Vapor barrier on concrete slab recommendation

A vapor barrier was supposed to be installed inside concrete slab by my GC. I am not sure it was ever done I don’t see it on top of concrete slab and GC has abandoned the job. I have wooden floors installed on concrete slab in a few areas the floors have raised up. What could be causing this issue? What are my options to get this fixed?

bklyn7

in About Brooklyn 12 years and 1 month ago

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dorkofwindsor | 12 years and 1 month ago

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you wouldn’t see the vapor barrier, so i’m not sure what he used if any at all or how you can actually tell short of drilling a hole in your floor to check. one thing to consider – floors really shouldn’t be laid for at least 90 days after the concrete is poured. It has not cured and still has a lot of moisture to release. To me even 90 days seems short, even under intensive commercial dehumidification. Personally i’d be more at 6 months, but that’s not practical for most, so floors sometimes get laid when it works for the contractor. Humidity in the air should be measured and regulated with a dehumidifier (s) that can regulate the moisture automatically. I wouldn’t do anything until running one (some) of those straight for a few weeks, and see if the problem gets better, worse, or no change. You can only do detective work at this stage in (ultimately) deciding to rip up your floors and harden your concrete with something like lithiom silicate etc. just in case there was no vapor barrier installed.

nalusurf | 12 years and 1 month ago

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Add a DE-humidifier, don’t want to add to any existing humidity!! 😉

bkk | 12 years and 1 month ago

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Based on my limited experience of this scenario, my guess is this is coming from one of two different things: 1) there was no moisture barrier installed allowing water to wick up through the concrete and seeping into the wooden floors. 2) as I am assuming it is a basement and it is probably very humid down there this time of year. It could be a simple fix of adding a humidifier down there and getting the humidity back down under 50-60%. Also, usually floors are installed with an expansion gap by the walls so if the boards do take on moisture they don’t buckle, this may not have been done either. If the answer is #1, you will probably have to rip up floors and put something like tile down… or put a vapor barrier on top of the concrete and reinstall the wooden floors (vapor barriers usually go underneath the concrete), although I don’t know if that is possible. In general, I have heard nothing but negative accounts of installing wood floors in the basement. I would love to put wood down there but I don’t have the cajones, as there are so many things that can go wrong (pipe burst, flooding, humidity, etc). Good luck finding the culprit!