What Is Cupping On Hardwood Floors

Cupping means that the wood that is raised on the edges of each individual floor board.

What is cupping on hardwood floors.

Whether your hardwood floor is made of solid or engineered wood it is bound to react to moisture so ensure you take the precautionary measures to prevent cupping. Cupping can also occur in rooms with dry humidity. How to fix cupped hardwood floors. Homeowners take pride in their wood floors.

They bow inward resembling the bowl of a spoon or the inside of a cup. It s surprising how quickly some people can point out a hardwood floor that is not flat and if you. A cupped floor develops as moisture from the underlayment or subfloor moves upward through the hardwood. Hardwood floors need to be cleaned maintained but make sure you use as little water as possible while mopping.

As furniture and people begin to inhabit the area it will bring about a new level of moisture and. The sides of each board are higher than the middle sections. This problem can happen with either solid or engineered hardwood flooring and is a response to changes in the moisture content of the wood. If a hardwood floor is installed before a subfloor is properly dried or before the floorboards reach an equilibrium moisture content emc such as before the inside of a building s air is conditioned there is a chance for cupping later on.

Some of the causes of installation related cupping are. What makes the piedmont nantucket and hampton series unique is their moisture resistance. As the name implies the surfaces of boards that suffer from cupping have a concave shape. This makes the wood appear to be in a u shape.

See the picture at the top of this post for an example of a cupped floor. Let s face it no matter if you installed a light colored oak hardwood floor a darker toned cherry wood floor or something in between like hickory you want your floors to look good. Cupping occurs in solid wood flooring as a result of an elevated mc in the bottom of the flooring compared with the mc of the face. A poor flooring installation can also result in the cupping of a hardwood floor.

If you are thinking of installing a new floor and are hoping to avoid the disaster of floor cupping the impressions hardwood collection has developed a few options which might be of interest. Increase the relative humidity in the room with cupped floors to 20 percent to prevent cupping from the air being too dry. Cupping occurs whenever the individual planks of a floor become concave in the center and rounded on the sides thereby creating a sort of cup or bowl. Underlayment and or subfloor that is too wet at the time of installation will cause wood floor cupping.

Cupping is a common problem found in hardwood floors.