ᐅ Lowering of the floor level on the ground floor and the upper floor

Hello,

the floors in all rooms have settled, causing cracks to form between the floor tiles and the baseboard tiles. We had an underfloor heating system (geothermal) installed. Does anyone have experience with this or explanations?

A message to the construction company only resulted in a letter stating that these are expansion joints/maintenance joints and are the responsibility of the homeowner.

Regards,
Alberthafen

Is it possible that the supply temperature for the underfloor heating is too high?

As far as I know, depending on the floor construction, the temperature should not exceed 50°C (122°F). Do you have a proper, separate control circuit for the underfloor heating, or is it connected to a return temperature limiter?

Regards

The cupping of a cement screed results from rapid drying over the large surface area and because cement screed shrinks up to 10 times more during hardening than a calcium sulfate screed. The drying screed contracts at the top surface, while the still moist underside remains at its original length. The cement screed deforms upwards at the edges, is usually covered at this stage, and with further drying (usually after 2 years), the edge joints crack due to the reverse deformation of the cement screed caused by drying of the underside.

This effect is more pronounced the earlier a cement screed is ventilated. Therefore, fast-track screeds are also more prone to cupping.
Calcium sulfate screeds do not shrink and are therefore not sensitive to early ventilation – on the contrary, they dry much faster this way.

Unfortunately, we have the same problem. The floor on the ground floor is lowered, which has caused cracks in the joints. However, the house builder had already informed us in advance that this could happen. Upstairs, we have cracks in the ceiling, which the site manager repaired promptly and without any issues.

Now I am thinking about how to clean the joints easily because we will most likely have to regrout them, unfortunately... it looks very unsightly.