Hardwood Floor Has Large Gaps

Gaps in hardwood floors can be a huge visual annoyance.

Hardwood floor has large gaps.

Adding filler is not a good idea. Hardwood takes on and loses moisture as the temperatures and the humidity rises and falls. It will get pushed out as the. Try to avoid gaps in the first place.

Hardwood gaps are generally caused by one of a few installation errors. Another exacerbating condition is water damage. With older tongue and groove hardwood or even wide plank floors gaps inevitably develop between the boards mostly because the wood shrinks over time as it dries out and loses moisture content. It may take years for gaps to show up in your hardwood floors.

Water logged wood will first swell then shrink as it dries out. The problem is magnified when the boards were not tightly laid in the first place. Avoiding hardwood floor gaps. Putty fillers were once a mainstay of hardwood floor repair.

There are many different ways to go about correcting this type of issue but we will dive into the most common. This type of cracking is considered normal for hardwood and no filler method will hold up unless the proper humidity is maintained. To prevent large gaps in your wood floors stabilize your home s relative humidity by using a humidifier in the winter months. Have the installer perform a humidity level test because either very high or very low humidity can cause bowing splitting and warping.

Filling large gaps in old wood floors if you cannot fix the problem by installing a humidifier you may need to take more drastic action when it comes to filling wide gaps. The gaps are able to fit a dime in some areas and some are less gaps than that. Expansion and contractions causes hardwood floor gaps. Over time however the putty hardens chips and flakes.

Improperly acclimating the hardwoods prior to installation. Wood fillers are also not meant for use with large gaps. We live in chicago and had water damage in the house due to pipe burst and then we had the hard wood floors installed last oct. For normal gaps no repairs are needed.

Before installing hardwood floors it is important to acclimate the product to your home. This jan we started noticing gaps between the boards. 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. I am buying a new construction loft which is to have floating maple floors.

They were just put down and the problem is i think they look terrible because you can see several gaps between the panels a few are large enough to insert a credit card with plenty of slack. Failing to install the first board perfectly straight in a hardwood flooring installation. Whether your floors are newly installed or you ve had hardwood floors for years you can use humidifiers to reduce the likelihood of gaps. Use exhaust fans and dehumidifiers to prevent too much moisture in.

Not only are they an eyesore they can also collect dirt and dust. Floating floor with gaps.