ᐅ Parquet flooring installed continuously without gaps

Upstairs, starting from the hallway, we have solid hardwood flooring. The floor installer did not leave expansion joints at the doorways, so the flooring was laid continuously (glued) and they said this has never caused problems before, even though it is not compliant with DIN standards. Acquaintances mentioned that their floor installer had advised against this. Should we have the joints cut in afterwards?

Hello,

I would definitely recommend cutting expansion joints afterwards. Even when installing laminate flooring, a gap of 3cm (1.2 inches) to the walls and doors must be included. As the name "expansion joint" suggests, wood expands and contracts. It’s not guaranteed that problems will occur, but if your parquet floor eventually buckles or cracks, you’ll regret not having the joint.

Your floor installer was simply too lazy to include the joint during installation. I wouldn’t accept that. Just because “problems never happened before” is a poor excuse. He should do the job properly—that’s what he’s being paid for.

He said it would look nicer, which is true. But accepting potential damage later on doesn’t really justify it. However, I would be interested to know if anyone has long-term experience with this installation method.

How many meters is it? What does the manufacturer's recommendation say? But if there is space left at the edge, it will work.

The hallway is 15 m² (approximately 161 sq ft, elongated) and the three adjoining rooms are each about 17 m² (approximately 183 sq ft). There is about 1 cm (0.4 inches) of space left along the walls, so this blue edge strip from the screed remains. (The bathroom is tiled).

Oh yes, he glued some kind of fleece over the expansion joint. What is the purpose of that? Can something like this actually prevent movements of the screed, or how effective is it really?