Hello all... first post. Need some input/suggestions.

I recently had hardwood floors installed in my old house, to soon be a rental, last July. Our house was built in the 50s.. raised foundation in Sacramento CA. The house was me and my wifes first home and is only about 900sqft. We had roughly 700sqft of carpet removed and our original plan was to work with the existing hardwood that was already there. Unfortunately there was a few small areas of damaged wood in the family room area. We were able to keep the original hardwood in the bedrooms and had the whole family room removed and replaced with new wood. This was only 6 months ago.

Now.. onto the problem...

We recently moved into our new home about 2 months ago... our old house, which is still ours, has been vacant for this 2 months now. We had planned on renting it out very soon to some friends of ours. It had been about a good 4 weeks since I visited the house since we moved.. maybe 5 weeks. Well.. I went back there to finish emptying some of the last things we had there and when I walked in the door I noticed something was REALLY wrong. In about 7-8 small areas the new floors had came up... 3 of them were so bad you could literally trip on them! Im not kidding the peak of the "bubble" was about 1-1.5" tall! The really weird thing is the original wood in the rooms and hallway, the wood thats been there since the house was built, had NO issues at all.... not even a small blip or bubble.

I called the guy that did our floors... he is a licenced and legit business, this wasnt a shadetree job, or so I thought... and he agreed to meet me at my place to take a look. When he walked in he immediately told me that it was my fault the floors were damaged because after we moved out, 2 months prior, we didnt leave the heater on... he basically said that the floors had been retaining moisture over the period of time we were gone. I then pointed out that the bedrooms had no issues which lead me to believe that the wood he had used was the problem. I also vaguely remember visiting the house the first month we were out of it and the temp inside the house was around mid 50s. Im pretty sure it didnt get any colder then that.

Sorry for the long post... but what was the problem in my situation? Did I cause this issue? Was the wood he used too "green"? Should he have told me that I needed to maintain a constant temp inside the home?

Im kinda at a loss here.. I really need to get these fixed soon so I can rent the house like I planned. The guy that did the floors suggested I run the heater @ 65* for a few days to see what happens. After 2 days of running the heater the didnt come down at all but the wood did feel much more plyable. The guy did say he'd "help me out" if the wood didnt settle after a few days..... whatever that means.

Was this my fault? Or was it the installers fault?

Thank you...... sorry for the long post.

Hmmm.............who to blame? Well, I'm not far from you so I understand Sacramento's weather and the general region. First things first.

Your old floors have been there what, 50 yrs.? So they are very well acclimated ( means comfortable ) to your home. It would take severe moisture problems to make them cup, warp and buckle. So you should not compare the performance of the old floors with the new wood. Also, all wood flooring is properly kiln dried at the mill so the flooring is not "too green". If it were, it would shrink instead of expand, which is what it's doing. But the new wood flooring should have been acclimated (stored inside your home) for a minimum of a week to achieve what is called an equalibrium to the relative humidity and temperature. I don't know if that was done or even if a moisture meter was used. That is what I do. I check the moisture content of the flooring when it arrives, along with many places in the subflooring, with my moisture meter. They should be within 2 to 4 % of each other. I also check for moisture problems under and around the house. I check for proper drainage, grading, gutters, downspouts, pools, doors and windows, etc. Anywhere water could get in or under a building. I don't know if that was done on your job. Another problem is the furnace being off in this cold, damp weather we've had here for the past couple of months. It can cause problems with newly laid floors (remember, your old ones are used to you leaving them alone). Basically, the responsibility falls on the installer's shoulders unless he informed you NOT to leave the furnace off AND he checked the moisture levels of the wood and subfloors AND he acclimated the flooring properly AND he checked for moisture under the house AND he used a vapor retarder between the new flooring and the subfloor. If he did all these things and all the readings were in specifications, then an event that caused the problem may have happened AFTER he finished the floors. Then he would not be responsible for something he had no control over. It sounds like he is willing to work with you and make some repairs at a reduced rate or split the normal cost 50/50. This sounds reasonable to me because we may never know exactly what caused the floors to buckle up off the subfloors except that most likely, it was due to moisture extremes coming from somewhere, somehow. Anyway, I hope it works out for you.

Thanks for the reply Gary....

I know for a fact that they didnt do any of those things.. they had no special meters or anything and I was there when they first started laying the new wood. They never went under the house and Im 99% sure they didnt use anything between the subfloor and new wood, unless its colorless to which I wouldnt have noticed it when they were putting the boards down. It sure didnt sit in my house for a week to get acclimated, they bought the wood and installed the next day after we found a couple damaged boards under the carpet. The whole job only took about 4 days... 1 to remove old carpet, 2 brought and installed new wood and prep/sand, 3 they put the few coats, 4 another coat and then we let it sit for a few days before we moved back in.

I just got off the phone with a buddy of mine that recently got his licence to do hardwood and he said more then likely, since its buckled so bad, that they wont be able to replace just a few slats... probably have to R&R it all because since the wood thats installed has shifted/expanded that placing new full boards just wont fit now. He also mentioned that I should also cover the dirt under the house with thick plastic... to keep moisture from the ground from rising into the subfloor. Especially after they put new stuff down.

I guess we'll see what "helping me out" means this week.

Your installer is right about not keeping conditions as they were at the time of installation. Closing up a home and not occupying it for periods of time can cause a green house effect and interior humidity levels can rise. Causing the wood to gain moisture content and swell.


Now with that said, the flooring should have been checked with a moisture meter, along with the old flooring and subfloor, prior to installation.

A moisture barrier should have been placed in the crawl space prior to installation. Cupping is usually the indicator a moisture barrier is not in the crawl space, not buckling. Buckling is usually from lack of acclimation equillibrium. The wood was installed too dry for the ambient conditions inside the home.


You have a case... The old floors were not buckling, but I bet the gaps were closed up between the boards, now. Where they may nave been gapped prior to the rise in humidity, from closing the home up.

Floorguy's right. And he said it better than my long winded explanation.