Whoever
is responsible for installing the oak flooring should also be responsible for
the preparation of the subfloor it’s to be installed onto and the room or site
conditions that will surround the newly installed floor.
Any
risk of moisture reaching the flooring after installation should be assessed
and fixed, and all ‘wet’ trade work like plastering should be completed and
fully dried.
Your
new oak flooring should only be delivered when the property it’s to be fitted
in is at the correct and consistent moisture level.
It’s
absolutely critical for the flooring installer to check and prove that the
moisture content of the flooring and the structure it’s going into are at the
correct moisture content, before any installation commences.
Good
places to check moisture levels with a moisture meter are floor joists,
doorways, subfloors, and the base of the walls where the skirting board is
usually fixed.
The
heating system should be in full working order before your oak flooring is
delivered because this will help the interior of the property reach its normal
and expected environmental conditions.
Before
and sometimes during installation, it may be necessary to use portable
de-humidifier or humidifier units to help reach and maintain the required
moisture and humidity levels.
Always
remember that humidity is a form of potential moisture attack too, so
monitoring and controlling this is as vital as isolating any potential leaks.
It’s
very easy to see a water leak running across your floor but it’s not so easy to
judge what the humidity level surrounding the oak floor is, so that’s why Oak
Floors Online recommend always using a Thermo-Hygrometer that shows temperature
and humidity levels continuously. A simple glance at this small unit will
advise you of the conditions that have most effect on your finished and
installed oak floor.
Relative
Humidity should be maintained at between 35% and 60% throughout the lifetime of
the floor to avoid excessive dimensional movement of each oak floor board
within it. This level is also recommended by health experts as being the best
for our human bodies too, so good for us as well as our beautiful wood floor.
