Hardwood Floor Humidity Problems Require Solutions, Especially in the Reno/Tahoe Area
The humidity in your home should average between 40 and 60 percent. If your home fluctuates beyond either of those numbers, hardwood floor humidity problems, like cupping and buckling, will only become greater over time.
Being a natural product, hardwood floors can develop humidity problems in your Reno/Tahoe home. If humidity levels are too high, your wood flooring expands. If humidity levels become too low, the flooring in your home will contract. Lets discuss some of the ways we can avoid either of those extremes.
Uncontrolled Humidity Can Damage Your Hardwood Floors
An uncontrolled cycle of expanding and contracting will cause unnecessary and wear and tear to your hardwood floors. Even if the levels aren’t extreme. Fortunately, there are a few tricks you can employ to address the issue of rising and dropping humidity levels in your home. All of which geared towards prolonging the life and value of your hardwood floors.
A steady humidity level is also believed to improve your health. Lowering the incidence of lung related issues, as well as maladies like the common cold and the flu virus.
An Automated Control System can Solve Your Hardwood Floor Humidity Problems
Before – or even while – you install your hardwood floors, you can include any of several systems which regulate humidity levels. It’s actually no problem at all to have a humidity control system added to your home. An automated system will work best, of course. Once installed it does all the work for you, solving your hardwood floor humidity problems.
Wintertime Humidity Solutions
Here in the Reno/Tahoe area, Winter means the heater is on. That warm air makes humidity levels drop. When humidity drops, wood contracts. Which unfortunately results in gaps between the planks of your hardwood floor. If your home lacks a humidity control system, any portable humidifier can be placed in the rooms where you have hardwood flooring. Also, humidifiers are available which can be added to your existing furnace.
Summertime Humidity Solutions
Living in the High Desert means limited moisture in the air, no matter what time of year it is. With very few very specific exceptions based on what altitude of which side of which mountain you live on, of course. High humidity will result in expansion which results in planking or cupping. Conditions in which your hardwood floor planks bow up or down along their length, harming their finish and exposing them to additional moisture issues. In most cases, the planking or cupping will self-correct when the high humidity is corrected.
If Your Hardwood Floor Humidity Problems Have Gone On Too Long…
Sometimes, if the problem has gone on too long, additional work may be required to restore your hardwood floors to their original beautiful condition. They may only need to be sanded and refinished. By the same token, they may need to be replaced, in whole or in part. Which is why solving hardwood floor humidity problems in your Reno/Tahoe home is so important.
That contingency is where a Free Professional Consultation from Artisan Hardwood Floors will serve you well. We will assess your hardwood flooring and the conditions which may have caused them problems, then offer you a complimentary, complete, competitive, cost effective estimate to bring them back to their original beauty and luster.
Contact me right away, while the idea is still fresh in your mind.
Sorin Giurca