Hardwood Floor Cupping In Winter

While both engineered and solid hardwoods can experience cupping, they do so in different manners because the offending moisture creates distinct effects in each material.

Hardwood floor cupping in winter. Read more about caring for your hardwood floor here. It refers to a state when the individual wood planks appear to be higher on the edges as compared to the center of the board, forming the shape of a cup. Rain, water, or snow is getting tracked in So, let your customers know about these 5 problems hardwood experiences in the winter and how to fix them.

Cupping is a result of the changes in moisture in the room. Problems hardwood floor experiences in the winter 1. What causes hardwood floors to cup? By doing so, you will minimize the cupping effect.

What makes the piedmont , nantucket , and hampton series unique is their moisture resistance. Eventually, your hardwood flooring can become distorted, and some planks may split and require replacement. The same thing happens to wood flooring. Hardwood floors buckle when the humidity levels in the lower levels of the house are too high in the crawlspace or basement,” explains the basement health association in the article negative effects on hardwood floors.

Cupping in hardwood floors is caused by a change in moisture levels in the air. During the winter, it isn’t uncommon for moisture and temperature changes to happen. After the floor had performed well for a year and a half, the floor suffered a serious failure within the period of a few weeks and had to be replaced. Customers begin to notice gaps between boards, and the phone calls begin.

The internet is full of information from hardwood flooring manufacturers and installers about hardwood floors that are cupping and buckling. Your hardwood floor is made of… wood! In contrast to the dry winter air, which can sap moisture from hardwood flooring, humid springtime air can cause the newly installed planks to swell. Having wet hardwood floors that have been water damaged and are cupping can be very upsetting.

Cupping occurs when hardwood planks bow inward, creating a concave “cup” shape. The hardwood floor will cup when the moisture content is more on the top of the floor surface, than the underside. The floor is always dry but cold in winter. Cupping is when your hardwood floor has a concave shape.

Hardwood floor gaps, cupping & buckling due to humidity & extreme temperature range. “buckling is when the hardwood floor lifts or separates from the sub floor. During the winter the cupping went down 100% and i have tracked humidity in the crawl space through out the year.it remains 45% or lower year round now. This occurs when the underside of the boards gain more moisture than the topside.

I'm in ma, and our kitchen wood floor (3/4 somerset hardwood, tongue and groove) was installed at the end of january. Many times the dampness and cupping can be completely dried out, saving the wood floor leaving it completely. If you are thinking of installing a new floor and are hoping to avoid the disaster of floor cupping, the impressions hardwood collection has developed a few options which might be of interest. Recently i noted that the floors have started to slightly cup again.it is very faint and can only be seen via side lights from a window or patio door with the overhead lights off.

Also, your floor is more likely to cup. Cupping is a result of underlying water damage, typically coming from beneath the floorboards. Cupping in hardwood floors is caused by changes in moisture levels, whether decreases in the air rh above or increases in moisture from below. When you bring cold outside winter air into a house and then warm it up, the rh of that air drops significantly.

Keeping your floor clean is an essential first step! The temperatures of fall offer ideal conditions for you to embark on a hardwood flooring installation project. Knowing how to dry out the damp floors quickly is the key to removing the moisture from underneath the wood floor. In the winter, people can track in snow and salt on their boots, causing damage to the floor.

The floor behaves that way because of wood's relationship with moisture in the air (there's no accounting for how the customers behave, although educating them about gaps. We have factory finished hardwood floors. The hardwood flooring closest to an outside wall in a bedroom is cupping downward. Hardwood floor in basement cupping.

Yes, manufacturers have developed different types of hardwood floor constructions to “improve and control” the wood natural reaction to changes in humidity. Traditional “wet cupping” can still happen during the winter. And wood is a natural material that reacts to changes in its environment even after it has been transformed into flooring. You can also make sure you have good, absorptive rugs at your entryways and make sure people wipe their feet before they walk on the floor.

When there is a dry spell, the hardwood will shrink; When the moisture increases, the wood swells and then when it decreases, the wood shrinks. My basement was finished by the previous owners about 30 years ago, and they put down hardwood floors, possibly directly on the concrete. But, what is hardwood floor cupping?

Center bowing up, edges down. Dry air is forced into the environment. Other causes of hardwood floor cupping could include situations such as basement plumbing leaks that allow moisture to migrate up into the subfloor and into the wood flooring or the heat from a wood. If the floor board looks concaved, you have cupped hardwood floors.

During the winter, even the most carefully installed wood floors tend to dry out and shrink. If we leave the house for four months in the winter, what temperature should we set the thermostat on to protect the floors and wood cabinets? It does this mostly in the winter: One instance that involved a delayed manifestation of a cupping problem was a wood floor installed on the second of three levels in an existing structure in a warm, humid climate.

Moisture is now removed from not only the environment but the cells or pores of the hardwood. I'm asking because my kitchen floor is experiencing cupping similar to the original poster's description. The wood itself had been sitting in a room adjacent to the kitchen for a month prior to installation. It’s important to remember that both engineered and solid hardwood flooring can cup in the driest days of winter if there is an unseen source of water beneath the flooring.