- Joined
- 4 Jan 2015
- Messages
- 1
- Reaction score
- 0
- Country
How do I find out why my solid oak floor is buckling?
We have had no problems until around last year with the solid oak floor in our country holiday house - the floor was in the house when we bought it and appears to be quite old. However, the solid tongue and groove wood floor in the sitting room then started buckling badly. Initially the floor lifted in two parallel lines making little hills over the width of a few planks. A nearby plank then seemed to expand length wise and to lift where it joined another plank at right angles.
We cut a plank out to see if we could identify what was happening and found the under floor was concrete with a black coating (presumably bitumen) sticking the wood to this. The concrete looked a bit rough and the bitumen a bit patchy, but this may be because it pulled away when we lifted the plank off. There were also signs of some damp rot on the plank and one of the nails looked a bit rusty.
We would like to know what is causing the dampness/expansion and to know what to do about it. The room had water damage 4 years ago (December 2010) when a pipe burst in the attic, but the floor seemed to cope ok with this. We put a dehumidifier in the room for a few months and then repainted the walls. About 6 months after the flood (August 2011) the builder polished the floor with 'best white polish' a bleached shellac based french polish. This was the first time we had used this polish.
We are also wondering if the house may have a high humidity when we are not there. We keep the house at a minimum temperature to prevent burst pipes, but nonetheless the temperature is quite low. We measured the humidity when we were at the house in December, after a couple of days of lit fires and it was around 58 degrees. After around two weeks it had declined to 51 degrees.
We suspect there may be some damp problems as the drawers in a piece of furniture were stuck when we arrived, but had cured themselves by the time we left. In addition there are signs of a small amount of mould in the north facing larder and a bag of icing sugar had become a sticky liquid!
There is signs of previous rot having occurred on a couple of the floor planks in the sitting room, next to an outside wall, which were previously under a cupboard (we removed the cupboard).The rotten planks no longer reach to the outside wall. The ground level outside is quite high.
We would welcome your advice as to what you think the causes of the plank expansion might be and how we should deal with it. Do you think it is most likely to be:
*damage done by the flood water getting into the boards and then being sealed in by the 'best white polish'
*water rising up through the concrete and through the black (bitumen?) coating
*due to the humidity in the house being too high
*something else
Do you have any idea why the buckling of the floor should have occurred in two parallel lines about 3-5 feet apart?
We obviously do not want to replace the floor unless absolutely necessary due to the expense and upheaval, especially as it is a holiday house so would welcome your suggestions as to anything that might help resolve the problem. However, if you think we need to replace the floor please could you advise us how we should do this - we would probably go for an engineered oak floor and would want it to be the same height as our hallway. Would we need to take off all the bitumen and screed the concrete or would all the concrete need digging out. What precautions would we need to take to ensure the same thing doesn't happen again?
Very many thanks for your help. We don't know where to start!
We have had no problems until around last year with the solid oak floor in our country holiday house - the floor was in the house when we bought it and appears to be quite old. However, the solid tongue and groove wood floor in the sitting room then started buckling badly. Initially the floor lifted in two parallel lines making little hills over the width of a few planks. A nearby plank then seemed to expand length wise and to lift where it joined another plank at right angles.
We cut a plank out to see if we could identify what was happening and found the under floor was concrete with a black coating (presumably bitumen) sticking the wood to this. The concrete looked a bit rough and the bitumen a bit patchy, but this may be because it pulled away when we lifted the plank off. There were also signs of some damp rot on the plank and one of the nails looked a bit rusty.
We would like to know what is causing the dampness/expansion and to know what to do about it. The room had water damage 4 years ago (December 2010) when a pipe burst in the attic, but the floor seemed to cope ok with this. We put a dehumidifier in the room for a few months and then repainted the walls. About 6 months after the flood (August 2011) the builder polished the floor with 'best white polish' a bleached shellac based french polish. This was the first time we had used this polish.
We are also wondering if the house may have a high humidity when we are not there. We keep the house at a minimum temperature to prevent burst pipes, but nonetheless the temperature is quite low. We measured the humidity when we were at the house in December, after a couple of days of lit fires and it was around 58 degrees. After around two weeks it had declined to 51 degrees.
We suspect there may be some damp problems as the drawers in a piece of furniture were stuck when we arrived, but had cured themselves by the time we left. In addition there are signs of a small amount of mould in the north facing larder and a bag of icing sugar had become a sticky liquid!
There is signs of previous rot having occurred on a couple of the floor planks in the sitting room, next to an outside wall, which were previously under a cupboard (we removed the cupboard).The rotten planks no longer reach to the outside wall. The ground level outside is quite high.
We would welcome your advice as to what you think the causes of the plank expansion might be and how we should deal with it. Do you think it is most likely to be:
*damage done by the flood water getting into the boards and then being sealed in by the 'best white polish'
*water rising up through the concrete and through the black (bitumen?) coating
*due to the humidity in the house being too high
*something else
Do you have any idea why the buckling of the floor should have occurred in two parallel lines about 3-5 feet apart?
We obviously do not want to replace the floor unless absolutely necessary due to the expense and upheaval, especially as it is a holiday house so would welcome your suggestions as to anything that might help resolve the problem. However, if you think we need to replace the floor please could you advise us how we should do this - we would probably go for an engineered oak floor and would want it to be the same height as our hallway. Would we need to take off all the bitumen and screed the concrete or would all the concrete need digging out. What precautions would we need to take to ensure the same thing doesn't happen again?
Very many thanks for your help. We don't know where to start!
