Dry Winter Causes Excess Wood Contraction in Solid Wood Furniture

6 years ago

Are you experiencing large gaps between table leaves this season? Maybe your table won't even close properly, and you've never seen this before? In the Northeast, we are experiencing a very dry, cold winter. It's unusually dry. Most hardwood furniture is built with tolerances to allow the wood to move throughout the seasons, as it naturally does, expanding in warm/humid weather, and contracting in cold/dry weather. Wood expands and contracts across the grain, or width-wise, and not in the other direction. Usually, the movement is so slight we don't even notice it. But this season, we've seen far greater contraction of the wood than usual. We haven't seen the weather have this sort of effect on furniture for a good 15 years or so.
The attached photos show a solid cherry tabletop that pulls apart to take two leaves. The leaves haven't been in the table this season, and yet the seam where the two tabletop parts meet has grown to almost a 1/4 inch wide. It is usually almost invisible. In this case, the wood in the tabletop has contracted almost twice as much as usual. The supports underneath the tabletop do not contract in their length, so the tabletop, in effect, has slid back beyond the ends of the supports, so they are now interfering with the closing of the tabletop.
This is very unusual, but not a dire situation. Just be patient. As the humidity levels rebound, the tabletop will expand again, and as long as the furnituremaker built in the proper tolerances, the seams and joints should go right back to normal. You may be able to hasten this process with the use of a humidifier, but do this very gradually. You want the wood to expand very slowly so that it expands evenly. Further, you shouldn't see this again (next year, for instance), unless the weather is this extreme again.
On the other hand, if you are experiencing cracking or splitting in your hardwood furniture, or if joints are coming loose, this may mean the furniture wasn't created with the proper tolerances, or that the humidity level changed at a very fast rate and the wood moved too quickly. In this case, a repair will likely be necessary.
We hope this is helpful information.

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Dry Winter Causes Excess Wood Contraction in Solid Wood Furniture

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