Q: I am building a new house and I am interested in wider boards of about 5 inches, but I have heard these can have problems with cupping.
Is this true and if it is, is there a way to avoid the problem?
A: The wider the board, the greater is the chance of cupping. Having said that, the only thing which causes this to happen is excess moisture in the wood itself, either from poor climate control in the house, from installing over a crawl space that has not had steps taken to prevent moisture from rising up under the floor, and such things as this. Make sure you leave at least a 1/2 gap along the walls to allow for any expansion that may occur. The wider the board, the more mass to expand. I believe quarter sawn is much less likely to be affected by this problem at all, though it may be more expensive.
Make sure when this floor is installed that you let it acclimate to the rooms for at least a week. All wet trades must be completed with the heating/air-conditioning in place and functional. Make sure the sub floor is within 4% of the wood flooring as far as moisture content. 7-9% is considered normal range for wood such as oak. If the plywood is reading 20% don’t install the floor.
Related Questions
Buckled wood floors and humidityI laid a oak tongue and groove floor in winter on two layers of plywood. The humidity in the rooms was a bit low but last summer, when the humidity increased the flooring buckled up. Can this be because I didn't leave enough gaps in-between the plywood sheeting underneath. What…
Breathable mats for hardwood floorsQ: We recently installed Azek boards for our outside porch floor. They told me at Azek that if I want to put an outside mat down where we exit the house, it needs to be a breathable mat and not a rubber mat. Do you have a suggestion for me?…
1/4 Inch thick wood floors?I have a number of damaged areas in my 80 yr. old floor. I pulled up one board section and it is 1/4 inch thick. Can I get this material any more?
Hurricanes + humidity and wood floorsI'm considering putting 5" maple engineered floors on the 2nd story of my house (plywood subfloor).But I'm worried that when the power goes out for a week of two after a hurricane the humidity in the house will cause the floors to be ruined. If so, will they come back…
Tropical climate and wood floorsWe just installed N**** Floor Planks and parquet in our basement. We stained the wood and put dead flat finish as topcoat. It was 99% done, when some hairline cracks appeared, there were around 10 at first, but as the days progressed it multiplied. We sanded those parts and re-applied…