What moisture can do....

When I built a new house in 1996 I put down some 900 square feet of ? inch red oak tongue and groove flooring. It was my first and last flooring job. It served well for 16 years, but a couple of years ago I moved into another house that I had bought up the hill and allowed my daughter to move into this house. This change put into motion a ?perfect storm? set of circumstances that led to what you see here. The daughter, in an effort to hold down her utilities cost, kept the thermostat set way low and she never burned the fireplace. Then last year we had rain after rain over several months; I got over 70 inches at my house in 2015. Some of the water ran under the house (up on piers) and remained there in small pools that never dried. Add to the fact that somehow the vent louvers on the skirting got closed, and the combined result was a ruined floor.

My daughter (who has recently moved to Houston) advised me last fall that there was a problem?a couple of the boards had buckled up. While I was pondering what to do, other sections of the floor in both the den and living room had exploded. Now I no idea what to do with this; probably I?ll just push it back down however I can and then put down carpet. (Heavy sigh.)

I have seen people do gym floors and they shoot nails in the grooves first. I really don't pay much attention to the other trades but I do remember that. Maybe you are on the slab so no go.

My first effort would be to remove the buckled pieces to 5 boards on each side, and rip the tongue off of each piece removed plus about 1/10 of the difference between the remaining boards, and the width of those removed. I would then put it back together with light brown urethane between the boards to allow some expansion and contraction. Careful edging, and twist off anti squeak screws might work well. Jim

Something else is going on rather than humidity. It's true humidity can make the wood swell up a little but unless the water is poured on, it shouldn't swell up enough to buckle the boards up. The flooring may not have been seasoned well enough. There may not have been enough space left at the walls to allow for expansion. There may have not been enough or long enough nails used to nail the flooring down.

Man, that's a bummer for sure!

(quoted from post at 20:09:47 01/18/16) Something else is going on rather than humidity. It's true humidity can make the wood swell up a little but unless the water is poured on, it shouldn't swell up enough to buckle the boards up. The flooring may not have been seasoned well enough. There may not have been enough space left at the walls to allow for expansion. There may have not been enough or long enough nails used to nail the flooring down.

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he underlay (black material) bucking too, says something else going on also.

I have fixed wood floors that where way worse then these. Remove a section of floor boards at least 2-3 boards wider than the ones that buckled. If you have time stack them with weight on them for a week or two and they will flatten back out enough to use. While your waiting on them to settle down figure out why/where you have the moisture issue. Get that fixed. Do not depend on someone heating the house hot or other things make it idiot proof. LOL (I am usually the idiot that forgets to open or close vents and such.)

when your ready to repair the floor. Measure the space real well. Then you will need to cut down the boards on a table saw so that you have them narrow enough to fit back into the open section. Narrow the double grove side and the top of the tongue. Usually maybe an 1/2 on each side of the board. Use an air finish nailer to hold your boards down. You shot the nails through the tongue and grove part so they are hidden. Then on the last two boards if you have measured right they should be a tight fit. I leave both the grove and tongue on. I put both boards against the nailed boards. Standing the unnailed sides up in a teepee formation. Push the center down and the boards should go into place. If they do not take a hand plane and narrow the tight places until they go in place. Then nail the last boards down from the top an then use a nail set and counter sink the nail heads. I usually do not care about a wider cap since I refinish the floor anyway. The new finish coat will hide a slightly wider crack. I usually sand and refinish the entire floor. You usually can not find the repaired spot if you did not know where it was.

The problem is standing water and no ventilation under the house. The sub flooring absorbed this moisture and even though you used tar paper as a moisture retardant the oak readily absorbed the excess moisture and expanded with those results. Resolve the moisture problem, add some house heat and the oak boards should go flat again, probably several weeks. Then you should be able to repair the damaged areas quite easily.

Looks like there isn't enough expansion room around the edge of the room, so the only place for the boards to go was up. Pull the quarter round trim or the baseboard and see how much space there is to the wall. Should be 1/4"+ to 3/8" clearance on all 4 sides of the floor to allow for expansion. If you take the flooring up in the whole room to relay it correctly, put down the foam underlayment with vapor barrier to stop moisture coming up into the flooring.

Jerry
If you do not fix the water pooling problem under the house your problem will just get worse.

You may have nailed it. Good thought.

I served 16 years on our local school board and during that time we put new floors in two gymnasiums. These were hardwood, but were floating on pads. There was a 4" expansion joint around two sides of the floor. In the winter, these aluminum expansion joints were loose and rattled, but in the warm weather they were very tight. Just the humidity change has a huge effect on hardwood.

John in La ,
Agree get worse along with the mold/mildew. Best reason why you don't want wood in any area that can get wet, bathrooms, kitchens, laundry.

I know of a case where a person was building a house and put wood in kitchen. He connected the plumbing to kitchen. Next day when they returned to work on house, there was leak in kitchen. Had to pitch the wood floor.

All building materials expand when heated and contract with cold, wood, drywall, even vinyl siding. This is the best reason why I set the thermostat at one temp. Don't change the temp. Keep rooms warm enough to prevent condensation on outside walls, mold.

I know of a nice brick home where couple vacationed in Florida over winter. Set rooms not kept warm enough to save money. When they got back, house was so full of mold the house had to be torn down, everything pitched.

You sure that's not white lightning?