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I am in a new custom built house in North Carolina with 2 1/2″ T&G Oak flooring installed in August 1999. The floor was sealed with 3 coats of Polyurethane after installation. In the last two weeks gaps of approximately .030 have appeared in approximately 10% of the floor. I know the lower humidity in the winter months will cause the wood to shrink. A couple of questions.
1) Is this excessive shrinking due to flooring that may not have been properly installed or dried out.
2) Should I be concerned that the floor is no longer sealed and problems could occur if moisture gets into gaps.
3) What should I ask the installer to determine potential problems and/or fixes.
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Replies
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Vanselou, I've been to North Carolina... in May. It's humid. Wood is hydroscopic, and has absorbed some of that humidity. Now, in January, with a much drier environment, your wood floor has acclimated to the lower humidity and internal moisture level. (it shrank).
Your floor will swell again come spring, and look fine for the summer and fall.
Ah, one other thing... "approximately .030" is way informative. That's 3 one hundredths of an inch right? Is it me, or are we being a mite fussy?
*Gosh! Count your blessings. To only shrink that much in a variable climate like yours is great.One thing, assuming you revealed your attention to detail by your measurement, try to spend more time enjoying the house and less finding its' faults. I have never met a structure I couldn't grow to hate if I paid close attention to the nitnoy. If this is off-base I apologize in advance.
*.....measure your indoor relative humidity.......if the wood is suffering.. so are you and your family...WE expect a full report on the results of your humidity measurements...fair is fair...
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b Barlow Carpentry
If this is the worst of your problems with a new house you should count your blessings. Your floor will be fine again in the spring.
*Vanselou,Your floor is just fine.I put alot of them in houses and it sounds like yours looks just like mine, in my house.It will look just fine in the spring.Dont worry about it,thats what hardwood floors do. ted
*Vanselou, NC code reuires that 75% of your crawlspace becovered with a vapor barrier like 6mill plastic. You mighttry removing some of that barrier in the dry months. Be carefull with 2 hurricanes,floods and blizzard,thingscould be wet under there.Too much moisture could cause your floor to swell too much, which could cause it to cup or bow.You might try removing just a little at a time.Good luck.
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I have installed just one perfect hardwood floor that shows no sign of movement to this day....The subfloor was allowed to dry....tar paper was used...the flooring was given time to acclimate...It was installed during a neutral season (the Fall)... and the room is heated and humidified along with air conditioned in the summer...
So, either my client is lucky and or we did most everything right....I do have one rule I will NEVER break...I will not be party to installing flooring in August ever...Live and learn.
near the stream,
aj
*I'm with you on that Jack. Building Icehouses for that stream...
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The replies to this question caught my eye since I'm about to install 4" Ash flooring in our house in Metro-Boston and I'm debating whether to leave thumbnail or two of gap between the planks in anticipation of summer. It should be extremely well-acclimated:it's been sitting exposed in the room (heated) since August! I plan to seal the underside as well. Any thoughts or opinions? Feel free to email me.
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The only gap you should leave is an expansion gap around the perimeter of the room. It will eventually be covered by your base trim.
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Fred, I can appreciate your concern for the children. In NC it seems like there isn't a dry
season, except for about two weeks in october and
that's barring any hurricanes during that time.
The problem is that hardwood floors that have been
installed during new construction in "NC" can only acclimate to what ever the humidity percentage
is at the time of installation. So after about
3 or 4 weeks of heat or AC the floor begin to acclimate to the drier enviroment inside the house
causing the small cracks between strips of floor.
This can be prevented by waiting until the home
owner has gotten his CO and letting the wood
acclimate in the heat or AC for 3 weeks and then
install the floor. But this usually isn't a likely
scenerio since most home owners expect to move in
by the time they get thier CO. So this leads me
back to my suggestion to remove some of the vapor barrier. It has worked in the past for closing small cracks between strips of floor. My experience is, it usually doesn't take much. A little goes a long way. Since NC code states that no more than 75% of the ground under the house can be covered by a vapor barrier, gases that are released from the soil are still released under the house. Thanks for your concern.
W
*All of the responses here are good ones (I'll stay out of the vapor barrier discussion)... Yep, only leave expansion spaces around the perimeter of the area/room. Yep, your floor will contract/expand with the seasons. Hopefully the initial moisture content of the wood was within specs to begin with and it was pre-conditioned to the environment first, and, Yep, your three coats of polyurethane are fine... it's a flexible material that will keep up with the times but will require updating if there is a lot of heavy traffic (read: children)
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.......W. Cross....
attempting to find a state of equilibrium for wood flooring is tough at best.....
......I was curious about one of your statements..
b A little goes a long way. Since NC code states that no more than 75% of the ground under the house can be covered by a vapor barrier, gases that are released from the soil are still released under the house. Thanks for your concern. W
I don't understand the basis for that ...can you explain the reasoning ? ...or maybe quote the section of the code that says that...??
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Mike, I stand corrected, according to my code book the maximum vapor barrier coverage is 80% of the crawl space. The basis for that code is to prevent excessive drying of the floor. Though I'm not sure why this would concern the NC State Building Code Council. I'm interested in knowing why. I'm sure they have good reason. NC code R-311.1 crawl space is to be covered with 6 mill polyethylene vapor retarder or its equivalent. To prevent excessive drying of the floor,not more than 80% of the crawl space should be covered.
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I am in a new custom built house in North Carolina with 2 1/2" T&G Oak flooring installed in August 1999. The floor was sealed with 3 coats of Polyurethane after installation. In the last two weeks gaps of approximately .030 have appeared in approximately 10% of the floor. I know the lower humidity in the winter months will cause the wood to shrink. A couple of questions.
1) Is this excessive shrinking due to flooring that may not have been properly installed or dried out.
2) Should I be concerned that the floor is no longer sealed and problems could occur if moisture gets into gaps.
3) What should I ask the installer to determine potential problems and/or fixes.