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.

That looks like a lot of movement for air humidity. Probably slab moisture. Could be a week or two after a rain. or leak from pipes under house.

We redid our house, and they monitored the slab for a few weeks and noticed constant slab moisture. Had to change from wood to wood look tile.

If it was a leak it would be constant I think whereas this has only happened in the spring time. We haven't changed our habits at all.

Pretty sure we are proper screwed and I dont think my wife is capable of getting it back down and I won't be home for 2 weeks.

Only thing I can think of is to drill a small hole, stick something that has a 90 on it in the hole and pull up from underneath on the part that popped out while hitting the corner of the other one to make it pop back in place for the time being.

Thoughts?

I had a similar problem on our slab house. My problem was when it rained, a lot, the water would come in through the weep holes on the slab. I put in a french drain along the slab where it was coming in, and no problems since.

Can you see under the floor? Does it have a moisture barrier?

The more I think about it the more I think it is moisture. It is ultra wet right now and has been this spring. We have a pretty good sized patio and porch so would only be able to do that on about a third of my house but I may need to look in to it.

So there is bowing in three places. The humidity is high. There is a moisture barrier and a friend took a look at it and believes its bamboo. We are cranking the AC to get the humidity down to hopefully fix it. I think maybe the previous owners didn't acclimate the floor before installing it? This basically separates our family room from our entry and dining and wouldn't be too weird if I put a T threshold across the floor. Thoughts on that? Would give a little room for expansion and be the least intrusive. I think I would still need to trim some of the flooring in other spots where it is bowing, but they have been nothing compared to this issue here. Greatly appreciate any flooring pro insight.

BenTheGoodAg said:

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Dude... Your previous homeowners...

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I'm just waiting for the actual big one to drop.

https://www.llflooring.com/b/education/installation-tips-and-guides/how-much-expansion-space-or-gap-do-i-need

Do you have shoe molding installed around the baseboards? Are the baseboards or shoe caulked to the flooring?

No base shoe and the baseboards are not caulked to the floor that i can recall.

I am not a floor guy. Just curious when you mention moisture in the home vs. the slab. Do you have a good estimate of average humidity levels you have been seeing in your house? I was thinking I'd be wondering what those numbers were and if they were really high then what about a whole house dehumidifier to get the numbers down for not just the floor but for other concerns.

This isn't a floating floor? It's not jammed edge to edge against a baseboard ? That's weird. Looks almost like the house is swelling and the floors are buckling to accommodate which is why I asked.

fishnvet said:

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I am not a floor guy. Just curious when you mention moisture in the home vs. the slab. Do you have a good estimate of average humidity levels you have been seeing in your house? I was thinking I'd be wondering what those numbers were and if they were really high then what about a whole house dehumidifier to get the numbers down for not just the floor but for other concerns.

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That would be my next step. I'd recommend getting some digital hygrometers like the below and placing them around the house. I am in a new house that's less than a year old, and with this mild, humid weather we've had lately, I regularly see the humidity get up to 60% when the A/C doesn't run for long periods. The ideal range for humidity is between 30-60% from what I've read. I like it around 40-50%, but that doesn't seem possible with this weather. Mine typically hovers in the 53-60% range right now if I keep the temperature at a comfortable level.


https://www.amazon.com/ThermoPro-TP55-Indoor-Thermometer-Touchscreen/dp/B06XTPTG1J/

Not a professional flooring installer but I did install my own floating floor that was click together LVP and learned more than I wanted to about flooring. You have tongue and groove wood flooring. Its meant to go down like click together boards and float as a whole floor. Its not like old school wood flooring where they're shooting nails in each groove, sanding the top and finishing it all together.

The three main issues with this type of floor are:
-Level substrate. The subfloor usually requires a pour of self leveling cement (its technically not a concrete because it doesn't have aggregate but it might be branded that way) thats really thin and dries really hard and flat. If its not flat over time there will be warps in the floor as the wood relaxes into the dips.
-Not enough expansion gap around ALL the edges. Not just the walls, but the islands and tight doorways like the kitchen. Pull up your quarter round and see if the wood is touching the wall or not.
-Kids/wives/adults scooting kitchen bar chairs back quickly. This one gets me because their isn't much wood between the bars edge and where the chairs sit. So every time my wife gets up and scoots her chair back it pushes the wood flooring to buckle just a bit.
-humidity causing expansion. The wood has taken on a lot of water, swollen, pushed the floating floor to the edge of the wall and is now buckling.

Once you think you've got the source identified its now time to fix it. It looks like you['ve popped out of a tongue and groove. You can either try to pry both boards up a bit, use something grippy to pull the two sections a part a bit, or just cut the tongue out right there with a oscillating saw and then glue the boards together (last resort).

At the very least, armed with what I've shared, I would have a flooring installer come out and see what they would cost to do a fix. They most likely can for a few hundred bucks and you waiving any small damage they cause.

Looks like expansion to me. You'll need to track it down to see why it is not being allowed to expand outward and being forced upward. Could be not enough expansion space left around the edge of the room or permanent obstruction (island, etc). Could be if the flooring is in too large of a contiguous area you'll need extra expansion joints as well. Generally, these are placed between rooms at open doorways, etc. Really hard to tell without seeing all of your floorplan and where this expansion problem exists in the house.

Could also be that even if you think you have a floating floor, someone might have nailed or glued parts of it for one reason or another (none that are good though lol).

We had bamboo floors in our last house. Ultra hard. Durable. They were not our selection.

They were not installed correctly and we had massive bowing. I'm talking 3" in some spots.

We did everything from trimming with skilsaw. Screwing into the foundation, you name it.

Eventually, 3 years later, we just ripped them out and put down LVP.

Bamboo is grass and ultra sensitive to humidity. Ours was better in the winter (low humidity and heater running)…

Awful in the spring and fall.

I think that is what is happening to us and I really don't want to replace 1500 sq ft of flooring. At least the upstairs is fine.

Proper screwed

Rip it all out, have slab checked for excessive moisture. Have slab fixed if necessary and prepped for wood like tile.
Or Carpet

I'm dealing with some frustrating flooring issues in my new home. It seems like moisture might be causing bowing and popping in my engineered hardwood floors, especially given the wet spots I've noticed in the garage.
Any quick fixes or suggestions before I resort to pulling up the flooring? Also, while I'm at it, if anyone needs garage door repair services, I specialize in that area and would be happy to help out.
Thanks in advance for any advice or assistance!
Visit: https: Garage Door repair services

We installed a new 2 stage AC and the de-humidifer runs all the time in the house even when we don't need the AC like today. Maybe you need to close the windows and run your AC *or* new floor?

It looks like they did not leave enough room at the perimeter for the wood floor to expand contract.

johnsmith998 said:

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I'm dealing with some frustrating flooring issues in my new home. It seems like moisture might be causing bowing and popping in my engineered hardwood floors, especially given the wet spots I've noticed in the garage.
Any quick fixes or suggestions before I resort to pulling up the flooring? Also, while I'm at it, if anyone needs garage door repair services, I specialize in that area and would be happy to help out.
Thanks in advance for any advice or assistance!
Visit: https: Garage Door repair services

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As noted above, pull out the baseboards and see if the installer left enough room for expansion of the floors.

I will be getting home today to check it out. I appreciate all the advice

Ok the seam on the moisture barrier is directly under this spot and it is clear to me we are getting moisture up through the slab. Not sure if a better moisture barrier would do the trick or where we need to go from here. You can see the back of the floor has clear signs of moisture.

Yikes! I guess you need a pro floor / foundation person to help?

Speed,

Give me a call.

Was that seam not taped ?

How old is the house? Usually the vapor barrier is under the concrete, and the wood floor is installed on top of the concrete slab. If it's an older house it may not have that vapor barrier under the concrete. I've never seen that type of install before.

It's a floating, engineered hardwood floor. That's a sound-reducing underlayment exposed in one of the photos. And it is not taped as it should've been.

But is that plastic sheet only for sound, or also moisture?

Typically both. The seams should be taped.