For many reasons, fall is the best season to install hardwood floors. Autumn is the ideal time for new beginnings. With the winter holidays around the corner, fall is also the ideal time to tackle a renovation project or two before you welcome family and friends to your home during the holiday season.
Installing hardwood floors is a great option to make a room feel like new without remodeling. Plus, it can add value to your home. Hardwood floors can be installed in the winter, but doing so comes with some challenges. Humidity—the level of moisture present in the air—plays a key role in floor installation.
In summer temperatures, the organic material of hardwood expands. Should you put down your floors, they're sure to look perfectly fine once the installers are done. Issues won't crop up until the winter season when your boards contract and lose the moisture soaked up in the summer.
If hardwood planks are not allowed to acclimate to their environment before installation, issues like cupping, warping, and gapping can arise.
Can Hardwood Flooring Acclimate in the Box? It is possible to acclimate hardwood flooring in the box, but it will take much longer due to the lack of air circulation.
You probably have heard that wood expands in the humid conditions of summer and spring, and then contracts in winter dryness. For this reason, it is usually recommended that you install hardwood floors during the cold months. Because as the days warm up, the wood will expand, maintaining a good fit.
The average cost to install hardwood flooring is $4,213 with most homeowners spending between $2,311 and $6,115. On the low end, you can expect to pay $6 to $11 per square foot, and on the high-end prices range from $12 to $23 per square foot for both materials and installation.
At a minimum, you should wait at least 24 hrs before walking on the floors; for hours 24-48, it's best to wear socks only (no shoes, no bare feet). Ideally, you should wait a total of 4 days before moving furniture back. This is to allow enough time for the floors to dry and cure.
It is important to acclimate solid hardwood because wood is hygroscopic. This means that it will take on moisture from the environment it is in. Taking on or losing too much moisture will cause wood to change. It can expand, shrink, check, or split because of excessive moisture changes.
The safe temperature range for hardwood floors is typically between 60 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
That's called hardwood cupping. Excess moisture is the culprit when it comes to hardwood cupping. This happens when the humidity level is high, when the boards absorb too much moisture from the subfloor, from water leaks and spills or even by cleaning your hardwood flooring in the wrong manner.
With or without a good solid humidifier, wood expands when wet. Just as shrinking wood planks can make for significant creaking and damage, so too can excessive moisture cause hardwood to swell. This can create just as much havoc as wood panels stretch and strain at cement foundations or other types of framing.
How long do I have to wait to use my room after new floors are installed? We recommend waiting 6 hours before walking on your new floors in socks. After 24 hours you can walk through with shoes on. Allow 48 hours before setting furniture and returning pets.
You should really store your hardwood flooring in a controlled environment, never a garage or basement. If the hardwood is being store above 50% humidity it will take in a ton of moisture and expand this will typically happen in the summer months when humidity is at it's highest.
No. By all means, avoid sleeping in the house after refinishing surfaces using oil-based products. Oil-based polyurethane emits a strong smell that's uncomfortable to be around. It is neither safe nor smart to expose yourself and others to such a highly toxic environment.
Wait 3 weeks before putting area rugs on newly refinished/finished hardwood floors. Wait 48 to 72 hours after the hardwood has been refinished/ finished before "PLACING" furniture back in its place. Keep a steady temperature and humidity within your home.
Depending on a floor's thickness and the experience of the flooring professional, a floor can be sanded around 4-6 times in its entire life. Hardwood floors can be refinished every 7-10 years, making the 4-6 refinishes more than enough.
As CNN reported, hardwood floors can also increase home value by 3-5%. This makes them a very attractive prospect for anyone looking to sell their house in the near future. However, even if you don't plan on moving any time soon, hardwood floors may still be a good investment.
Expect to pay between $4,500 and $30,000 for 1,500 square feet of solid wood flooring. The species of wood you choose for your home can be a big determinant of the installation costs.
Hardwood floors creak more in the winter because wood expands with heat and shrinks with cold. This expansion and shrinkage can cause the floor to become detached from the subfloor joists – the nails will come out, and glue will come apart.
During the winter, when homes are heated and the air is dry, wood flooring loses some of its moisture and contracts or shrinks as a result. It is normal that when relative humidity is lower than recommended, wood plank shrinks, therefore thin gaps can appear between wood planks.
If they haven't acclimated, there is a good chance that your floors will warp as they settle. You may not notice it at first – but your floors will have problems down the road. Request that your new wooden floors be delivered prior to installation for acclimation.