Consumer carpet and flooring information

I have been inspecting flooring for over 15 years now, and one common thing I've found is that when people have complaints about denting/scratching on their new hardwood or laminate floor, it is not covered. I think there was one time when the manufacturer actually asked for a sample for testing, indicating they were considering a problem with the hardness of the surface. The point is, before you buy several thousand dollars of new wood flooring, how can you be sure this won't become a problem in your busy home? I have one idea that according to people that have used it works great. When considering a specific type of floor that looks like will work for you, first buy ONE CARTON only of the product, put the several planks together into one larger section, and put it in the busiest place in your home where the flooring will be installed. Then check it two to four weeks later and you should have your answer! (If the wood flooring you are testing is not a click-together type, then just fit the tongue & groove of the boards together and tape the back to keep them together.)

Let's say you buy a new pair of jeans and start wearing them every day. How soon should you wash them for the first time? If you normally wash a particular pair of jeans once-a-week, should you wait one month before washing the first time? Of course not. So why do people wait two or three years or longer before getting their carpet cleaned for the first time, when normally they have their carpet cleaned every year or two? I'm glad you asked, because I know the answer! Back in the 1960's, professional carpet cleaners used high ph shampoo to clean with. When the carpet dried, the shampoo left a residue in the carpet that was like a magnet for dirt. So what happened? People noticed their carpet would get dirty after cleaning much faster rate than when it was new. They made the obvious and correct assumption that carpet got dirty faster after cleaning. Let's move up to the 21st century now. There have been major improvements to chemicals and equipment, so that most competent cleaners now will leave very little if any residue in the carpet. The carpet does not soil at a faster rate than before the cleaning.

A second aspect of carpet is its ability to filter the air of dust/etc.as well as pick up tracked in soil. If the carpet is not maintained on a regular basis including when the first cleaning happens, the ability of a professional to clean out all of the soil and particulates lessens. The carpet is like a wastebasket that fills up upside-down, from top to bottom. If it is completely "full", it will be difficult for the cleaner to remove all of the soil. BUT, it will look clean. But since the "wastebasket" is still partially full, it will APPEAR to get dirty sooner.

These are two good reasons to NOT WAIT more than a year (or so, depending on the traffic) for that first cleaning. With regular and timely cleanings including the first one, your carpet can stay looking new for years to come. If you live in central Washington state, go to Moses Lake/Ephrata carpet cleaning for more information, or in Tri-Cities go to Tri-Cities Carpet Cleaning

I am called to inspect probably twenty to thirty solid hardwood floors every year that after several weeks or months have started gapping. A quick reminder: solid hardwood floor planks are each one piece of wood, whereas engineered wood planks are several different layers of wood glued together-very much like plywood. Once-in-a-while I'll see an engineered wood with gapping. In either case, it is a serious and very expensive problem. If you actually read the rest of this article, you can be sure this won't happen to you, I promise.

"Moisture levels" are very important with solid hardwood flooring. All wood has moisture of some amount. When a solid wood floor has been installed, especially if nailed/stapled in, and then starts gapping at the seams so that there is space between adjacent boards, it is because they have shrunk. The only other possibility is that your house has expanded, but I'm pretty confident that has never happened and never will. So, why did the boards shrink? Because they lost moisture since being installed. When wood dries out, it shrinks, when it gets wetter, it expands. Okay, now we're getting to the very important part.

Most people are familiar with the term "acclimation". Most people know that wood flooring, even laminates (like Pergo) is to be acclimated before being installed. Usually the instructions say to acclimate for 48 hours, or 3 days, or whatever, then install. THAT IS NOT CORRECT. If you acclimate the product as outlined by the manufacturer for the proper time, then install it, and then it gaps, it will not be warrantied or replaced by the manufacturer. The small print on flooring installation is this: when the installer installs the flooring, he/she accepts that the flooring and subfloor are suitable for installation. The problem is, sometimes the wood flooring is showing up at the house to be acclimated and is startuing out at a 15% moisture level, and is to be installed in a home with the subfloor having a 6% to 9% moisture level. There is no way that flooring can acclimate to those conditions in a few days. It will still be too wet. And after it is installed, it will shrink-causing gapping. And the worst part, the flooring will have to be pulled up and thrown away. It is not a correctible situation.

I need to interject one small point here. "Some" gapping on solid hardwood flooring is very normal, especially if you live in an area with real seasonal changes like I do in eastern Washington. Our homes here will invariably be drier in the winter and wetter in the summer, causing some minor gapping and is perfectly normal. One sure way to know if the gapping is normal is if it pretty much disappears each year during the wetter time. But the gapping I'm talking about is not like this. One lady showed me how some uncooked spaghetti that had fallen on the floor had rolled into the gaps. Or if you are missing one or more of your favorite pets-that is also a clue.

THE SOLUTION So before this horrible scenario happens, make sure the following is done before your new floor is installed. The flooring needs to be moisture checked with a wood moisture meter. There are pin meters (invasive) and magnetic (non-invasive), either of which will work. However, these run $200 to $300 or more. Insist that the installer have the moisture checked, especially as it will be the installers BIG problem if later you have gapping. Because you know what will happen? The manufacturer will send me to look at the floor, I'll make a lot of measurements of dimensions and moisture levels, and using the Wood Handbook's coefficient of dimensional change tables, I'll be able to determine what the actual moisture level of the wood was at the time of installation. I'll find that it was too high (or WAY too high), and the finding will be that the wood floor was not acclimated to the home's normal environment before being installed. OUCH! That will cost somebody a lot of money, and will cost you at least a lot of hassle with the issue of replacement, etc. You don't want that, and neither do I.

By the way, engineered wood should definitely be acclimated as well, although some of the manufacturers do not want the cartons opened for acclimation and some do, so pay attention to that. Also, laminates (which are real layers of wood similar to engineered except for the top layer which is melamine (aluminum oxide or similar) are also to be acclimated but I've never seen a claim rejected because the floor wasn't acclimated. Typically laminates and a lot of the engineered woods are "floating" which means they connect together and become one unit. Any dimensional change does not normally cause gapping but rather a change of the amount of clearance (perimeter expansion space) at the walls. Some of these issues I'll cover in another article.

TO SUMMARIZE: With any kind of wood flooring, but especially with solid hardwood, be sure that the moisture level of the wood is within 2% to 4% of the subfloor the flooring is going on top of. In my part of the country where the relative humidity of homes is usually between 25% and 40%, the flooring should be between 6% and 9% before being installed. That leads to one of my favorite phrases, "IMAGINE NO GAPPING!".

Did you know that when you vacuum your carpet, 80% of the vacuuming effectiveness takes place when you pull back, and only 20% when you push the vacuum forward? Another suggestion for vacuum procedure when vacuuming traffic areas is to vacuum in four different directions. In other words, face north and vacuum, then east and vacuum, then south, then west. Seriously! This will maximize the soil removal in the traffic areas and help keep them from "uglying out" over time. When you get sand and soil particles in the carpet, these little particulates have sharp edges that can cut into the surface of the filaments when walked on. When the filaments start getting scratched up enough, the traffic areas start looking "dirty." It's not dirt though, it's actually abrasion. And I'm sorry, even if you had the best carpet cleaner in the country (uh, that's me) clean your traffic areas, the abrasion is permanent. In fact, here's a little carpet inspector secret: to find out if your traffic areas that look dirty are really dirty, or if they have abrasion, take a bright light (at least 200 watts) and hold it directly over the traffic area you're inspecting. If the "dirt" is actually dirt, you'll see it even easier. However, if it's abrasion, you won't see it. So you can either hang bright lights over all of your traffic areas all the time to hide the abrasion, or you can vacuum them correctly from the start.

I strongly recommend a vacuum with a HEPA filter that filters out even the small dust particles. I don't personally have any favorite, nor have I seen any difference in the condition of a carpet depending on the brand of vacuum being used. The difference always seems to stem from the proper or improper use of whatever vacuum is being used.

Of course, vacuuming frequency can vary between a main hall and a seldom-used guest bedroom. Vacuuming in the main areas every one to two days is probably good. However, don't neglect that back bedroom too long. Vacuuming is not just for sucking up broken potato chips and crumbs from last night's party. Rather, there are two things you're after, even though you can't see them. One is airborne particulate that settles into the carpet or is filtered by the carpet as the air moves through the home. The second are the inevitable dust mites that even you have in your home right now. These microscopic beasts live in everybody's furnishings but can be somewhat controlled with regular and thorough vacuuming. That's why I'll suggest in a moment that you have that back guest bedroom cleaned by the cleaner every 1 to 2 years, even though it's not getting very much traffic. Therefore, regular and thorough vacuuming is one of the two most important parts of maintaining your new carpet. The other is cleaning, but that is another subject!!