We bought this house last April and moved in in May. Shortly after we moved in we noticed some bowing of the floors on the first floor. These appear to be engineered hardwood or similar. I do not think they are laminate. I figured this was because of the humidity in the house as we were keeping the windows open a lot and not running the AC. Once we started using the AC, the bowing went away.
Fast forward to this year and same thing, weren't running AC and bowing came back, but worse this time and in a couple other spots. One piece started to pop out and i was able to hit it with a rubber mallet back in place.
We put some of our living room chairs on the spot until I could figure out what is going on, but the cleaners moved them and now I have the issue in the photo below.
I am starting to think that maybe we have moisture in our slab because every now and again I will notice what look like wet spots on my garage floor. It has been extra wet this spring and we obviously wouldn't have had this issue with the drought last summer.
A few questions, could this be due to a lack of moisture barrier under the flooring and not humidity in the home? If that's the case I obviously have to pull the entire floor out and put in a new or better moisture barrier. This issue is not happening upstairs with the same floors. If this is moisture in the slab related, how screwed does that make me? Is it something that is going to cause me major issues down the line? We don't see any other signs of water leaks or anything like that anywhere and there's no pooling water anywhere.
2nd, the floor is floating, is my furniture not allowing the flooring to expand and contract and if we move the furniture could it eventually settle out?
Finally, am I correct that no matter what I am going to have to pull up at least half my floor to fix this problem pictured. Follow on, does that usually require pulling off baseboards as well?
I am very frustrated by this issue because I have enough other stuff to do without having to pull my entire floor up so being forced in to this is not ideal. I appreciate any and all insight.
Fast forward to this year and same thing, weren't running AC and bowing came back, but worse this time and in a couple other spots. One piece started to pop out and i was able to hit it with a rubber mallet back in place.
We put some of our living room chairs on the spot until I could figure out what is going on, but the cleaners moved them and now I have the issue in the photo below.
I am starting to think that maybe we have moisture in our slab because every now and again I will notice what look like wet spots on my garage floor. It has been extra wet this spring and we obviously wouldn't have had this issue with the drought last summer.
A few questions, could this be due to a lack of moisture barrier under the flooring and not humidity in the home? If that's the case I obviously have to pull the entire floor out and put in a new or better moisture barrier. This issue is not happening upstairs with the same floors. If this is moisture in the slab related, how screwed does that make me? Is it something that is going to cause me major issues down the line? We don't see any other signs of water leaks or anything like that anywhere and there's no pooling water anywhere.
2nd, the floor is floating, is my furniture not allowing the flooring to expand and contract and if we move the furniture could it eventually settle out?
Finally, am I correct that no matter what I am going to have to pull up at least half my floor to fix this problem pictured. Follow on, does that usually require pulling off baseboards as well?
I am very frustrated by this issue because I have enough other stuff to do without having to pull my entire floor up so being forced in to this is not ideal. I appreciate any and all insight.