Hardwood Floor Gaps During Installation

Gaps during floor installation.

Hardwood floor gaps during installation.

During the winter even the most carefully installed wood floors tend to dry out and shrink. Whether your floors are newly installed or you ve had hardwood floors for years you can use humidifiers to reduce the likelihood of gaps. Wood flooring is a product of nature and not perfect. Yes it can still have gaps.

Hardwood gaps are generally caused by one of a few installation errors. They weren t there in the summer solid 3 4 hardwoods will expand and contract with seasonal changes in moisture. Customers begin to notice gaps between boards and the phone calls begin. Milling or install issue.

Often homeowners and installers will assume that a floor will flow together and practically install itself after the first few boards are laid. Proper expansion gaps left at all fixed objects such as walls during the installation greatly reduces the chances of the flooring buckling. Often it s a floor owner concerned with new hardwood floors separating or gapping. Installation related gaps installers or diy ers are the last link for quality assurance responsible for final inspection of product quality moisture testing the subfloor and wood flooring.

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. Failing to keep boards straight when working. Not only are they an eyesore they can also collect dirt and dust. We receive many questions about gaps that become obvious during installation of hardwood floors.

No two boards will look like or react the same to the same environmental stimuli. Failing to install the first board perfectly straight in a hardwood flooring installation. Gaps in hardwood floors can be a huge visual annoyance. For instance solid hardwood flooring is typically nailed down during installation while tongue and groove engineered flooring is usually clicked together or completely glued down.

This isn t always the case. Hardwood takes on and loses moisture as the temperatures and the humidity rises and falls. Improperly acclimating the hardwoods prior to installation. Gapping in engineered hardwood can be due to many factors including but not limited to the material s manufacturing changes in humidity and the type and quality of the installation.

During installation use reasonable board selectivity and good judgment. The type of installation you choose will depend on your subfloor budget lifestyle and the type of wood flooring you select. This is especially noticeable with site finished floors whose final appearance after the work has been done is near flawless. Expansion and contractions causes hardwood floor gaps.

Large gaps in wood floors that do not close up during the summer months could be a result of excessive moisture check the crawl space below being located too close to a heating vent incorrect nail spacing or structural settlement issues. For normal gaps no repairs are needed.