Hardwood Floor Cupping Dehumidifier

Hardwood floor moisture problems.

Hardwood floor cupping dehumidifier. The boards have bowed up in a large section in the center of the floor and you can bounce on them. As per the national wood floor association nwfa 90 of wood flooring failures are related to relative humidity and moisture problems. Cupping also known as wash boarding is the milder form of floor damage. Water is the enemy of hardwood flooring.

The paper will curl up away from the water. Use a unit that drains automatically set it at 35 and let it run all summer long. Picture a typical wooden floor plank. Hardwood floor in basement cupping q.

So your flooring may show signs of staining from small spills the wet floor may also begin to buckle and cup when large amounts of water are absorbed as the planks swell. Any wood floor can suffer from cupping. The simplest way to think of wood floor cupping is to imagine the edges of each plank sticking up higher than the centers. Sanding so now that you have eliminated the moisture source and dehumidified your space if you still see no change in your floor the cupping as just as severe as before then this calls for more serious action.

My basement was finished by the previous owners about 30 years ago and they put down hardwood floors possibly directly on the concrete. Wood floor cupping as the name suggests is a condition where the edges of floorboards curl upward. Consistently high humidity can swell wood by as much as 15. Cupping occurs in solid wood flooring as a result of an elevated mc in the bottom of the flooring compared with the mc of the face.

In some instances the use of fans and or dehumidifiers might be necessary to bring everything back to normal. Too much indoor humidity for an extended period will create the adverse effects of cupping and crowning. It will then take some time for the wood flooring to get back to its normal internal humidity balance and shape. Dehumidifiers remove moisture content in the air and if you are lucky a simple dehumidifying session might do the trick and help reverse the hardwood floor cupping.

The general effect is easy to demonstrate by putting a small strip of paper onto a small drop of water. It is not hard to see the effect in. Warping and cupping are the two main types of floor damage and each cause varying degrees of deterioration. Hardwood floor cupping and crowning.

If you imagine a picture of a child drawing a boat in the water then the water will give you a good idea of what a cupped floor looks like. To prevent hardwood cupping in a basement situation run a quality dehumidifier that s large enough to handle the area. When a wood plank cups. Due to the porous nature of wood moisture can be easily absorbed into the material.

Water as with just about any household issue is almost always the cause of hardwood floor warping. During warm and humid summers the hardwood floor absorbs moisture from the air swelling and expanding creating pressure between the boards and causing the boards to warp cup or crack. Subfloor moisture another common cause of hardwood cupping is a sub floor that has higher moisture content than the wood itself.