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Why is leaving a home unoccupied so detrimental to hardwood floors?

Wood Flooring Guy, I am having unfinished 3,4 and 5″ Walnut flooring Installed. One installer says to glue and nail it down, without paper or felt to hold better and prevent cupping. Installer #2 says use paper or felt , nail every 8″, and if concerned bisquit and glue each end.

My hardwood floors were refinished 4 years ago. In the past year the floor is darkening, and there is separating of boards. There are smaller, darker circular areas. Mostly in the living room, which was carpeted for many years, but also in bedroom which was refinished many years ago. Some of boards are separating in the living room, and I can feel a slight bowing. My basement is dirt - house built in late forties. Few of boards appear to be eaten. Termite inspection last year revealed no termites, but moisture.

My home is located in the Kansas City area. I am currently in the process of finishing the basement. My wife would like to have hardwood floors. My main concerns in using a wood floor is moisture, the cold feel, and losing headroom from a built-up floor. I intended to use a subfloor material and install a floating engineered wood floor on the subfloor. I am considering two products to use as a subfloor for the wood floors. The two products are Delta FL (www.deltafl.com) and DRIcore (www.dricore.com). Both products are similar in that they use high density polyethylene (HDPE) as the vapor barrier. The major difference is the DRIcore product a 5/8” wafer board attached to the HDPE and per the Delta FL website, the wood floor can be installed directly on the HDPE. Do you have any experience with these products? Which product do you recommend or is there a better method?

We have a wood floor covered in a cement slush which is about an inch thick. We want to go over the cement since it has asbestos glue on the cement. The two contractors we’ve spoken to are encouraging us to put down plywood and then solid hardwood on top of that. We are also considering putting down a floating engineered floor with a sizable veneer. Which would you recommend?

If my hardwood floors were installed poorly…. My hardwood is glued directly to concrete, no vapor barrier, and there is no 1/2″ gap between floor and wall. How much moisture is needed to cause cupping, or worse, buckling?

We are building a new home. It is pier and beam construction. Our cherry floors were installed in Nov. and then covered with cardboard to protect them until finishing them, last month. Uncovering revealed severe cupping and the wood was above 10% moisture and could not be finished. The flooring company suggested running heaters, which was done for 2 weeks with little result. When the contractor got the central heat running the floors began to dry out but then actually increased in moisture again. There is no water in the house or under the house. We had a lot of rain and cold in Dec. and Jan. and they are telling us this is a normal thing and the floors will be fine once dry and finished. What do you think?

We had engineered oak hardwood glued down to our concrete subfloor in the lower level of our backsplit. It was done by a flooring company. They said the glue would allow the wood to float. It has been in 3 years and the only problem is that in the winter there are certain parts of the floor that pop when you walk on them. It is not in all areas and only happens in the winter. During the warmer months I don’t notice any play in the floor. The edges of the strips are not buckling. Is this something that we should worry about?

Our landlord just installed new oak floors in several rooms. They are beautiful. But ever since their installation, we have VERY dry air in the house and cannot get past the choking feeling in the air, despite running a humidifier as much as possible. How long will this last (it’s awful during this flu season)? Any recommendations to help the floor to “settle in”?

About 3 months ago I had bamboo installed in my second story bedroom over a plywood subfloor. Unfortunately, after a month of being installed 6 gaps opened ranging in size.

The flooring as I understand it has a moisture rating of between 8-10. My heat designer said they recommend between 6-8. I have the new flooring laying on the radiant heat (in boxes) for about a week.

I did bring in a professional hardwood floor sander/refinisher to finish the floor. It was only after the sanding and two coats of oil-based urethane were applied that I noticed and became concerned about the gaps between hardwood strips. I obviously had not checked closely before the refinishing began, so my mistake. I can only guess that being in this part of the province during the heating season, the humidity level was so low that the hardwood shrank appreciably.

I’m having a problem with my wood floor popping when the furnace comes on and run for 30 minutes or more. I am getting this very loud popping in the flooring, is that a natural occurrence when the weather out side changes or is that something I need too be concern about?

My hickory 4-inch-board floors were installed in December 2005 in a brand new home. The boards are not laying completely flat. They have like a wavy appearance and you can feel the waves with your hands. I noticed this probably a month or so after installation. I have been waiting, thinking they might flatten out in time. Also, I hear loud “cracking sounds” coming from the flooring from time to time. Could you tell me what caused this and if there is anything that can be done about it?

We have a new wood floor installed in a new addition, over a newly built crawl space. The floor was installed during a very wet period of the summer (historic floods took place near that time). The floor was flat after finishing. We covered it with drop cloths for a few weeks while trim work was done. When we removed the drop cloths, the floors had cupped. There had also been a problem with drainage that the builder had fixed, but not before it flooded the new crawl space. Now we are stumped – the job is done, we are about to have it inspected, and the builder is saying to wait until winter for the floor to flatten out with the heat. What if it doesn’t? What if it still needs to be resanded and refinished? Whose responsibility is this? We are reluctant to move into the space before this issue is resolved, but how long can/should we wait?

How seriously do we need to take the humidity issue? (Of course, no-one told us about this when we were looking at hardwood as an option.) We mercifully don’t have a leaky condo. Do we really have to forgo fresh air?

There is a large bubble in a click-type engineered floor in our basement. It was installed 6 months ago. The dealer says it is due to excess moisture and will charge for a T cap, removal of quarter round and repair to board. Is this reasonable?

I just purchased a condo with hardwood floors that were installed about 3 years ago. It is summer in Chicago and it is hot and humid. The central air has not been on in the condo so far this summer so I am assuming that the floor has expanded about as much as it is going to. I see cracks in between some of the planks and in some corners the quarter round moulding does not cover small holes in the floor. The cracks between the planks do not bother me aesthetically. I am wondering if it is OK to damp mop the floor the way it is? Or is too much moisture going to get underneath the planks because of the cracks and holes?

When I bounce up and down on the flooring by the threshold that was removed, you can see the sub-flooring move up and down about an 1/8″. Could improper nail down of the sub-flooring be a problem?

In January we had the carpet in our home replaced with hardwoods (four rooms). The new and older hardwoods were then all sanded and finished with an oil-base finish. Now, 6 months later, the new woods are cupping, not only in the rooms where there had been carpet, but also in the kitchen where new wood was used to patch a small area under a cabinet peninsula that we removed. Our first thought was that the cupping was caused by a moisture problem in the crawl space (we live in an area that is humid during the summer), but if that were true, wouldn’t all the hardwoods on the first floor be cupping, and not just the new wood? Does this have something to do with the installation? Acclimation? Finishing? What do you suggest we do to fix the floors? And can this be done without re-sanding and refinishing?