We had a home built 10 months ago. Right after we moved in we noticed our 3/4 nail down hardwoods had large gaps in them large enough to stick a quarter in between them and some larger than this. When we notified the flooring contractor he stated this was not right and came in and replaced some boards. This whole process went on over 3 months. Once they were done we still had gaps everywhere. They stated this is normal for hardwoods and that it is part of the expansion and contraction of the wood. I understand that hardwood does that. But my question to anybody is does this sound more like a installation problem or a wood problem. We are not happy with the way the floors look and we have gone into other new homes with hardwoods and the floors are tight. We have contacted the builder ,but all he is willing to do is to fill and seal.. I do not think filling will help our large gaps.. Any advise or comments are appreciated. Thanks!!

Sounds like it was installed without using a moisture meter to make sure it was installed in normal living conditions of the interior of the home. Like it was installed without all the windows installed or doors and thresholds, painter and tile installers not complete yet, adding more humidity inside the home, along with no working HVAC system to draw the moisture from the interiors environment. As an example... The wood is in a warehouse and has a moisture content, of 12% It is brought to an unconditioned home in an unconditioned truck or van. It is installed in a very wet environment. Now that you have moved in and have a sealed up home and running either the heater, or the A/C, everything starts to dry out and lose that high moisture content, and shrinks, especially the wood flooring. You yourself could be adding to the size of the gaps by having the interiors humidity below 40%, with your HVAC settings.

I probably missed something, but you get the idea of what's going on.

The fix... Tear it all out and start over, acclimating it to the now stable interior ambient conditions, inside your home.


This is an installation related claim, unless the humidity inside your home is any where nere 35% or lower. It could be a combination of both, I don't know for sure. A good wood inspector would be able to tell you exactly what moisture content the wood was installed at.