Acceptable Moisture Levels For Hardwood Floors

Businesses use hardwood floors in their offices to create an elegant and sophisticated atmosphere while homeowners use it to create smooth easy to clean surfaces that when properly sealed resist staining and look beautiful.

Acceptable moisture levels for hardwood floors.

The determination of moisture content is an essential part of quality control within the flooring installation process. At the time of installation as the installer you should know the moisture content of the wood flooring the moisture condition of the substrate and the ambient conditions in the space. If the moisture content of wood flooring isn t right then it can warp buckle or even delaminate causing significant damage and ruining the aesthetic value of the flooring. Solid strip flooring less than 3 wide should have a moisture content no more than 4 percent different from the moisture content of your subflooring materials.

1 in most regions of the country a dry wood subfloor that is ready to work has a moisture content of 12 percent or less or down to about 6 in states with low rh relative humidity. You can use the mmc 220 not only to measure the moisture content of hardwood flooring meant for. Wait until bamboo flooring adjusts to room temperature and humidity. Hardwood floors the maximum subfloor moisture level will be either 12 or 13 depending upon the manufacturer.

Similar to the hardwood floor the wood subfloor must have an acceptable moisture content to avoid flooring failures over time. 6 ways humidity can affect your hardwood floor lauzon flooring avoid these mistakes when moisture testing wood floors. Acceptable moisture content in hardwood flooring. 2 for plank 3 wide or more hardwood and 4 for strip 2 wide hardwood.

Reaching equilibrium moisture content. Bamboo flooring can be installed when the moisture content between the floor and subfloor is within 3. Flooring specialists can test the moisture content of a wood subfloor using the pinless wood moisture meter. The mmc 220 uses electromagnetic technology to measure the moisture content of over 150 species.

Wood subfloors are actually easy to check for moisture content just test for moisture at several locations in the room and average the results fig. Then the hardwood flooring moisture content must be within 2 4 of the subfloor moisture. To make sure that the moisture content of wood flooring is in the right range many professionals use flooring moisture meters to test their wood flooring materials and. The wagner mmc 220 pinless moisture meter uses intellisense technology to measure the moisture in the wood not on the wood s surface and deliver an accurate reading at an extended range.

This process usually takes 72 hours but it can take longer if you are in a region with higher or lower levels of moisture. Hardwood flooring can be elegant durable and practical for many interior applications.