How to Prevent Humidity Damage to Your Flooring

Minnesotan summers are well known for humidity so thick you can practically swim through it. While this may seem like just an outdoor nuisance, in reality, high humidity can wreak all sorts of havoc indoors too—namely on your flooring. Ask any veteran wood floor owner and they’ll tell you all about how improper moisture management can cause warping, buckling, and staining!

Luckily, when your indoor humidity is kept under control, you’ll enjoy your hardwood floors for decades to come. U.B. Hardwoods is here with some easy tips and tricks on how to do just that.

Maintain Your Home’s Exterior

The best offense against humidity is a good defense, and your home’s roof, siding, gutters, and foundation all play a role in protecting your interior from potentially humid outside air. In more specific terms, these defensive features are often collectively referred to as your building’s envelope, and when they aren't working at their best, your home’s ability to regulate its own humidity is severely compromised.

Aside from regular flooring care, make sure to get an exterior contractor out for regular appointments. Your home will be all the better for it both inside and out.

Give Hardwood Floors Room to Breathe

Hardwood flooring will naturally expand a bit during more humid seasons. Wood is porous and organic, after all! Your hardwood flooring installation should leave it with some “breathing room,” so to speak.

In other words, the area under your baseboards should generally be devoid of flooring. This allows for that expansion and disallows strain-related issues like cracking.

Using Your A/C to Combat Humidity

Fun fact: air conditioning actually originated as a way to regulate interior humidity!

While our HVAC systems have come a long way since then, your A/C still can help to reduce your building’s humidity to healthy levels—healthy as far as your flooring is concerned, of course. Simply running it can do the job in many cases.

If your home has unusually high humidity though, you will benefit from a dehumidifier. Avoiding excess strain on your air conditioner is paramount. You don’t want to be caught high and dry (moist?) when summertime gets into full swing.

U.B. Hardwoods Has Moisture-Resistant Flooring Options Aplenty

Struggling with fussy flooring or a humidity-heavy home? U.B. Hardwoods is your one-stop shop for floor installation, advice, solutions and more. Give our Plymouth office a call today at 763-807-4500.