You certainly had some vinyl flooring years ago that pulled in at the perimeters. Or maybe you had a graphics tufted nylon carpet that was glued directly to the substrate and shrank at the seams the next day. Both of these examples dealt with inherent characteristics in the material that caused them to be dimensionally unstable and appeared shortly after installation.

However, the cases I'm going to share with you occurred quite a while after installation. One includes wood, which shrank months after it was installed, and the other a vinyl tile that shrank four years after installation.

In the case of the wood, the boards were separating up to 3/16 of an inch. Naturally, the first inclination is that the problem is installation related. Not true in all cases.

For example, the environment in which the wood was installed had an average humidity level of 6%. The heating was a radiant hot-water system with a blower unit. Not only was the air in the geographical area of this installation dry, but there was also virtually no humidity in the building where the wood was installed. As a result, the wood literally had the moisture in it baked out. As the wood dried out it shrank.

This is more common in the winter up north with the frigid temperatures- dry outside air and heated space that has no humidification. Your skin dries out in these conditions, so rest assured your wood floors are going to do the same. The case sighted may be extreme, but shrinking wood in winter is common. It will shrink in the winter and expand in the summer. If you dry out the space where the wood lies it will shrink. Go to the National Wood Flooring Association's (NWFA) Web site and you can get booklets that explain all of this. If you sell wood you might want to seriously consider doing this.

The shrinking vinyl tile floor may have you scratching your head, but when all the facts and evidence are considered it's not so strange. The building where the tiles are installed is an expansion, completed in 2001. There are four sections to the building with the first dating back to 1983. The tiles were noticed shrinking in the newest section of the building about two years ago, and the condition has gotten worse. There are now gaps as wide as 1/4-inch, and the tiles are stuck to the floor tighter than two coats of paint. When the exposed substrate was tested it indicated very high moisture present. But vinyl tile should not shrink with moisture, so we shouldn't see the tiles separating as a result of the moisture detected. On top of that, not every tile was affected, only sections. What was going on here?

Look outside. The building was built on a hill, and the earth leveled where it was built. The land above the building is hilly, and the pitch of the earth and parking lot is toward the most affected area of the floor. It seems this is a 'gathering point' for ground moisture. A perforated moisture barrier would allow moisture to migrate below the slab and move up through it.

Remember, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When the slab heaves just a little it will take the 'deck' of the tile with it. Every area where there is more moisture in the slab there is separation in the tile. Therefore, this is not an installation problem either. It�s almost impossible to get the tiles off the floor without shattering them, and the culprit is actually nature and excavation.

Make plans now to attend the LGM Carpet Seminar on April 2, 3 and 4 in Dalton. Contact us for details at 706.370. 5888.