As your hardwood flooring contractors, we’d be very remiss if we simply delivered your wood and immediately installed it on your property. Although sometimes we wish it were that simple, we’d be out of business—and fast.
BEFORE the wood is even delivered and certainly BEFORE the installation, we need to follow a certain process to ensure your building’s temperature and moisture conditions are compatible with the wood. If your house is a new construction, the process gets even more complicated.
Below are general guidelines to help you understand the basics of what to expect before we deliver and install your new wood flooring (please note this is intended as an outline, and guidelines may vary depending on your type of building, type of flooring, and other variables).
After you read our outline, take some time to read the detailed PDF document written by the National Wood Flooring Association, which provides more extensive information on this topic. Whatever contractor you decide to work with (or if you do it yourself), these guidelines are CRITICAL and, if not followed, could adversely affect the functioning and longevity of your flooring.
The basics:
- If your building is a new construction, we install the hardwood flooring last, with the exception of base and shoe moldings, which can be put in following the hardwood installation.
- We analyze your property for potential problems that could affect installation before we even deliver…and long before we install the wood.
- Your building, if a new construction, must be enclosed before we deliver and install the wood.
- We need to acclimate the wood to your property’s temperature and humidity. Buildings vary in temperature and relative humidity; and different types of wood behave differently depending on environmental elements. Thus, we ask that you operate your heating or air conditioning before, during, and after the flooring installation to allow the wood to acclimate to your home’s conditions. If it’s not possible for whatever reason to run your heat or air conditioning to regulate the climate of your home, we would use our equipment to mimic those conditions in your building before, during, and after delivery and installation of the wood.
- The following work must be completed BEFORE delivering the wood and BEFORE beginning the installation:
Concrete , Masonry , Plastering , Drywall , Priming (first coat before painting is done) , Texturing
- Basement/crawl spaces MUST be dry.
- For other crawl space information in great detail, see PDF from NWFA.
- We will determine the grade level of the location where your flooring will be installed. Solid wood flooring can be installed at grade or above grade but NOT below grade. Engineered wood floors can be used for below grade, at grade and above grade.
- We analyze your subfloors for their moisture content. Subfloor moisture levels and behavior vary when paired with different species of wood. Your flooring manufacturer recommends the ideal moisture conditions for subflooring relative to the wood being installed. We have the equipment to gauge precise measurements.
