What Causes Gaps in Floorboards, and How do I Fix Them?

Gap-toothed flooring installation jobs might be a thing in the decrepit homes of horror movies, but that certainly doesn’t mean they should be in real life! Indeed, to rise one morning and find your substantial investment looking crooked and sad—it can lead to quite significant feelings of despair. You’ve worked so hard to take care of your wood floor; what gives?

UB Hardwoods is here to help. While hardwood flooring gaps for a variety of reasons, the cause of your flooring’s misshapenness is likely within the realm of fixability. Below, we’ll detail a few causes of gaps in the floorboards, as well as what can be done about them.

Humidity Causes Gapped Floorboards

Primarily, gapped hardwood can be caused by a lack of humidity in your home’s atmosphere. Wood, due to its organic nature, takes on water from the air, and when there isn’t enough of it, this causes it to shrink and wither, resulting in the cavernous spaces between the boards you now see.

If this is the cause of the gapping, you may see it more in the wintertime, when the heat is cranked up in your home and the humidity is thus low. If your flooring installation pros failed to let your hardwood properly adjust to your home’s humidity levels, this too can cause gapping.

Poor Installation Causes Gapped Floorboards

Gaps can also be caused by a poor floor installation job, though this is much less common. If the first board was not installed as straight as possible, for example, the results ripple out through the rest of the flooring job, making it look more like a crammed-in jigsaw puzzle and not an elegantly laid hardwood floor.

But a bad first board isn’t the only thing that can throw off a novice floor installer; every single board must be kept straight when laying outside edges, or the entire job can be tossed askew!

How Do I Fix This?

For humidity-related problems, your floor has more than a fighting chance. Simply endeavoring to make consistent your home’s humidity will stabilize your hardwood and eliminate the gaps. Since prime seasonal levels vary depending on location, ask your local floor pro for recommended levels.

As for installation-related gaps? You’re best off having corrective work done by a pro, even if it means a completely new floor. Sure, you could go at it with the wood epoxy, but for such an expensive investment, are you sure you want a patch job?

UB Hardwoods: Your Source for Hardwood Flooring Tips and Tricks

Need a new hardwood floor? With our variety of top brands and attentive staff, UB Hardwoods is ready to help every step of the way. Give our Plymouth office a call at 763-807-4500.