But at some point in the fall we turn the heat on and bake these floors to desert dryness.
Do wood floors shrink in winter or summer.
Customers begin to notice gaps between boards and the phone calls begin.
In the summer you should be using a dehumidifier regularly.
If the indoor relative humidity is above 60 you should use an air conditioner to dry out the air.
Hardwood floors and humidity.
Also sudden temperature or moisture humidity changes will affect expansion and contraction changes.
When humidity levels decrease the boards will shrink more from side to side than end to end.
The winter months bring holiday cheer.
In the puget sound region where we live the average outside relative humidity ranges from 65 to 80 percent in the summer which is high compared to winter indoor air.
That said a hickory wood floor will expand and shrink more than a red oak floor with humidity swings.
Symptoms of wood floor winter humidity.
For example in the northwest winters are humid and summers are dry so wood exposed to those conditions would swell in winter and shrink in summer.
The rule of swelling in summer and shrinking in winter might work where you live but it can be the opposite in other places.
Scratches from snow melting materials and flooring gaps are some of the biggest problems that people with hardwood floors have to worry about.
When you do this the humidity level in your home drops and the wood in your floor releases the moisture it s been holding and it begins to contract and shrink.
Hardwood floors do not shrink consistently in all directions.
These extremes on solid wood will cause the wood to reach an equilibrium moisture content of as high as 14 in the summer and as little as 5 in the dead of winter.
That s when you start to see gaps forming.
And with summer there are a few things you might need to know about how humidity can affect hardwood and laminate flooring.
Glued floors come loose or the nails pull loose.
Excess humidity in the summer can cause the wood planks to.
Then the colder winter months rolls around you close your home up tight and crank up the heat.
Hardwood floors will usually shrink in the winter months and expand in the summer months.
During the winter even the most carefully installed wood floors tend to dry out and shrink.
This causes the wood to shrink.
But in most areas winter also means cold weather snow and damage to wood floors.
An un humidified house can easily reach a 25 level in the middle of winter.
The floor behaves that way because of wood s relationship with moisture in the air there s no accounting for how the customers behave although educating them about gaps.
Especially when we keep the windows open higher humidity can cause wood floors to swell up and close all the gaps between boards.
This expansion and contraction can result in the flooring coming loose from the subfloor.
