New Wood Floors
I’m renovating my first floor in PS. I was told that the new floors ( unfinished) should sit in the room that they will be installed in for 2-3 weeks before they are nailed down due to expansion and humidity. I never heard this before but am told that it is standard practice. Any thoughts??
I’m renovating my first floor in PS. I was told that the new floors ( unfinished) should sit in the room that they will be installed in for 2-3 weeks before they are nailed down due to expansion and humidity. I never heard this before but am told that it is standard practice. Any thoughts??
I don’t know if it is that long but the wood needs to adjust to the room moisture level and not be too saturated with moisture because it will shrink and leave gaps when the air is dry, i.e. winter with heat on and vice versa. I think the pro knows how to read the moisture level of the wood so that it is not laid when too moist or expanded or too dry and contracted because either way you can have a reverse reaction at some point. I had a person repair some parquets once and didn’t take this into account. He put all the pieces in tightly in the dead of winter and then when spring came and I had the windows open during a period of a lot of rain and dampness the floor parquets expanded and I had “bubbles” on my floor – places where the wood had expanded and buckled. I had to take them out again and shave the sides of the parquets. What a mess.
they should sit to adjust to the climate of the house. Also, if they are freshly cut they could need time to dry out a bit. Unfortunately, the freshness of the wood is difficult to determine, they could have been sitting in a warehouse for months or just arrived off the boat.
I’ve usually heard 5-7 days rather than 2-3 weeks but the longer you can wait the better.
True! Do it right, do it once.
True! You have a good installer, some of them do not care and you would and up with a problem and have huge gaps in the winter when the heat is working.