I have about a 10’x18′ section of my dining room floor laid and now I am seeing some pretty serious gapage between some of the boards (maybe 1/16″ or so). When I laid the wood it had set in the family room over eight months in the cardboard boxs and was stickered for some air movement.
I don’t humidify the house and right now it is fairly cold outside moving between +20f to -10f below, humidity is around 20%. I expected the wood to move and a few gaps but this looks a little worse than I expected. Some of the wood was a bugger to lay as it had some of it had lateral bows that I pulled into place with ratchet straps.
I laid it over 20lb felt over a subfloor of 1″ of ply over a room below. I stapled it every 8″ . This is Bruce/Anderson 3 1/4 prefinished oak.
I returned 35 boxes of the stuff because of the variance of width between planks and complained loudly about the lateral bowing. According to the Lowe’s flooring manager they had some bad stock in from B/A and ended up accepting the return of the unlaid flooring and now I have 35 boxes graceing my family room again.
This time I opened about 5 boxes and stacked the wood to acclimate it better.
My question should I call Lowes out to observe that the laid flooring is gaping or will it close up in the spring when the indoor humidity goes back up to 30-40+%.
Should I demand they replace the already laid flooring (I would not hold my breath, It was like pulling teeth to get them to do what they did already).?
Thanks in advance for your advice.
Jim
Replies
20 percent humidity is too low.
Are the gaps random? If grouped in long runs a foot wide or so, would this be above underfloor heat ducts.
Could these (if this is so) few gaps be in the areas that you torqued into place?
A Great Place for Information, Comraderie, and a Sucker Punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
The lower floor is heated bedrooms, the heating for the dining room is base board.
Some of the gaps may be as a result of the torqued boards. I agree the house needs some humidity. We need to fire up some humidifiers. I will look into getting one or two.
Jim
Jim
wood swells with moisture and shrinks with dryness. (heat has nothing to do with it) Things are really dry now so gaps should be expected.. if you have no gaps now when the wood swells with summer humidity it will cup on you..
Without a moisture meter you have no way of really knowing how moist the wood that you will be laying is.. Heck let's be honest with a moisture meter you have no way of knowing because at best it will tell you what the moisture is just below the surace with pin probes in the meters..
Bring the wood in, let it acclimatize for a month.. That does not mean all stacked up because the wood won't yield up any real moisture that way..make stickers for it to seperate it and let any moisture in the wood escape..
You could make stickers out of anything uniform.. strips of sheetrock strips of cardboard, heck! cross stack the flooring. but stacked up only the top level will slowly lose any moisture..
Frenchy,
You mention heat has no bearing on wood. Just to be sure you understand what I meant. I have observed HW over heat runs shrink noticeably, so that there are gaps in every board above and in the near vicinity of round metal ducts run between joists. Normal plywood or OSB as the subfloor. Localized heat must be drying out the wood in that area more than the rest of the floor.
In one instance the homowner inserted some rigid foam above the ductwork spanning between the joists. This helped. No real gappage above the duct runs.A Great Place for Information, Comraderie, and a Sucker Punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
calvin,
Heat doesn't affect woods size! period! Moisture does but not heat.. heat affects metal but not wood. (not at temps we are discussing)..
What you might be seeing is the effect of heat causing localized drying. The insulation spread the heat out further..
no ####.
"Localized heat must be drying out the wood in that area more than the rest of the floor"
What, I'm talking to myself?
What I might be seeing?A Great Place for Information, Comraderie, and a Sucker Punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
Thanks Frenchy, will do.
Jim