Don’t Let Your Home’s Temp Ruin Your Hardwood Installation | Ask Ken

Prepare Your Home for Hardwood Floors

Your Home Should Acclimate to Hardwood, Too
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Ken's Quick Answer:

If your home has wild swings in temperature and humidity, you may negatively impact the longevity of your hardwood installation. This is true even if you follow other basic guidelines, such as pre-delivering the wood to the job site to help it acclimate.

Ken's In-Depth Answer:

I've made a number of videos talking about acclimating your hardwood floors to your home. As a reminder, it's important to pre-deliver the wood at least 24-72 hours before installation. This allows us to minimize the difference between temperature and humidity for the hardwood floors and your home.

In other words, we've always looked at it as getting the wood to adjust to the house. However, the National Wood Flooring Association recently wrote an interesting article titled 'Rethinking Acclimation' in their magazine. In short, they're making it clear that the house adjusting to your wood floors should also be a priority. We've featured a short quote from the longer article below.

"Shouldn't we require that the facility be brought up to the specifications of the products going into the home? Get the home adequately prepared to receive the wood."

They're not saying we shouldn't pre-deliver the wood to help it adjust. However, they're making it a clear point that your home should be an environment that's conducive for hardwood installation. In other words, no big swings in temperature and humidity. Instead, you need to make sure that your home has a constant, middle-of-the-road temperature and humidity. That way, your wood floor is much more likely to perform well for years into the future.

If you have any questions about hardwood flooring installation, give us a call at 401-214-0285 or visit our showroom. We serve customers throughout Rhode Island and southeastern New England, including Newport, Middletown, Jamestown, Portsmouth, Bristol and more.


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About Ken: Ken Fain is the co-owner of Island Carpet in Middletown, RI and a floorcovering veteran of more than 40 years. His popular 'Ask Ken' video series answers common flooring questions on a variety of topics. It has reached thousands of viewers on both YouTube and Facebook.


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