Wood at the Warehouse
1996 National wood flooring association
Once milled, the flooring should be stored in dry, well ventilated warehouses before shipment to jobsites. These are some recommended guidelines for handling and storing hardwood flooring;
· Unloading; Flooring should be unloaded in good, dry weather, never in the rain.
· Warehousing: Flooring should be stored in an enclosed, well ventilated building and located in areas where similar fine millwork is stored. The storage area within the building should be clean and dry. The stacks of flooring should have good air circulation and no water drainage nearby.
The storage building should ideally have controlled humidity. Continual dry heat may dry flooring below its desirable moisture content, which could result in buckled floors if flooring is installed without proper acclimation. Conversely, storage in a damp area can introduce unwanted moisture and expansion in the flooring, which could result in unacceptable cracks between boards if flooring is installed without proper acclimation.
In Alaska the most common problem is recieving damp flooring from "Outside" down in the lower 48. Alaska has a dryer humidity than most of the lower 48, and normaly needs some time to "dry out" or acclimate. To make matters worse, most manufactures, and distributors in mild climates dont have heated wherhouses, and leave it up to the end user to accclimate the wood flooring. If wood is shipped directly to you from such a wherhouse, add in sitting on a ship, and on the dock in a damp container, It may take an unusualy long time to acclimate. Differant wood species take differant amount of time to acclimate. The wider the boards, the more critical exact acclimation is.
At Alaska Wholesale hardwoods we store our wood flooring between 72-74 degrees, thus drying, or pre-acclimating our wood flooring to the most common temptures. If you live in a damper or normaly keep your home colder, than it would be a good Idea to lay the boards out 2 to 4 days before instalition (depending on species and humidity).
