Crowning Hardwood Floor Cupping

When there is an excessive amount of moisture and humidity in the air and you re not controlling the environment your wood flooring is in the wood reacts to the elevated moisture by crowning.

Crowning hardwood floor cupping. When moisture interacts with a hardwood floor the side of the boards closest to the moisture expands. This expansion can be in the form of cupping the center of the board is lower than the edges or crowning the center of the board is higher than the edges. Crowning is the opposite of cupping and causes your hardwood floors to arch up giving them a bumpy feel and appearance. Mild cupping and crowning are actually natural functions of your hardwood floors as they respond to moisture and once the relative humidity equalizes in the wood your floors should return to normal over time even with oklahoma s extreme weather changes.

The main cause behind both the defects is excessive dampness in the room. It should be noted that very slight cupping or crowning can take place within normal humidity changes such as with those of the changing seasons and periodically should be expected. If and when you see crowning in your wood floors it means there is a higher moisture content on the top of the floor than there is on the bottom where the subfloor is. Cupping and crowning of hardwood floors.

Crowning cupping in hardwood floors crowning the center of the pieces of flooring appears to be higher than the edges. Crowning is a type of curling in wood floors where the center of the flooring pieces bends higher than the edges. A defect of hardwood floor where just the edges bulge out from the wood floor is called cupping. The general effect is easy to demonstrate by putting a small strip of paper onto a small drop of water.

This issue can either come from a moisture issue that is affecting the center of the planks or from sanding a floor that was cupped and still had moisture issues. Crowning is typically a problem that is a direct result of cupping. A video from build direct points out that you shouldn t install hardwood floors in a room that contains a lot of moisture. 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.

Cupping and crowning are two terms used in the hardwood flooring industry to describe the reaction wood floors experience when there are problems with moisture levels in the home. When the middle portion of the hardwood floor crowns or bulges then the defect is called crowning. Moisture may cause wood floors to crown but more often the cause is sanding a previously cupped floor to correct the problem before it had time to dry and straighten out naturally. Crowning is characterized by wood that is raised in the center and dips down on the long edges of the planks.

While it is theoretically possible that excessive moisture could cause crowning it is more likely that the floor cupped and then was sanded flat before it could dry and flatten on its own.