It’s winter and wood floors are shrinking. Here’s a question I received the other day about this common complaint.

Jean wrote:

Need your expert advice please if you can.  I have installed acres of 18mm solid wood flooring in all my rooms. this winter with the heating on it seems to be shrinking. Seems to be taking wooden studding with it, i.e., door frames fixed on top of it have moved too. Will this settle down do you think?  Many thanks in advance.

My answer:

This shrinking is due to the wood losing moisture content. The indoor relative humidity is usually quite low in the wintertime. As the air dries out, it draws moisture from the wood floors and the rest of the wood in the house, studs and doors included. When the weather warms, the relative humidity will go back up and the wood’s moisture content will increase. The wood floors, studs, joists, and doors will swell up again. If the wood was excessively moist when installed, it will never return to the original size. If the wood had the proper moisture content when it was installed, it will return to its original size. It’s impossible for me to say without knowing the condition at the time of installation. (more…)

It’s nearly winter. That means that your hardwood floors are about to show cracks between the boards. If you’ve moved into a new house, these cracks could cause alarm. How could your brand new hardwood floors crack?

Gaps between boards, or cracks, if you will, are not the result of the wood floor failing or falling apart. They are the result of the wood planks shrinking as the relative humidity goes down and the wood floor loses moisture content. The air in the summer has a higher relative humidity than in the summer. This lets the wood flooring absorb moisture and swell. So usually gaps between boards go away in the summer. Then those gaps reappear in the winter as the humidity goes down again. (more…)

    If you have wood floors in your kitchen and a natural wood finish on your kitchen cabinets, should the floors and cabinets be the same species of wood and the same color or should they contrast? And if they should contrast, which should be the darker color?

    I often discuss this issue with my clients. My feeling is that there needs to be some color distinction between the flooring and the cabinetry so that the cabinets don’t look like the floor is simply wrapping itself up the walls. After all, one is the floor and the other is essentially furniture and they should express themselves differently. I would suggest that there is no rule about which wood is the lighter or the darker. (more…)