam and factory floor but added aluminum tubing every couple feet for support.

I would try to add some support if only at the seam before you proceed. You don't want to install everything and then decide your need to get to the floor to fix afterwards. Sounds like if you put the coin flooring on the factory floor you should be able to just lift it up all together? Even if you put adhesive between the factory floor and the foam, I doubt the bond will be that strong since both surfaces are relatively slick.

Amazon 10.9 bolts... Either they're not really 10.9 or you're putting your back into it or using an impact driver. They have loctite or something on them from factory, that's why they were hard to remove. To tighten use your hand without your body weight or a torque wrench. I'm guessing 20-25 ft lb.