Engineered wooden flooring is an excellent choice for introducing a natural and elegant appeal to interiors. Made from three layers of wood bonded together, engineered wood offers the perfect balance of aesthetics, functionality, and ease of maintenance. While engineered floors are undoubtedly easy to install, it’s crucial to ensure that the wooden planks are stored and acclimated correctly. Continuing on the subject, this blog post discusses the ins and outs of storage and acclimation guidelines for engineered wooden flooring.
Also Read: Transform Your Living Space with Oak Engineered Wood Flooring
Understanding Acclimation
For engineered wooden floors, acclimation refers to the process of conditioning or adjusting the moisture content of the wooden floor to a specific environment. For an engineered wooden floor to offer optimum performance, it must be in a state of “equilibrium”. Equilibrium, for engineered wooden flooring, refers to the condition where the wood neither absorbs nor loses moisture – this is known as Equilibrium Moisture Content (EMC).
The Process of Acclimation
Acclimation is required only when the manufacturer recommends it. This includes:
- Segmenting the floor into smaller subunits to facilitate acclimation.
- “Cross-stacking” the flooring units with spacers (0.75 to 1-inch long sticks) between the subsequent layers, which allow air to circulate on all sides of the board.
- Ensuring proper time for acclimation. It is advisable to acclimate wooden flooring for a minimum of three days and monitor the moisture content readings until it reaches EMC.
- For site-finished floorings, this time duration ranges between five and seven days, while maintaining constant environmental conditions.
- Engineered flooring installed with an adhesive application system requires a longer time to allow all the residuals to undergo off-gassing.
- Tropical tree species are denser than native ones and require even more time for acclimation.
Storage Guidelines
Storage is an essential step in ensuring that the wooden flooring is properly acclimated. This includes:
- Avoiding storage of flooring units at job site locations that are close to a moisture or water source, for example, storage rooms and garages.
- Ensuring optimum environmental conditions to facilitate acclimation – Relative Humidity levels must be between 40% and 65%.
- Stacking wooden planks correctly, packages containing wooden planks should be placed on at least three sticks along the length of the planks. It is also advisable to provide a space of 10 cm to allow space for forklifts to carry the units.
- Using wooden palettes to stack flooring units to save storage area, which also aids in transportation.
Also Read: 5 Common Things That Can Damage Your Engineered Wood Flooring
About Mikasa Floors
Mikasa Floors, by Greenlam Industries, is a leading provider of engineered wooden flooring. Inspired by the Spanish phrase “Mi Casa, Su Casa”, which means “My home is your home”, we strive to help you embellish your interiors, whether commercial or residential, with some of the best engineered wooden flooring. To discuss your requirements, call on our toll-free number 1800-833-0004 or email at info@mikasafloors.com. To explore our extensive flooring options, you can download our app “Mikasa Floors” for both Android and iOS platforms.