Relative Humidity For Hardwood Floors

In this chart you can see a small highlighted section.

Relative humidity for hardwood floors.

When hardwood flooring is too dry the below slide is a typical winter day with an outside temperature of 10 f 12 c and rh of 70. With summer quickly approaching rising humidity levels can compromise your wood floor installations if not accounted for. The illustration below will make it easy to understand. When you see dew on the grass in the morning it means that the temperature dropped to a level that made the rh 100 and the water vapor.

Moisture levels can be read with a meter like the wagner mmc 220 this is a pinless meter and allows you to get an accurate reading without sticking pins into the floor and creating pinholes. In non scientific terms relative humidity rh is how much water is in the air. Dew point is when the air is 100 saturated at a given temperature. How this change affects wood flooring depends on several factors.

In general relative humidity in the building should be between 30 50 percent year round for optimal wood flooring performance. Ideal temperature humidity for wood floors. This creates a concave u shape in the board. As you can see engineered wood flooring is more stable than solid wood flooring.

This chart highlights the ideal levels of moisture in wood at various temperatures and relative humidity rh levels. Relative humidity levels of 35 65 other lauzon engineered hardwood floors relative humidity levels of 35 55 lauzon solid hardwood floors. What i did not realize was the amazing effect temperature has on humidity and as a result hardwood flooring. Just like humans wood is most comfortable within an ideal range of temperatures and relative humidity.

In terms of your flooring excessive relative humidity can cause several issues. Crowning is the opposite of cupping. Relative humidity and hardwood flooring posted on march 28 2014 by flooring professionals administrator as we try and escape the grip of one of the hardest winters ever in the mid atlantic region gapping of hardwood continues to be an on going issue for hardwood installations. Temperatures should be kept between 60 and 80 fahrenheit.

One of the reasons for this is that the bottom layers are made of cross sided layers that move on opposite. A wood floor that is exposed to a relative humidity change of just 30 percent moving from 30 percent rh to 60 percent rh can experience enough dimensional change to affect the appearance and performance of the floor. Relative humidity was monitored two months before the flooring was considered. The builder waited for all windows and doors and finished most of the other work that can affect wood floors such as painting concrete work and the like.

These are the safest conditions for most types of wood between 60 and 80 degrees fahrenheit and 30 to 50 rh.