Question: We bought this house last year and it has nice clean carpet when we moved in. To make a long story short we got screwed. Turns out after the stains started coming up a few months later that whoever lived here before us just let their animals pee and poop wherever they wanted. We have children and have allergies so we are in a bind. We have been pulling up the carpets as we can. The two kids rooms we put down plywood flooring and stained it and used polyurethane on it. It looks good for the kid’s rooms but can't do that in the rest of the house as it scratches easily, etc. We went through the options since we have to do this ourselves and on not much extra money and came up with the parquet as the cheapest, easiest way to replace the carpet we have pulled up. Then my husband did the entryway with the parquet. It looked beautiful for a week or two but now the part along the wall is buckling and we can't figure out where we went wrong. We still have a living room, den and bedroom to do so we really want to know what we did wrong so we don't do it again in the other rooms. Can anyone give me any advice? What my husband did is put adhesive down first and then the parquet.
Answer: One of the most common errors with hardwood (which is what parquet is) is not to let it acclimatize (acclimation) to the room its being placed in. This requires 48 to 72 hours. The boxes need to be opened so that the air in the room can get around the wood. Most warehouses are very dry, the wood will suck moisture from the air in your home and expand and when it expands, if it has nowhere to go it buckles. Another error is to place the parquet tight against the wall, there should be 3/8" to 1/2" gap between the edge of the parquet and the wall (for expansion).
Additional information on acclimatizing hardwood flooring.
------------------------
- Protecting New Hardwood Floors
- Hardwood Flooring Over Sheet Vinyl
- Hardwood Flooring On Concrete Sub-floor
- Sanding Hardwood Floors
- Removing Staples From Hardwood Floors
- Hardwood Floor Project
- Can't Afford To Refinish My Hardwood Floors
- Gaps In Hardwood Flooring
- Refinishing An Old Hardwood Floor
- Waxing Hardwood Floors
- Removing Glue From Hardwood
- Hardwood Flooring Finish
- Parque Floor Disaster!