Do Wood Floors Shrink In Winter Or Summer

Hardwood floors and humidity.

Do wood floors shrink in winter or summer.

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. Glued floors come loose or the nails pull loose. Here are some tips on how to keep your floors in tip top shape this summer. That s when you start to see gaps forming.

But at some point in the fall we turn the heat on and bake these floors to desert dryness. When humidity levels decrease the boards will shrink more from side to side than end to end. But in most areas winter also means cold weather snow and damage to wood floors. The humidity level inside our homes plummets.

Symptoms of wood floor winter humidity. Hardwood floors do not shrink consistently in all directions. If humidity hits above 55 you might be opening up a chance for moisture to seep into the wood. 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.

That said a hickory wood floor will expand and shrink more than a red oak floor with humidity swings. During the winter even the most carefully installed wood floors tend to dry out and shrink. If the indoor relative humidity is above 60 you should use an air conditioner to dry out the air. The winter months bring holiday cheer.

In the summer you should be using a dehumidifier regularly. Excess humidity in the summer can cause the wood planks to. 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. 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.

Also sudden temperature or moisture humidity changes will affect expansion and contraction changes. Hardwood floors will usually shrink in the winter months and expand in the summer months. And with summer there are a few things you might need to know about how humidity can affect hardwood and laminate flooring. The rule of swelling in summer and shrinking in winter might work where you live but it can be the opposite in other places.

Customers begin to notice gaps between boards and the phone calls begin. Then the colder winter months rolls around you close your home up tight and crank up the heat. 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.

This causes the wood to shrink.