Vinyl flooring installed over expansion joint

Hello everyone,

Since I am new here, I hope for your helpful tips. We recently built a new house and had planned to do the interior finishing ourselves. So far so good. Everything has worked quite well. Only when laying the floor did I stupidly make a huge mistake. In the dining and living area, there is an expansion joint, and a friend suggested I simply lay the floor over it. First, it looks better, and second, it saves me the cutting. He did the same at his place. Well, I actually thought he was right (otherwise I was meticulous about all the distances) with fatal consequences. Now that the kitchen and the rest of the furniture are in place, the floor is bulging exactly at that spot. Not strongly, but you can notice it. At first, I didn’t notice it or it wasn’t really noticeable. Well, it was definitely too late! But since the floor is already laid everywhere in the whole room, I would rather not remove everything again. I thought about cutting the floor exactly where the expansion joint runs. With a multifunction tool or something similar, but unfortunately, I don’t know exactly where the expansion joint runs. Maybe you have an idea or a solution on how to best approach this. I am so annoyed with myself. And sorry for the long text... I thank you very much in advance.

Best regards, David

That's really annoying. Sometimes/often it works out, often/sometimes not. A good learning example here in the forum that as a builder you shouldn't always insist on your own way just because of the appearance.

I think your idea is good. Didn't you take any photos during the house construction? I would guess at the corner of the room (photo, bottom right). If necessary, remove the entire hallway in this area. Or do you have tongue and groove?

That’s annoying. Sometimes/often it works well, often/sometimes it doesn’t.
A good learning example here in the forum that as a builder one should not always insist on their own way just because of the look.

I like your idea. Didn’t you take any photos during the house construction?
I would guess at the room corner (photo, bottom right). If necessary, remove the whole floorboard in this area. Or do you have tongue and groove?

That’s annoying. Sometimes/often it works well, often/sometimes it doesn’t.
A good learning example here in the forum that as a builder one should not always insist on their own way just because of the look.

I like your idea. Didn’t you take any photos during the house construction?
I would guess at the room corner (photo, bottom right). If necessary, remove the whole floorboard in this area. Or do you have tongue and groove?

First of all, thank you for your quick reply. Unfortunately, we have tongue and groove. It is this Disano ClassicAqua from Haro. We do have plenty of photos, but they don’t help much because it’s hard to determine the positions. I was thinking of some kind of clip that would basically allow you to feel the soft spot of the expansion joint under the floor.

You don't have to hit the expansion joints exactly, 1-30cm next to them is also fine, just at the hollow spot

If I'm honest, I'm already a bit intimidated to tackle it... but I probably won't have any other choice. I'll get back to you once I've managed it.

You have installed the kitchen on floating vinyl flooring?