Floor wood splitting
ADVICE: I purchased an apt in the fall. I had the floors refinished b/c the finish was worn away in spots, but the different planks and pieces of wood were mostly in excellent shape, and tightly fitted. In the past month, cracks have developed btwn different planks (see first two photos). (Third photo shows good…
ADVICE:
I purchased an apt in the fall. I had the floors refinished b/c the finish was worn away in spots, but the different planks and pieces of wood were mostly in excellent shape, and tightly fitted. In the past month, cracks have developed btwn different planks (see first two photos). (Third photo shows good section of floor, the way the messed up sections used to look too.) Since I wasn’t here last winter I can’t say if the same thing happened then due to wood contracting in winter, and then resolved itself in the spring. I’m freaking out that my floors are slowly becoming ruined, and that they didn’t look like this when I bought the place. Does anyone have any knowledge of what’s happening and if it might resolve itself, if it needs to be fixed, can it be fixed, how much will it cost, etc…
THANKS!!!
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Hi, just noticing that your individual pieces of flooring do NOT seem to be shrinking. The problem would appear to be in the subfloor along the line of the crack.
My original suspicion was that the flooring had too high of a moisture contract when originally installed, which can be a real problem.
However, the individual pieces (or pieces of a like type) are not uniformly shrinking creating lots of little gaps, which I have seen before.
It may well be that as moisture is reintroduced into the subfloor through the air later in the year, that the cracks/movement in the subfloor will reverse this gap and that you will have seasonal fluctuations, but the finished floor is not the culprit in my opinion.
Finished floor should be installed at right angles to the direction of the subfloor, which essentially counters this type of movement and makes the entire floor more stable and rigid. It appears that this principle may not have been factored in here, although replacing or adding the subfloor may not have been practical either. Parquet flooring is even trickier because the length of the pieces are quite short and cannot individually span subflooring that has inherent movement/gaps.
One last thought: there may be structural issues in play. Were load-bearing walls removed anywhere in the vicinity, perhaps in an apartment below? Was a piano or heavy fridge placed where there was none before?
Rereading your post, it sounds like most of this wood is original and simply refinished, bolstering my theory that the finished floor is not the problem and that humidifiers are not likely to solve the problem.
We have a similar issue in our kitchen near the radiator – although, I have to admit, our floors aren’t nearly as pretty as yours!
I was thinking it might make sense to run a humidifier for a couple of hours each day. Has anyone tried this? Does it work?
I just measured. The gap at the worst spots is 1/8″. My wife doesn’t really notice, and when I point it out to her she just shrugs. But it’s killing me. We just spent a few grand refinishing the floors. I understand this is probably unrelated to refinishing, but still… Hopefully they’ll tighten up again in the spring, but yes, kind of a bummer to have the floor with cracks btwn the boards for 4 months a year. As of now there are no cracks in the wood itself, (hopefully it will remain that way!), just btwn some of the boards. Thanks for the reference – maybe I’ll give Joe a call and see what he thinks. If anyone else has an opinion please do chime in. Thanks!
I give up…where is the 3/8″ gap? I don’t see anything there that appears to be more than 1/16″, and consistent with the way a floor will move due to changes in temperature and humidity. I would just keep an eye on it for a couple of years and get to know the normal range to establish a base line.
Call Joe McKenna at Bestwood Flooring. He is passionate about floors. This may be seasonal. I can tell you from experience that to lift the whole floor and relay it, the cost will be almost as much as a new floor.
Phone: 914.879.2822
Seasonal or otherwise… those are HUGE gaps. Doesn’t seem right to me that 3/8″ + gaps appear for 5 months a year. Dry wood should have reasonable contraction – not like that. What’s the point of having ugly gaps? The floor needs to be tightened up. (but not so it buckles in the summer)
Wouldn’t worry about it, looks like seasonal change.
However, if the actual boards start to crack (not shrink) or buckle or if this doesn’t go away by August, then I would start to get worried.
I have the same issue in my house. I havent been there long enough to know if the problem resolves itself with weather but considering the floors have been there for 100 years, I have to assume its nothing to worry about. I imagine the same is true for your floors.
I wouldn’t worry – looks like seasonal humidity changes, contracting the wood in the winter (removing moisture due to heat in the apartment, which really drys out wood.)
I’ll bet the wood cracks disappear, probably by late june when the brooklyn weather gets humid again.
the floors look great, by the way. i wouldn’t do anything.