Humidity and Timber Floors

I was recently asked to survey a large timber parquet floor for a local town council. They are planning a full refurbishment project over the next few years for the hall to include either a new type of floor entirely or a full restoration of the floor they have.

The more immediate issue they have is that during the summer months the floor is bulging in places and is making the space unusable, this is leading to paying customers going elsewhere to find a space to carry out their activities.

Every year the floor lifts up in places, the caretaker has been sticking it back down only for it to lift somewhere else and so he is chasing the problem around the floor and has been for a number of years.

There could be a number of reasons for this but we think we have found the issue. After eliminating the obvious like water leaks we have concluded that humidity coupled with poor fitting is the problem. During the summer months the weather can become very humid, the timber sucks in the moisture from the atmosphere and expands. There is very little space for the floor to expand in to  ( as it has been poorly fitted ) and so it pushes up to the edge of the room, from there the only way is up! The floor lifts because there is nowhere else for it to go.

The solution is to control the atmosphere in the hall and give the floor more room to move.

This can be done by firstly using a special saw which will cut close to the wall or skirting board and remove a groove of flooring giving the floor an expansion gap – more room to expand. Then using a temporary solution during the summer to remove humidity from the air until a permanent air conditioning system is fitted during the refurbishment.

We have advised the customer to use de humidifiers to help stabilize the atmosphere in the hall. This should stop the problem in its tracks and should lead to better customer retention, which is what matters.

If you have a problematic timber floor call us as there is normally a solution.