Please help! I just found out professional installers did not leave an expansion gap on 1400 sq ft of 3 1/4 solid hardwood flooring. The company that installed the floors has been out to my house several times during the course of six years. Each and every time they insisted my floors were failing because i must have a moisture problem. I have fully finished basement, no crawl space and no leaks from any plumbing pipes. I also have a french drain that has been in longer than the floors.they suggested i install dehudifiers which i did. They even provided me with a hydrometer. Which i checked on a regular basis. Temperature is kepted within the guidelines and the floor still had issues. They even had a professional flooring inspector come out and he determined that moisture readings were within the normal range. It was not until last week that i removed a piece of shoe moulding that i discovered there was no expansion and there never was. Floor was installed 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch away from baseboards which basically form a "t" with the floor and gap was then covered by shoe moulding. I immediately called the manufacturer and he said a 3/4 inch expansion is required. I then read all of the nwfa guidelines they were in line with the manufacturer. I then called the floor company and they sent out their installation manager. I immediately asked what happened the expansion gap He replied that the expansion provided was sufficient and that in the areas where none was found my floor had moved to fill in the gap. I asked why the baseboards had not been removed and he replied they do not do that because of problems with matching paint! I then asked about undercutting to provide the expansion gap and he insisted that 1/8 of an inch was sufficient. What can i do now?? I know improper installation will void my warranty. I should also mention i live in the midatlantic region which is known for humid summers and cold winters.

What type of flooring? When was it installed? What is the failure?

Good morning,

The floor was installed in may 2008. It's 3 1/4 royal mahogany. It acclimated to 9% with subfloor readings of 6.1 to 11.5%. We started seeing slight cupping on the entire floor and the cracking and splitting soon after installation. I questioned if it had enough of an expansion gap and was assured that it was installed correctly. It was not until a few weeks ago that i was trying to have my cabinets refinished that i had to pull up the shoe moulding that i found that no expansion was left throughout the floor. I know now that the baseboards were not removed or undercut. The floor is flush to the baseboards and in some areas i only have an 8th of an inch of expansion now that the humidity is and has been at 35%.

Floor problems on first floor of house? What's the difference in the humidity levels between the first floor and basement? Cupping means higher humidity below floor than above. Expansion gap around the perimeter of the room is there to take care of the rows closest to the gap....if the rows toward the middle of room were to expand they would push against each other and buckle up.

City and State? 35% humidity is kind of low. What's your summer household humidity like? Are boards constantly cupped?

Close to DC. Boards look worse in the summer. I know it has a moisture barrier. Some type of heavy duty plastic. It has a mild cup and some boards have cracks on the edges especially those close to the wall. The inspector that came to my house and measured humidity found humidity ranges within range of normal but he did not pull any shoe moulding. Floor was acclimated as far as i know. We run the ac and have a dehumidifier in the basement. This runs in the summer. In the winter our heating system has a whole house humidifier. We did have hardwood floor before in some areas before this install and it did not have the issues that this floor is having.

Did the inspector see the plastic? Should be a moisture retarder not barrier. Worse in summer indicates a humidity imbalance between below and above the floor. If it were me I would wait until the summer and put a humidistat in the basement and on the first floor and compare them. If way off then adjust dehumidifier and a/c to get a good balance. If at this point the cupping is unacceptable then I would consider sanding the floors flat and refinishing. Also, at this time pull some shoe molding and check the expansion gap. If it's not good pull the baseboard and undercut or leave it in place and undercut it in place with a jamb saw or oscillating multitool..the shoe molding will cover the cut edge.
If you're house is at 35% humidity in the winter months and %? in the DC summer months that may be quite a humidity swing and making your flooring unhappy.

The barrier is blue in some areas i cannot see it in others. I will research what was used. No inspector did not see the barrier he did not pull any shoe moulding. Please tell me more about the moisture barrier/retarder. What should it look like???

Do the moisture readings look ok?? I read somewhere that there should no more than a 2% differential if wood is over 3 1/4.

Moisture (vapor) retarders slow the migration of moisture from the area of higher humidity (assumed to be the basement) to the area with the lower humidity (assumed to be the first floor). A vapor barrier could trap moisture. Some use tar paper as a vapor retarder. There is also a newer product that looks like heavy kraft (brown) paper and has the asphalt sandwiched between layers of the paper. Regarding the expansion gap....the moisture content of your species and width of flooring would have to increase by almost 15% in order for a board to expand by 1/8 inch. You started at 9%MC so you'd have to get to almost 24% MC to expand 1/8 inch. To even approach that MC the temperature would have to be 100 degrees Farenheit and the Relative Humidity would have to be 95%.

Thank you for the info. So if i understand correctly there is no way my floor grew into the space were i do not have any expansion gap. I cannot even get a splacking tool between the floor and the baseboard in some areas. Again my home is climate controlled and i know that the house has never been one hundred degrees inside.

On the subject of vapor retarders. How effective are they if i can see the nails coming down through the plyboard. Did they also use wrong nails???

What goes on around the perimeter of the room at the expansion gap is not what is responsible for your floors cupping in the middle of the floor. If you have 3/4" thick tongue and groove flooring that is nailed to 3/4" underlayment with 2 inch flooring nails then you will see the nails sticking out the bottom of the subfloor.....this is common and is the nail length that flooring manufacturers recommend. The size of the holes that the nails make in a vapor retarder are negligible. I spoke to a product tech at Aquabar (they are the company that manufactures the vapor retarder with the asphalt sandwiched between layers of kraft paper) concerning the affect the nail and staple penetrations have on the vapor retarding performance of the product. He said that they had done studies and tests and determined these holes were inconsequential to the performance of the product.
Can you measure the amount of cupping? A small amount of cupping...up to 0.01 inches is considered normal. Check it during the winter and then in the summer. Also measure the expansion gaps in the winter and summer.
You run a/c and a dehumidifier in the main house and basement, respectively, during the summer when the cupping is at its worst. Even though you do this it is the humidity differential between these spaces that will cause the problem.

I took another look and removed more shoe moulding. There is some kind of laminated plastic cardboard which i assume is what they used as underlayment. Does any one what it is??? My husband remembers they put down something black and then the plastic laminated cardboard. Could it be trapping moisture??? Also i do not see this material in every spot i see bare plyboard at the edges. Please help. Thank you

Is the flooring 3/4" thick solid wood? Who manufactured it?