MOISTURE MANAGEMENT When preparing to lay a wood floor, it is essential that the moisture and humidity of the
subfloor is carefully measured to prevent a catastrophic floor failure. Tony Morgan, Senior Technician at moisture monitoring specialist Wagner Metres, explains how one installation company uses Wagner Metres‘ products to do this.
Sparks Carpet One Floor & Home, in Chatham, Ontario, faces year-round moisture and humidity challenges when installing hardwood floors.
For that reason, Sparks Carpet One follows a well-defined quality- control protocol. It calls for extensive measurement and monitoring of moisture and humidity at the job site before, during, and after installation.
The result? Hundreds of successful hardwood floor installations, and no costly callbacks or customer complaints.
Paul Beaman, Sparks Carpet One Manager and Senior Estimator, noted: “It’s especially critical that we do our due diligence before the actual installation, so that the site conditions are correct.
40 | SUBFLOOR PREPARATION
“So we always make sure each installation site has the proper temperature and humidity, and the flooring is properly acclimated before we install.”
This due diligence actually begins before the sale. Paul visits the site to make sure it’s suitable for hardwood flooring.
“We make sure that the wood subfloor is acceptable. This includes checking the floor joists to see if they are solid or I-beams, determining their spacing, and using a moisture meter to check for moisture,” continued Paul.
If the subfloor is concrete, Paul uses a Wagner Meters Rapid RH kit to measure the humidity of the slab. Once he places the Rapid RH sensors at the correct depth and equilibrates them, each reading simply involves pushing
a button and reading the required RH and temperature levels. It not only provides accurate readings, but saves considerable time as well.
To prevent moisture from migrating from a concrete subfloor to the wood flooring, Paul installs a Goodfellow Silicone Vapor Shield between the two.
MEASURES TEMPERATURE
AND HUMIDITY Paul also uses a hygrometer to measure the site’s temperature and humidity. If either, or both, are outside the acceptable range, he instructs the property owner on what they need to do to make the site ready for installation.
www.tomorrowscontractfloors.com
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