Oak floors

[sadders]

Last summer we put some oak floors down. The wood had acclimatized in the house for a good 3 months before laying. As the walls were being plastered we hid the expansion gap under the skirting.

Over the course of the winter the floors have shrunk. So much so that there is a 1/2 cm gap between the floors and skirting all around the room not to mention some big gaps between the boards in the middle of the room.

In the bedroom there are fitted wardrobes on top of the floor so lifting would be very difficult and I don't want to use quadrant.

Are there any solutions for this problem?

 

[mattysupra]

where was your flooring when you plastered?

what method is it fitted on? guessing floating?

 

[sadders]

where was your flooring when you plastered?

what method is it fitted on? guessing floating?

Stacked in the house (had a lot of work done).

and

I think its floating though not sure.

 

[mattysupra]

well to me it sounds like you had wet works going on while the flooring was aclimatising, plaster etc.

The flooring would of soaked in the extra moister from the air and grown. Now you have laid it and the property is drying, so is the flooring.

I think it is floating also, hence it has shrank away from the skirts rather than the whole floor shrinking between boards and giving it a balanced shrinkage rather than the whole lot shrinking as a mass.


the bad news is..... the whole lot will need to come up and be re fitted if possible or you need to raise the moister level in the house, this will happen on its own when your heating is turned off, but it will not grow as much as you would like it to!

 

[WoodYouLike]

What type of heating do you have? Winter = heating season = dry air = shrinkage of wood.

The air humidity has been very very low this winter and is just now getting higher. If you can, wait a while to see if this higher humidity will expand the floor back.