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To acclimate, or not to acclimate?

You might be getting mixed signals from different people on whether or not you need to acclimate your new hardwood or laminate flooring. Some people might tell you that it is not necessary, but in most cases it is absolutely necessary.

Just in case some of you do not know what I mean by acclimating, let me talk a little bit about that before we go into the meat of the discussion….. When you buy any laminate, hardwood, cork, bamboo, or luxury vinyl, the product has been sitting in a warehouse ever since it was produced. These warehouses are not climate controlled; so that means the temperature and relative humidity of the flooring changed to the environment it is in. In all these types of material, the product will expand and contract depending on the temperature and relative humidity. So, obviously when the flooring gets into your home it is going to expand or contract depending on the teperature and relative humidity.

Having said all that, what do you think would happen if you took some hardwood flooring straight to your house and glued it down the same day? After it acclimated, you would have gaps all over the floor. The moral of the story here is that no matter what your sales person says, ACCLIMATING IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. It will either acclimate before it is installed, or after, so make sure it is before.

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