How Does Your Wood Flooring Coexist With Your Home’s Indoor Environment?

When you feel a cold draft of wind within your abode, you will most probably turn up the heater. On the other hand, if you have air conditioning installed in your home, you will also switch it on when the temperature is rising. Have you ever stop to think about how the living conditions inside where you live affect your wood flooring? If the answer is no, you have to know that the aforementioned comes with great pertinence.

While most of your wood floors are manufactured from dead trees, the wood materials still react to humidity and temperature fluctuations within your home as if it were still alive. Just like how your skin reacts to humidity changes, wood flooring does the same too. Hence, you should note that what is most comfortable for you will also be beneficial to your wood floors. Be it laminate flooring, solid wood flooring as well as oak or bamboo floors, they will absorb and lose moisture according to the conditions inside your home.

Wood floors require a stable and well-maintained environment

Today, every manufacturer emphasizes on the pertinence of installing wood floors in a stable indoor environment. These recommendations are often passed down to consumers to ensure that the floor can perform as it was originally designed. This also means that the humidity levels and temperature inside your home has to be of a certain range. As general rule of thumb, the average temperature range is between sixty and eighty degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity range should not exceed more than fifty-five percent.

Sudden temperature changes can accelerate floor shrinkage and growth

As mentioned, your wood floors will react accordingly to the temperature and humidity inside your home. If it gets too cold the floors will shrink and visible gaps may begin to show. If your home gets too humid of a sudden and the situation is not well-controlled, your wooden floor boards will continue to expand and you may end up with a buckled floor.

Now, let’s say the humidity levels revert back to normal and you may think that your floors will shrink back to its original size. While you got half of the answer right, the edges of your floor boards are now split or cracked due to the expansion and that is not a pretty sight.

Take your indoor environment into consideration when purchasing your floors

Now that you gain better insight on how your wood floors react to your home’s indoor environment, you will want to ensure that you consult a flooring specialist to determine which type of flooring best suits your needs. You will want to ensure that you cover details like whether you have air conditioning, humidifier or de-humidifier units installed at home.

As you go about this discussion, you may even realize that maybe wood flooring may not be what you are looking for but other flooring materials such as natural stones, vinyl or porcelain are the options that suit you. Take your time and evaluate your current living conditions then determine whether wood flooring is what you should be looking for.

The post How Does Your Wood Flooring Coexist With Your Home’s Indoor Environment? appeared first on Foundation Flooring Blog.