Flooring
Hardwood Flooring Installation in Charleston, SC
Solid hardwood, fitted for a climate that moves it.
Solid hardwood, fitted for a climate that moves it.
Quick answer: Solid hardwood moves with humidity, so a good installation acclimates the wood in the room, leaves expansion gaps at the walls, uses a moisture barrier and usually a subfloor over a slab, and checks the crawl space first, because a damp crawl space moves the floor above it. A Mount Pleasant showroom publishes solid hardwood at $9–$18 per sq ft installed (cost guide; not our quote). Licensed SC general contractor CLG.127339. Call (843) 718-8177.
Related: Why Are My Hardwood Floors Cupping (and Will They Flatten Out)? · Why Is My Floor Soft or Bouncy in One Spot?.
It moves with humidity. That is not a defect, it is what wood does, and every part of a good installation is built around it: material acclimated in the room it is going into, expansion gaps left at the perimeter where the baseboard will cover them, and fastening that lets the boards move as a floor rather than fighting each one.
Over a crawl space, what is under the floor matters as much as what is on it. A subfloor drawing moisture from a damp crawl space will move the finished floor above it no matter how carefully the boards were laid, which is why the crawl space is worth looking at before the floor is ordered.
On a slab, solid hardwood needs a moisture barrier and often a subfloor between the two. Fitting it straight to slab is where most of the failures we get called to look at started.
We take this work across greater Charleston, from Summerville and Goose Creek to Mount Pleasant, West Ashley and the sea islands, and on the York County side around Rock Hill, Fort Mill, Tega Cay and Lake Wylie. More on our flooring services.
Long enough to reach the moisture content it will live at — days rather than hours, and longer if it has come from a cold warehouse into a humid house.
It is the cheapest step in the job and the one most often skipped.
With a moisture barrier and usually a subfloor, yes. Straight onto slab, no — and a slab that has not been moisture tested is not a slab anyone should be laying a wood floor on.
If it is damp, yes. A subfloor pulling moisture up will move the boards above it whatever was done at floor level, and it is far cheaper to fix before the floor goes down than after.