Monday 8 March 2021

Recording Moisture Levels Before Fitting Wood Flooring

 


No matter whether you have decided to invest in a top of the range, exotic, strong hardwood flooring or a budget engineered option, it is critical that you pay respect to the environment where you'll lay your flooring. The humidity and humidity levels in both the room and in the subfloor where your new flooring will be installed are extremely important factors to take into consideration. In fact, even if humidity and moisture levels in your room are minimal, it's a fantastic idea to acclimatise your flooring to its new environment prior to laying it.

Acclimatising engineered and solid hardwood flooring prior to fitting will minimise the expansion and contraction of the timber after it is laid, thus reducing the risk of damage, post installation. In order to accurately acclimatise wood, it is important that that the acclimatisation process takes place in the site or area where the flooring is to be installed. Though reasonable results can be reached by acclimatising your timber flooring in similar circumstances, ideally you should plan to carry out the process in the actual location. Doing so will help permit the timber to naturally correct its moisture content to correspond with this the website.

If it comes to subfloors, it's also really important to establish the moisture levels you're dealing with before fitting your new hardwood floors. In case your subfloor is timber, you should ideally take around 30 moisture readings across the whole region to establish whether you are facing a moisture problem. Ideally, you are aiming for a consistent moderate across your readings of no more than 2-3%. If you do happen to notice that you've got an isolated high reading, there would not normally be anything to be concerned about. That said, if you find that humidity and moisture are fluctuating significantly throughout your readings, you shouldn't dismiss this information. If your readings seem worrying whatsoever, it's well worth making additional evaluations and taking remedial action if needed. At the conclusion of the day, it is never worth laying a new floor over a subfloor which has problems that have been left ignored.

If your subfloor is concrete and recently laid, you are very likely to face more of a struggle when it comes to moisture. Ideally you should aim to have a reading of somewhere between 35 and 40% humidity air or 2-3% moisture content before laying your new flooring. With concrete slabs taking an estimated month per inch to dry out, this can grow to be a significant challenge. In many cases, the perfect humidity and moisture percentages are nigh on impossible to acquire, so healing activity often has to be taken.

There are particular aspects that you ought to keep in mind while measuring moisture content, like whether the space (or surroundings ) is heated, the way that it's heated and how often it's heated. Ideallyyou should plan to take your readings after the space (or surroundings ) has attained a level of stability in its own conditions.