Below 0° floor installation

Is it constantly heated? Wood stoves make a room very dry make sure you leave the wood in there a few days before even thinking about installing in. Are you redoing the subfloor?

Its not constantly heated thats the main issue.The wood is acclimated to the cold.The subfloor is new ,its the zip system 7/8 stuff nailed and glued.Im curious on how severe the expansion of the boards would be in summer if its installed in the cold. I have flooring nailer not a stapler.

If the room isn't consistently heated over winter I would wait or keep it heated for a few days before the install with the wood in there. If you install it now you will have pretty good gaps come July unless your keep it constantly heated with that wood burner for id say 3 days before install and a day or so after.

I've installed some oak flooring at my own house in a hurry for Xmas one year. Looked good nice and tight and come summer it had about 1/8 inch gaps and thats colder unaclimated wood in a constantly heated home.

Oh Boy.... You really do have an issue.

Theoretically, unfinished hardwood is ideally installed in Spring/ Fall around here, under the logic that you are splitting the difference between summer/winhter temp and humidity.

In any case, it should be acclimated to it's normal ambient conditions... which apparently you do not have and can not acieve under your circumstances.

Pre-finish will help to mitigate expansion contraction to some degree... but that may not be what you want.

Basically, I would not want to install under your conditions, or else take the risk or a redo.

thanks for the advice . Im a perfectionist and couldnt even live with a 1/16 inch gap in my flooring.Warm weather will be here in may/june ill wait till then. Until then it frozen pipes and trim jobs....

ADKCarpenter said:

thanks for the advice . Im a perfectionist and couldnt even live with a 1/16 inch gap in my flooring.Warm weather will be here in may/june ill wait till then. Until then it frozen pipes and trim jobs....

Click to expand...

ADK... As a perfectionist...I respect your attitude BUT.... hardwood flooring is biotch with regard to perfectionism.... at least here in Colorado.

Even fully/religiously acclimating it, in relatively consistant ambiant interior conditions, in a relatively dry climate without significant variation, we develope gaps and have to refinsh and fill quite often.

Maintenence seems to be the tradeoff for the beauty/feel of natural woods.

It does help to know the WC and from where the flooring originates (if it's from Seattle or Arizone), and adjust your acclamation period accordingly..... I will break apart its packaging and unstack it for acclimation, and give it as much acclimation that I can, regardless of its packaging directions... seems to help.

Good luck

I usually break open the packages and sort them and then give them a day or two.And yes i too have strong dislike for the installation of hardwood flooring .... Once its in for a year or two those small gaps appear here and there(but its practically scheduled maintenance at that point). With this particular batch the longer pieces seem to be made of muitlple 1/4 sawn oak so im hoping movement will be almost unoticeable.Sometimes they give me 10 footers that have a crown from hell.I save those for closets when i can...