On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:28:27 -0000, wrote:

My folks (who are totally ignorant about this sort of stuff) had to
totally rebuild their 80 some odd year old cottage up on the atlantic
coast in maine after a bad n'oreaster damaged it beyond repair. For
the most part the workmanship on the new place was superb when it was
finally finished recently, but i noticed that the new oak floor that
had been installed looked odd (this is an actual oak floor - not some
sort of laminate or whatever). The oak strips (not sure if that's
what you call them) in the floor are higher on either side of their
width and lower in the center. This warping is very modest, but it's
definitely noticeable and does NOT look normal. This creates a sort
of subtle rippling effect in the floor, which you can even see in the
right light and you can definitely feel if you run your hand over the
floor. we asked the contractor - who is a very honest guy generally -
about it and he said something to the effect of "well, that's
something that happens sometimes out here and can't be avoided when
you're so close to the water" (the place sits about 25 yards from the
ocean). I was very skeptcal of his remark, but my folks basically
bought it mostly because they were happy with the majority of the work
and glad to be finally done with the project and able regain use of
their beloved cottage. My suspicion is the contractor knows it's not
right, that it didn't become apparent to him until the floor had
already been installed and he realizes fixing it now would require him
to rip out the entire floor and install a new one - something he
obviously wants to avoid. I am pretty much a neophyte with all this
too, but i do recognize something when it's wrong, and this just
doesn't seem right. Any advice you can offer would be greatly
appreciated - including whether this can be fixed by sanding or
something short of totally ripping out and replacing..THANKS!

If you maintain a constant temp and humidity, then the boards will
eventually stop warping. Then you sand them.

Very bad choice of flooring for that environment. Chalk it up to a
learning experience.