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Our back bedroom is rarely used so we keep the door closed and the A/C vent closed. The past 2 summers here in the Dallas area were brutally hot and dry and now this room (which has 3 outside walls)has gaps of 1/8 inch between several of the boards. This is a 45 year old house on pier and beam with oak floors. The floors are all finished with polyurethane. The rest of the rooms are fine, virtually no gaps anywhere. Is this flooring ruined or can I add some humidity back into the room so that we can start using it without getting our socks snagged all the time!
Keith
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Yes, add water and it will swell shut. Happens every year in houses up here because with 15-20% RH humidity in the heating season, the solid wood floors shrink a lot. Then with 50% RH in the summer, the cracks close back up.
With the poly finish, the top face is not very permeable to humidity in the air - hence the long time it took the floor to dry out in the first place. Wet mop it a few times (don't leave standing water when you're done though) and then get the relative humidity up in that room.
Radio Shack and others have electronic temp/RH gauges for about $30-40 that can help you get a better sense of what is going on seasonally in that room and also to track any changes you makes to the HVAC system. We perceive temperature but the floor reacts to relative humidity.
Sounds like, since the other floors are fine, you just need to bring that room back into the HVAC loop. By tracking the RH, you may identify seasons that don't the climate control system to be run to that room. -David
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Our back bedroom is rarely used so we keep the door closed and the A/C vent closed. The past 2 summers here in the Dallas area were brutally hot and dry and now this room (which has 3 outside walls)has gaps of 1/8 inch between several of the boards. This is a 45 year old house on pier and beam with oak floors. The floors are all finished with polyurethane. The rest of the rooms are fine, virtually no gaps anywhere. Is this flooring ruined or can I add some humidity back into the room so that we can start using it without getting our socks snagged all the time!
Keith