Big Hump in New solid wood flooring

dramaqueen · 30 Dec 2010

Hi, looking for a bit of advice or comment on what we're doing to try and solve this problem.
We built a full width extension,open plan so we have part of oringinal house in the extension as well.
We or rather, i decided to go for solid wood flooring. Purchased from Magnet. Fitted with glue. Looked beautiful. The wood turned up a little bit at the edges but then settled down.
Then we developed a hump in the wood just before Christmas which very quickly spread and looked ready to crack or pop. We placed weights on the hump and managed to get our builder to come and have a look yesterday.
He'd left more than the allocated 3mm per metre and when he'd taken the skirting boards off the wood in places had actually broken the plasterboard. It had certainly expanded quite a bit even without taking into consideration the hump.
Anyway builder has taken a line of wood flooring up from the main wall. It's been a day now since this was done and the flooring still looks like it might pop. We've kept the weights on but are wondering if more weight should be applied.
How long do you think it should take for the hump to level out and have we done the right thing? Is there another remedy?
PS the wood that was taken up had cement stuck to it - ie the glue didn't budge but the cement did
I've tried to show the hump in the pictures - not sure if it shows up that well.
any comments greatly appreciated

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LankyPaddy · 30 Dec 2010

Eeek, quite the hump.

How long did you leave the flooring to acclimatise before laying it?

dramaqueen · 30 Dec 2010

hi, about 4 weeks. Dehumidifiers constantly used throughout the time too.
Little problem with lifting on the original floor but nothing like on the extension part.
Worried that it may effect the kitchen cupboards/worktop as it's lifting right at the base of the island cupboards. Kitchen was fitted on top of flooring

crazydaze · 30 Dec 2010

It looks like the most likely issue is excessive damp in the extension subfloor still.

General rule is 4 weeks for every 1" of subfloor depth for drying. De-humidifiers won't really help.

Best thing to do is get an area of the floor up and use a hydrometer to test an accurate moisture content of the subfloor and compare your readings to the floor recommendations. A hand held 'prong' style damp meter will not be accurate.

Ideally solid wood floors should be glued to the sub floor not floated.

WoodYouLike · 30 Dec 2010

PS the wood that was taken up had cement stuck to it - ie the glue didn't budge but the cement did

Ideally solid wood floors should be glued to the sub floor not floated.

Sounds like it was fully bonded to the floor. Which, looking at the many joints of the floor, is indeed the only option with these types of solid wood flooring.

Before the installation of the solid wood floor started, had anyone checked the moist in the concrete - or was it "only" a screed layer. If so, that's often a very weak link, especially if latex screed has been used.

Kitchen was fitted on top of flooring

That's another problem you have there. It's often better to install just underneath the kickboards to prevent having to rip out all the units again when things like this happens

digdilem · 30 Dec 2010

Is there a big enough expansion gap around the walls?

Petest67 · 30 Dec 2010

crazydaze";p="1847856 said:
It looks like the most likely issue is excessive damp in the extension subfloor still.

quote]
2nd that, did your builder fit it or did you have a pro do it (not that it matters because whoever installed it should have checked for moisture first and kept records).

dramaqueen · 30 Dec 2010

Hi guys, thanks for the feedback - here's a few answers to the questions

Before the installation of the solid wood floor started, had anyone checked the moist in the concrete - or was it "only" a screed layer. If so, that's often a very weak link, especially if latex screed has been used

I believe it was a screed layer, but not sure if it was latex.

2nd that, did your builder fit it or did you have a pro do it (not that it matters because whoever installed it should have checked for moisture first and kept records).

Our builder fitted it. will have to ask him about his records.

Best thing to do is get an area of the floor up and use a hydrometer to test an accurate moisture content of the subfloor

if there is excessive moisture, what can be done about it?
Are we ok leaving the weights on and hoping the hump will go?

Is there a big enough expansion gap around the walls?

please see images of expansion now. This is only one side of the room as the other side is the original flooring and we don't have a problem with that
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space now provided for wood flooring to move into, hopefully removing hump in wood by doing so...

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JohnD · 30 Dec 2010

How long did you leave the flooring to acclimatise before laying it?

dramaqueen said:
hi, about 4 weeks. Dehumidifiers constantly used throughout the time too.

Sounds like you mean you had the new flooring acclimatising in a room where dehumidifiers were running. In which case it will have been excessively dried and shrunken before it was fixed.

dramaqueen · 30 Dec 2010

Hi

Sounds like you mean you had the new flooring acclimatising in a room where dehumidifiers were running. In which case it will have been excessively dried and shrunken before it was fixed.

that may have been possible, not sure if the wood was in the same room all of the time.. but...is what we're doing the right way to overcome the problem?

how long will it be until we know? really don't like the thought (and expense) of removing kitchen cupboards etc i'm hoping there will be an easier more cost effective way

digdilem · 30 Dec 2010

dramaqueen said:
please see images of expansion now. This is only one side of the room as the other side is the original flooring and we don't have a problem with that

Agree, looks adequate

If your weather is the same as us, since monday things started to thaw heavily. This has caused significant amounts of humidity in my world; doors sticking in frames, condensation dripping off the inside of corrogated roofs, etc etc.

If this was okay until the humidity changed so strongly very recently, then +1 for the others' idea of the wood swelling, but it may be airbourne rather than damp coming up through.

Bit of a bugger whichever way you look at it though.

dramaqueen · 30 Dec 2010

Bit of a b*****r whichever way you look at it though.

fingers crossed it will all move towards the expansion area. anyone had experience of how long this will take. Hump grew in a matter of days!!

No Christmas/New Year party hosting for us - we'd have to take out persONAL injury insurance. Can just see the headlines - New year celebration man with broken toes from standing too close to 5 lots of 20kg weights!!!!

geraint · 30 Dec 2010

crazydaze said:
It looks like the most likely issue is excessive damp in the extension subfloor still.

General rule is 4 weeks for every 1" of subfloor depth for drying. De-humidifiers won't really help.

Best thing to do is get an area of the floor up and use a hydrometer to test an accurate moisture content of the subfloor and compare your readings to the floor recommendations. A hand held 'prong' style damp meter will not be accurate.

Ideally solid wood floors should be glued to the sub floor not floated.

four weeks per inch..... that is interesting....

WoodYouLike · 31 Dec 2010

geraint said:
four weeks per inch..... that is interesting....

Why?
It's a rule of thumb: every inch (2.5cm) of concrete takes around 30 days to dry naturally (of course, as long as the room is wind and weather tight, no other wet-works are taking place at the same time).

dramaqueen · 31 Dec 2010

Hi folks, woke up this morning and gap seems to have widened.
Should i still keep the weights on or remove them to give wood chance to move naturally?
Looking at the gap it looks like the wood will pop!
Would it be better to remove planks from middle of hump? what happens if it does pop?
Really concerned that we might need to move kitchen cupboards.

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Big Hump in New solid wood flooring

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