What Is Cupping On Hardwood Floors

Whether your hardwood floor is made of solid or engineered wood it is bound to react to moisture so ensure you take the precautionary measures to prevent cupping.

What is cupping on hardwood floors.

Underlayment and or subfloor that is too wet at the time of installation will cause wood floor cupping. Increase the relative humidity in the room with cupped floors to 20 percent to prevent cupping from the air being too dry. It s surprising how quickly some people can point out a hardwood floor that is not flat and if you. The center of the board dips below the edges.

This makes the wood appear to be in a u shape. 5 tips to prevent hardwood floor cupping this summer. Cupping occurs whenever the individual planks of a floor become concave in the center and rounded on the sides thereby creating a sort of cup or bowl. See the picture at the top of this post for an example of a cupped floor.

A cupped floor develops as moisture from the underlayment or subfloor moves upward through the hardwood. To find out more about the cellular structure of wood see my article understand the science of water and wood floors cupping in solid wood floors. If you are thinking of installing a new floor and are hoping to avoid the disaster of floor cupping the impressions hardwood collection has developed a few options which might be of interest. Let s face it no matter if you installed a light colored oak hardwood floor a darker toned cherry wood floor or something in between like hickory you want your floors to look good.

Cupping occurs in solid wood flooring as a result of an elevated mc in the bottom of the flooring compared with the mc of the face. Homeowners take pride in their wood floors. What makes the piedmont nantucket and hampton series unique is their moisture resistance. As the name implies the surfaces of boards that suffer from cupping have a concave shape.

A poor flooring installation can also result in the cupping of a hardwood floor. Cupping means that the wood that is raised on the edges of each individual floor board. They bow inward resembling the bowl of a spoon or the inside of a cup. The sides of each board are higher than the middle sections.

This problem can happen with either solid or engineered hardwood flooring and is a response to changes in the moisture content of the wood. Hardwood floors need to be cleaned maintained but make sure you use as little water as possible while mopping. If a hardwood floor is installed before a subfloor is properly dried or before the floorboards reach an equilibrium moisture content emc such as before the inside of a building s air is conditioned there is a chance for cupping later on. Some of the causes of installation related cupping are.

As furniture and people begin to inhabit the area it will bring about a new level of moisture and.