This spring I was looking at flooring in a shop and peppered the sales guy with many questions about various things. With wood floors he mentionned the wider width planks have a tendency to do what you are describing...but the narrower planks lay in without this phenomenon. Call thru to a rep somewhere and get more info.

It may indeed improve.

Causes: wood wasn't properly dry before it was laid and sanded flat and/or there was sufficient moisture in the flooring assembly (everything from leaks, uncured slab, damp underlayment to too much atmoshpheric moisture) and then it was trapped under the thick paper that was laid over it to protect it.

You didn't say where you are geographically, so it's hard to tell what role your climate played and how it will change over the next few months.

Cure: probably not removing and relaying (worst case) but it may be necessary to resand and refinish which will "use up" one of the possible refinishings in the life of the floor. Is your floor strip tongue and groove, or one of the modern, thinner materials?

It's hard to suggest what to do now. You need a reliable floor contractor's advice (possibly one not invovled in your project.) There will likely be fingerpointing among your existing contractors. Ultimately it's likely your GC will have to work it out if some repair/resanding/refinishing is needed.

Waiting to see how it may improve won't hurt, but it may put the the problem out of the sight and mind of the contractors who should be addressing a solution, if it turns to be necessary.

It's important to make sure that any fix is not cosmetic in event that there is moisture still getting into the flooring from some fix-able cause which if not corrected will happen again. For instance, do you have hydronic radiant floor heating, in that case I'd want to make sure you have no tiny system leaks. This is just an example, but all sorts of things need to be checked.

Good luck!

L

My new oak floors in the addition cupped badly. The installer did not check the moisture levels of the underlying thinset that the infloor heat was embedded it. The thinset was not dry enough so the moisture caused the cupping. It was very noticeable. We had them rip it out so the thinset could dry and once the moisture reading was within an acceptable limit new floors were installed again. No further problems.

The cupping in our floors was visible but if your cupping is mild then have your GC get one of those giant fans or dehumidifiers going and see what happens. My only worry about waiting is - how long do you wait and who fixes the problem if the floors don't lay down again? Now is the time to talk with the GC about these boundaries and get whatever you agree in writing.

In the picture you can see where our old (smooth) floor transitions to the new cupped floor.

Those are all good ideas. I guess we need a very experienced flooring contractor to evaluate the floor. The idea of ripping it out is very overwhelming, since the new kitchen has just been installed over it.

To answer some questions, we live in southern NY state and have fairly humid summers. The rest of the year is not particularly humid.

The floor is tongue and groove. The planks are 3 3/4" or 3 1/2" wide; I don't remember specifically. The kitchen is directly above a garage which tends to be humid. The flooring was in our house for 5 days to acclimate before it was installed. I am sure that the installer did NOT check for any moisture in the subfloor, so from what I now understand, that could be a problem.

We had the same issue with our floors after they were installed this year. Our kitchen is right above the basement, and our basement is really, really humid. We bought a dehumidifier for the basement and the floors radically improved.

Are they installed over concrete?

They are cupped because the moisure level below the flooring is higher the the humidity of the air in the room. This happens often when hardwood floors are installed over concrete that is new and hasn't had time (about 8 months) to cure.

I can also happen when you are over a very damp crawlspace.

Do either of those sound like your situation?

They might get better, but it might take a long time. You need to find out what is causing the imbalance in the humidity. It's possible that you can have the floors sanded smooth, and the humidity problem will resolve itself and then the floors will cup in reverse giving you a whole nother problem.

Cmm, we live in southern NY state, too. I think part of the problem is that the humidity fluctuates quite a bit in the area.

Uh Oh - our floors are cupping too. Our contractor and floor installer said that they will even out, once the humidity in the air drops - we have had a humid summer, and all the painting in the house has increased the humidity inside. I hope they are correct, because our cupping is VERY noticeable. However, in our old house, we had gaps after 5 years, due to the wood drying out so much.... I think I prefer the cupping to the gaps. I was planning on waiting until the winter to see what happens...

Beth

Musk - Love, love your floors (color/grain). If you don't mind my asking - what exactly are they?

Thanks babarany - The floors are oak and the stain is Minwax Jacobean X 4 coats to get the color dark enough. The top coats of polyurethane are a satin finish.

clg7067 makes a good point about correcting the cupping and then having the floors cup in the center of the boards - opposite to what you have now.

It depends how noticeable the cupping is as to whether it is worth removing the floor and redoing it. Try a dehumidifier and see. One of my friends had a water leak in her kitchen and her floors cupped. The insurance people brought in these massive fans ( 7 - 10 days of constant running) that were really loud to try and dry them out. The cupping improved but did not go away totally.

I was fortunate that the cabinets were not installed yet.

Couple of questions on your cupping: You say that your kitchen is installed over your garage. Is it safe to assume that your garage is unheated? If so, what's the insulation between the garage and the kitchen floor? Is the kitchen floor concrete or wood joists? You also mentioned that the floor was covered in plastic while the other work was completed. It's possible that condensation formed over the boards and caused the fibers to expand.

Have the sizes of the joints widened? Did the installer nail the tongues of the boards? Wood floors need to breath, there will be some expansion and contraction when first installed, but should they should settled down. Cupping is directly related to moisture and inability of the floor boards to expand and contract naturally.

While there may indeed be a humidity problem in your subfloor/crawlspace/basement, realize also that all wood will expand and contract when humid/dry, so it is not uncommon for a wood floor to be cupped slightly in the summer and have slight gaps in the winter. So they don't necessarily need to be ripped out.

Felixnot, yes the garage is unheated. There is insulation between the garage and the kitchen floor. The kitchen flooring was installed over a plywood subfloor that was laid down over floor joists.
The joints haven't widened at all.

The wood floors in the rest of our house are original, 90 years old. They have widened at many points. I was expecting to see some gaps in the new floor but had never seen cupping before so wasn't sure how it could be addressed.

The garage is also very humid and the ceiling was open for quite a whille during the construction phase. I assume this was allowing more humidity up into the kitchen floor.

Sounds like a good dehumidifier is worth a try at this point.

My floor also has cupping, because it is over a very moist partial cellar and crawl space. The humidity in the cellar was 90 per cent in the summer! I got a de-humidifier and called in a floor refinisher who said the cupping can be sanded out , so I will have him do that and then refinish the floors. I will also have moisture barriers installed in the crawl space. Hope things work out for you.