We completed our new home in NW Lower Michigan June 2001. We have natural finished red oak flooring in the kitchen and main living room. the kitchen portion is on a slab, the balance over a basement.
we kept the house heated last winter although we were only in residence for about 3 weeks during the winter. The rest of the time the thermostat was kept at about 58.
I noticed the joints of the flooring had risen since they were installed and assumed that the rise in humidity during the summmer months was responsible. (we are on a lake).
We moved in permanently in May of this year. Now the floor is drying as the humidity of course is much lower (we have forced air heat). We have some cracks as wide as 3/32.
I am tempted to just put up with it, assuming that come spring and summer and the return of higher humidity the flooring will swell and cracks disappear until next winter.
Can a humidifier provide enough moisture to prevent the cracks?
Any other thoughts out there.
Jerry
Edited 12/13/2002 10:25:36 PM ET by PJJEHLE
Replies
I bit more info, if you would......
Is this 3/4" solid oak flooring?
Do you know what was applied as a finish and how many coats?
Do you run a dehumidifier in the basement during the summer months and/or AC the home?
Do you know if the flooring was glued down?
Do you know if an expansion gap was left around the room for the flooring to swell into during the high humidity periods?
Are you referring to cracks between the boards or in the boards?
Thanks for the replies.
This is 4" wide 3/4 solid oak. It was not glued and space was left around the edges. There are only about a dozen cracks that have opened up in the room which is about 28 feet wide.
The cracks are between the boards.
The floor was installed in April of '01 and finished with a sealer and 2 coats of urethane about a month later. there are no other wood floors in the house.
I did not run a dehumidifier on a consistent basis in the basement during the summer. We do not have air conditioning.
That's about all I can offer.
Jerry
Maintaining a constant Rh in the home in the range of 40-55% should prevent most of the movement you see. However we do not know what conditions existed at the time of the installation. High material moisture content at delivery and installation could be a cause here.
Ken Fisher
http://www.hardwoodinstaller.com
Ken
Nice site you have. MAybe I may have some questions for you for my new circa 1680 house here on L.I, N.Y (just found out its actually fifty or more years older then that). I'm doing some extensive additons to this house in the spring and know I want the same recycled wide plank flooring in the additions..reclaimed of course!
Nice work man (check out my site below)
Namaste
AndyOne works on oneself, always. That's the greatest gift you can give to community because the more you extricate your mind from that which defines separateness, that defines community. The first thing is to become community. "Ram Dass"http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
I didn't like the humidifiers I had on my furnace years ago. The elements caked up so quickly with lime that they needed cleaning all the time and didn't seem to help much anyway.
I assume those that are available now are much better and since I have a water softener calcium buildup shouldn't be as much of a problem. So a humidifier it will be.
Thanks to all.
Jerry
Interesting about humidifiers as here's a comment from a professional in the business from another message board.. This was a response to someone considering maple floors in Illinios that had some high moisture readings.
"Maple floors in the north are a waste of time anyways unless you like the huge cracks in the winter. Like some kind of idiot i put maple floors in my home up north and bought the best humidifier for my furnace money could buy and have a very dry basement and still had cracks i lost a couple of my kids in."
Hey Greg...I'm gonna be in your area in early February. Job in North Hollywood. Whattya say we get together?
Ken
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I wonder about the ridges on the floor. I wonder if the moisture level could have gotten too high after installation and that compressed and crushed the wood.
Now that moisture levels have drop the crushed wood will not return to it's nominal width.
No question there was some swelling after installation but it was not substantial.
I think I will wait on the humidifier until I go through another summer.
Thanks to all.
Jerry
Hey Ken,
That may not be possible due to the fact that I am going on a ski trip to Idaho for three weeks. I have relatives there so it is real cheap for me to go. Just air fare and lift tickets. What brings you so far to do a job? GW
Hey Greg:
Man, I have all sorts of stuff going on and it's getting to the point I'm not going to keep track of it by myself. Just got a call from a manufacturer in Brazil as I write this...Geeesh..they won't give up! I got that LA lead off my sites along with two others I'll be doing in January in Phoenix and Las Vegas before the Surfaces Convention. You can follow the progress at this site link indefinately. I'd like to get others in on this segment of my site and may travel up to Salinas in mid February for one.
Gotta Run:)
http://www.floridawoodfloors.net/jobweek.htm<img src="http://www.floridawoodfloors.net/Banner3.jpg" width="370" height="99" border="0"> </a>
Hardwood Flooring Installation Services. "Serving Florida...and Beyond"
http://www.floridawoodfloors.net
You may have to install a humidifier to your heating system to raise the humidity at a point where the cracks will close during winter. They may all go away next summer and open up again in other places the following winter. If you have the money, do the humidifier. You will sleep better at night, mentally and physically. GW
Based on the info you've provided, I'd also suggest that you install a humidifier on the furnace if you want to mediate the swelling and shrinkage issues with those boards. We have an Aprilaire unit on our furnace that includes a sensor/thermometer that is mounted outside. This system allows you to find the highest "mean" humidity setting for your home and then the controls manage the input of humidity so that it always keeps it at the highest humidity level your home can support at any given outdoor temp without having condensation running down your windows. Once you find the mean through experimentation, it becomes a hands-off system that only requires that you change the water panel evaporator once a year……about $5 and 5minutes.
I think the "raised edges" that you saw were likely associated with cupping of the boards at that time.
You'll benefit as much from the humidifier as your floors and other furniture will.
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
Edited 12/15/2002 11:47:46 AM ET by GOLDHILLER
PJJEHLE,
No response from you yet and I've gotta hit the job here. Before I go, I'll offer these few tidbits based on the assumption that this is solid wood flooring.
. I'm presuming here that you're talking about a floor in which there are gaps between virtually every board and not a situation where most of the gapping is concentrated to a few large gaps in a room……not that this would influence whether or not running a humidifier would close the gaps.
Sounds from your description of "raised joints" in the boards that it may be that no expansion gap was left around the room. If, in addition, the wood was "too dry" (not being truly acclimatized to a higher existing humidity level) then the resulting swelling would be more extreme than normal/desired. The result of finally arriving at EMC would then be somewhat like that of a wetted/soaked wooden hammer handle which "compression sets" against the metal of the head (the wood fibers actually compress), only in your case it would be one board compressing against its neighbors because there's no where to go. When it's time to shrink, the resulting gaps will be larger than normal and the boards will never touch again under normal humidity circumstances….just as that hammer handle will never properly fit again under normal circumstances…….it has to be soaked and allowed to swell to extremes again.
In short, if the above is the case, I doubt that running a humidifier to a reasonable level, is going to close up those gaps as well as you'd like.
Sorry, but if this is the case, that's my prognosis.
More crucial bits of info required are:
How WIDE are the strips/ planks?
When - month - was it installed.
When - month - was it finished (sanded and sealed)?
Is this a single or two story home?
If two, are you having this problem on the second story?
Is this occuring throughout the house and with various types of wood flooring?
I had that happen in a house I once lived in. Forced hot air is horrible if you ask me. I installed a whole house humdifier and it made the problem a bit less..also helped my dryed out skin and lungs
andy
One works on oneself, always. That's the greatest gift you can give to community because the more you extricate your mind from that which defines separateness, that defines community. The first thing is to become community. "Ram Dass"
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
IMHO the cracks that you describe are part of having a solid wood floor. Had a wood floor installed in my second floor and head a lot of popping/cracking during the the first heating season. The urethane finish glues the edges of the boards together and when the humidity changes the pop and crack. Gaps are normal if you live in an area that has temp/humidity swings (the first floor of my house built in 1931 has no gaps in the summer and gaps in the winter). The swelled edges are another issue.