Why Are My Hardwood Floors Separating?
Michigan Hardwood Flooring expands and contracts.
Hardwood flooring expands and contracts, this happens in Michigan more often than not. With all the new wide plank hardwood flooring being sold and installed this should be of high topic in Michigan as we enter the winter months. At 1woodfloors.com our company educates our customers prior to purchasing a hardwood floor. In some situations a certain type of hardwood flooring may be better than others. Even though we all know a big part of our decision is based off of cost, we try to avoid giving you a floor just based from this because if that floor fails you may spend more trying to fix a problem that could have been prevented. All hardwood floors should be acclimated prior to installation. Why should hardwood flooring be acclimated we will cover on another post later. In the winter months we all turn up the heat in one way or another in Michigan. It is our job to make sure we keep the air in our homes with the correct level of humidity if we would like to protect our hardwood floors from severe gapping or separating.
Here are some quick tips. Remember if your floor is separating it usually takes just as long to try to close up as it took to separate.
- Get a humidifier on your furnace and make sure it is working.
- Purchase a hygrometer and place in the area your flooring is.
- Notice the setting on your humidifier may not tell you the true RH%
- this is why a hygrometer is required.
- Keep your levels around 45-50% if possible
- Avoid shocking your floor or house, meaning if its to dry slowly adjust
- your humidity rather than spike the levels up or down.
- Summer requires the same type of attention to humidity levels.
- As summer comes you usually will need no help from your humidifier and this will most likely be turned off all together.
- This is when people forget to either turn on or off is when the seasons change
- The wider the board the more it will move
- Do your best, its all you can do. You cannot control this perfectly.
- Always talk to a pro when choosing flooring some work better than others in certain situations
