On Feb 19, 10:00*am, Chris Shearer Cooper
wrote:
On Feb 19, 7:19*am, RonB wrote:





Chris:
My wife and I installed about 900sf of Oak in our new home last year
and so far it is great. *I think we live on the other end of the
humidity scale because here (extreme SE KS) it is pretty humid year-
round, especially summer. *However, we temper with air conditioning.

The product is a pre-finished 3/4" oak, with a micro-bevel edge that
was manufactured in SW Missouri; so it never got far from its
manufacturing origin. *We listened to the manufacturer and his main
advice was "acclimate, acclimate, acclimate" *We did most of the home
finish during the winter and we took delivery of the flooring a full
month ahead of installation. *Up until it arrived, we were letting the
house cool during the night and warming it back up to 55-60 degrees
during the day to save money. *When thewoodarrived we reprogrammed
the thermostat to keep the house at 65 degrees until we moved in a
couple of months later (we normally keep temp at 70 degrees during
day). *The boxes sat in the house closed, two deep, and criss-crossed
for a week to allow air circulation among them. Then we opened them
and shifted the contents around a bit. *We were anticipating about a
week to install, so a few days before we started we removed about 1/3
of the contents from the cartons. and blocked them off of the floor
with scrap strips. *We laid roofing felt on the floor and nailed the
flooring on 8" centers (on joist, and one between) with a pneumatic
flooring nailer. *As we used material, we removed similar amounts from
the cartons and spread them out, so everything had a few days of open
air exposure.

I kept a pretty close eye on things for the first few months expecting
to seem some activity as we headed into spring and I was disappointed
- nothing really happened. We did hear an occasional night-time
"creak" for the first few weeks after moving in. *After a full year
the floor looks great. *There are a very few places where the edge gap
might have opened slightly and most of these are near the wall where
we had to surface nail (versus tongue nail). *We also have a very few
squeakers but again, most are close to walls. *I am convinced the
acclimation process paid off.

We too looked at engineered products but I couldn't sell myself. *My
concern wasn't off-gassing as much as long-term viability. *A hardwood
floor should last 'forever'. *Granted, you have to refinish every
15-25 years (ours has a 25 year finish warranty (yeah, right!)). *Many
of the engineered products wouldn't allow more than one sanding, if
any. *That puts it into the category of expensive carpet.

Regarding off-gassing and odor of our pre-finished product, we never
noticed any odor when we opened the cartons. *When we built our last
house we had a hardwood installer install and finish bare material.
The smell during finish was truly eye-watering and lingered for some
time after completion. *We had none of that with pre-finished.

Hope this helps. *I think the main lessons are get the material into
the house early, put down a good underlay and don't skimp on nails.
If you hire someone to do it make sure the installer is qualified and
does it right. *Living with the opened containers, for several weeks,
might be a little uncomfortable but it will pay off.

RonB

A few people asked about the relative humidity in our house, I'm
afraid I really don't know. *We do keep the humidifier running pretty
strong in the winter (due to various allergies and other sinus issues)
and turned off in the summer, so it's quite possible we have a
noticeable RH swing between winter & summer.

Chris

A fairly accurate gauge is fairly cheap.

Watch the amplitude of the seasonal RH swings, and ... dollars to
donuts ... you'll have your answer.