LESLIE: Raul in Illinois listening on WYLL. What’s happening with your floor?
RAUL: Oh, it’s got a bulge in it. It’s an even bulge. It’s not buckling. It’s a wood floor and it’s in the basement.
TOM: Ah ha.
LESLIE: Ooh.
RAUL: I don’t know what type of wood it is. It’s got a smooth bulge in the middle.
TOM: Yeah, say no more. You’ve got hardwood floor in a basement and no wonder you’re getting bulges. Because moisture and hardwood floors – basement moisture – don’t go together too well.
RAUL: OK. So is there any way to fix that problem without tearing the whole floor out?
TOM: Probably not. Is it a solid hardwood floor?
RAUL: Yes, it is.
TOM: Yeah. You’re not supposed to put hardwood floor in a basement. There’s too – it’s too damp down there. There’s only one kind of hardwood floor that you could use in a basement, Raul, and that’s called engineered hardwood and it’s built a little bit differently, isn’t it, Leslie?
LESLIE: Well, it’s built more like plywood at opposing grains in many, many layers with then the top being hardwood, almost in a veneer. So this way it’s structurally stable. The problem is you’ve got the solid hardwood and it’s probably just over an underlayment directly onto your concrete subfloor, which is just wicking moisture and putting that moisture into the hardwood which is sucking it up. Now it’s buckling. The only solution is to pull that hardwood up and put something else down there.
TOM: Yeah, if you have the area that’s buckled the worst, you could possibly cut out the buckled pieces and replace them and it might last for a little while. But really, if you have a – if you have any kind of humidity down there, the hardwood’s just not going to be – it’s not the right place for it.
Sorry we don’t have better news for you. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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