Timber Floor Shrinkage

Floating a solid wood or bamboo floor know the limitations.

Timber floor shrinkage. 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. Wood shrinkage occurs perpendicular to grain meaning that a solid sawn wood stud or floor joist will shrink in its cross section dimensions width and depth. Rafting is best described as an un natural or non random appearance of gapping of installed wood flooring. Like hary callahan said.

Several factors can lead to its cause. The internal moisture content will adjust to the surrounding atmosphere after the timber is installed and this may lead to permanent or seasonal swelling splitting or shrinkage creating gaps at board edges. The amount a piece of wood will shrink lengthwise called longitudinal shrinkage is so small typically about 0 1 to 0 2 that it is usually inconsequential to the volumetric shrinkage however plywood greatly benefits from the low longitudinal shrinkage of wood layers of wood veneer are glued together with the grain direction of each ply oriented perpendicular to the adjacent ply. Wood movement can ruin a seemingly well constructed project.

In multi story buildings wood. Know that wider boards expand and contract more than narrower ones. Customers begin to notice gaps between boards and the phone calls begin. Luckily getting ahead of the material and calculating wood shrinkage and expansion is fairly easy all you need to do is multiply three numbers together.

By examining it from a layman s view. Gapping occurs when wood floors lose their moisture content. Sometimes one or several large gaps may appear in a floor. Even though the hardwood is no longer living and growing it contains cells that still take on and lose moisture with changes in relative humidity.

The wood flooring has too much moisture content when installed and then shrinks as it dries out the solution is to buy dry wood and to acclimate the flooring to the room you want to lay it in. Shrinking floating floor has been a common floating floor concerns in recent years. Timber flooring will shrink or swell according to its internal moisture content timber species used and the installation environment. A man s got to know his limitations all bamboo and wood expands and contracts in response to humidity.

All work that introduces moisture concrete floors drywall taping and texturing painting must be complete and dry. Seen often with strand bamboo flooring also laminate engineered wood and even luxury vinyl floating floors. Measure the board s width. Cumulative shrinkage can occur in most types of floors including solid strip planks wood block and mosaic just to name a few.

Longitudinal shrinkage is negligible meaning the length of a stud or floor joist will essentially remain unchanged. During the winter even the most carefully installed wood floors tend to dry out and shrink. A floor looks beautiful for a while and suddenly develops wide gaps at plank ends sides along walls or at doorways.