How to Deal With Warping, Cupping and Sagging Hardwood Floors

After months or years of enjoying your hardwood flooring, you may notice that your flooring is not as perfectly flat as it was on the day it was installed. Some of the floorboards may have started to warp, buckle, or sag due to moisture, humidity, and temperature modifications on the wood.

If moisture is present, wood will swell when it gets wet and then contracts when it dries out. This does not generally happen to correctly finished flooring since the boards are safeguarded to moisture from below and on top. Especially so, if a vapor barrier has been installed on the subfloor. If the vapor barrier is inadequate, or the top surface is excessively worn down, the boards can soak up wetness. As a result, when the wetness evaporates, the floorboards might warp, cup, or crown. Regrettably, they can also warp even if they do not get wet. Exceedingly dry conditions, high temperatures, and direct sunlight can shrink the wood and produce gaps in between the boards.

If you’re dealing with any of those conditions, the first thing to do is find the water source. Was there a spill that never ever got cleaned up? Could extreme water from mopping have leaked into the sub-flooring? Can you find a pool of standing water nearby, flooding in the basement, or under the home? Investigate if there is a leakage somewhere. All of these can trigger warping as moisture is absorbed by the planks. Warping causes much more damage to a floor than cupping does. It can manifest in various forms of plank disfigurement and needs to be taken seriously.

Cupping, also referred to as wash-boarding, is a lesser form of floorboard damage. What does cupping look like? Just imagine a normal wooden floor slab. If the edges along the entire length of the slab align but the middle sinks down, that’s cupping. This is triggered by a wetness imbalance, specifically when there is more moisture on the bottom of the wood pieces than on the top. For instance, if the air in the room is quite dry as it can become during the winter season and/or there is wetness trapped under the floor (from a spill or even residual condensation), your flooring will be at danger of cupping.

Cupped flooring looks bad however the bright side is that it’s generally reversible and can be remedied by restoring a correct level of humidity inside the room. This will help balance out the moisture above and below the flooring. The time it takes to correct a sagging flooring depends on what’s causing the sag. If the foundation is the culprit, jacking it up and leveling it can take weeks. If your hardwood floor covering wasn’t set up properly, it can take just a day to pull it up and put it pull back properly.
The treatment for repairing deformed, cupped, or sagging wood flooring needs is dictated by the size of the problem.

How To Repair A Warped Floor in Napa

While repairing smaller sized warps simply requires a couple of useful techniques, the larger ones may take a lot more time and effort to conquer or even require the service of a professional wood floor refinishing professional.

You can repair a little warp problem quite quickly. As long as the wood is still flexible, it can be repaired by dampening the area somewhat, then placing a heavy object like a barbell or a cinderblock on top. Then leave the weight for several days and let gravity do its job. You can check after a few days to see if that did the trick. More severely distorted boards may be flattened utilizing a heavier object. Another alternative is to nail the edge down, countersinking the nail heads, and filling the holes with color matching wood filler or a color stick.

Another way to fix a warped floor is to sand it. This works best for topical warps that originate from humidity or a water spill rather than a leak below your flooring. Sand down the bump in your floorboard until it is level with the rest of the floor. Keep in mind that this will require an aggressive amount of sanding in most circumstances. That implies that about a quarter of the thickness of wood could be given up in this procedure, which is something to think about.

To correctly align flooring boards that have curled at the edges or bulged in the middle, you need an aggressive sanding strategy. Most refinishers will fit a drum sander with 20-grit paper and sand the flooring diagonally. They then sand parallel to the grain to get rid of the scratches. This procedure can get rid of as much as 1/16 inch of wood from the raised areas of the boards. Subsequent sanding with progressively finer grits of sandpaper prepares the floor for a refinish. In the end, aligning a badly warped floor might cost as much as 1/4 inch of its thickness.

If your floor does not return to normal after these approaches, or the afflicted location is larger than a cinderblock, then you’re dealing with a major warping which most likely will need removal and replacement of the afflicted planks. Thankfully, this does not imply you have to change your whole floor. Regrettably, hardwood typically dries with a very noticeable black stain. Often the stain is simply on the surface, however, it might go all the way through the board in which case the stained board will require to be changed. Repairing this issue may include ripping out your whole flooring and replacing it.

In case of very large warps needing major intervention, you need to consider the help of a refinishing contractor near you. This type of warps may originate from substantial water damage, excessive age, or years of disregard calling for wood plank replacements. The challenge will be to find wood slabs that closely match what you have and staining them to match the existing color. That takes resources and practice. An expert wood refinishing expert will have the resources and capability to make the new wood slabs blend in as best as possible. For these reasons, it is advisable to fix flooring slabs when the whole flooring needs to be sanded and refinished. Otherwise, utilizing a belt and orbital sanders, you’ll need to level and after that end up the brand-new slab so it blends into the existing floor covering– a tough job. If you’re having problems sourcing floorboards that match yours or you don’t want to spend the money to do so, a helpful trick is to “steal” slabs from an unseen area within your house. Take planks from a closet or under your fridge. These will act as the best match to change the warped planks. You can then replace the stolen planks with the best match you can find.

One should point out that you can not repair every wood flooring by refinishing it. If your wood floor has large areas of damage, you may need to change the whole floor as plank replacements can draw attention to the area. On really old floors, you might see the tongue where the boards come together, or your boards might do not have the appropriate thickness. Floors like these are definite candidates for replacement.

If your floorboards have become harmed enough to require replacement, you might wish to consider working with a hardwood floor professional installer. The individual you require to work with to repair your warping floor depends on the source of the issue. If you’re not exactly sure of the cause, it’s an excellent idea to work with a structural engineer to diagnose the problem– ideally, one who will not have any part in repairing the floors (because that can be a dispute of interest). Rates to get rid of and replace hardwood can run from $2 to $3.50 a square foot for setup, plus the cost for materials. Beware of professionals who quote less than a dollar because their work is typically less than outstanding.
These estimates are rough standards and dependent upon your area and are NOT substitutes for a written quote from a trade professional. It is strongly recommended that you contact trusted professionals near you for precise evaluations of the work needed and an estimate for the job – before making any decisions or commitments.

Repair or Replace?

That is always the question. There are a number of factors that determine the decision to repair vs. replace.

Cost: It is generally cheaper to refinish your flooring than to replace it. However, if there is significant damage to several locations of the floor, repair expenses might start to measure up to the cost of having brand new flooring installed.

Inconvenience: Repairing and refinishing a floor takes a great deal of time. You’ll need to get rid of all of the furnishings from the room and dust protect light fixtures and what not and give up the use of the room for up to 2 weeks. The wood requires to be sanded bare. If you need to make a structural or cosmetic repair, you need to do so before staining and finishing. When all of this is going on, you will lose access to the space, be subjected to dust, noise, and smells. This alone might be factor enough for some homeowners to prefer having the old flooring ripped out to put in something fresh and brand-new.

The age of your floor: Aged wood has a beauty of its own but it may resist refinishing for a number of reasons. For instance, if it already has been refinished a number of times. For older floorings, a replacement can frequently be more suitable to refinishing unless an aged floor is preferable to the setting like it would be in a historic home.

In Closing

Each situation is different, and in the end, the decision to repair and refinish or change hardwood is up to you, the property owner. Using the recommendations above, the hope is that you will be confident in your option, no matter what path you take. If we can assist you in any way just give us a call at (707) 864-2199 or click here to visit our website.

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