The weather can affect everything from human emotion to the moon’s gravitational pull on the ocean. Did you know it can impact the flooring in your in Lutz Lake Fern, FL, home, as well? Keep reading to learn how temperature changes and moisture influence the longevity of the floors in your house.
How Does Moisture and Heat Impact Flooring?
The effects of the climate in your local area impact certain types of flooring, especially porous floors. This means the two types most affected are hardwood and laminate flooring.
As the heat and humidity in your home fluctuate, so do these floor types in regard to their size. As it heats up and the air fills with moisture, hardwood and laminate flooring will expand. As it gets cooler, such as during the summer when you run the air conditioner, the floor will contract.
Does the Hot Weather Hurt Your Floors?
Living in Lutz Lake Fern means you enjoy hot summers with an average temperature of 90 degrees. If you live in a home with hardwood flooring, you should know hot climate damages flooring just as much as cooler weather. As the temperature stays hot, this increases humidity in the air and results in the hardwood planks absorbing too much moisture, thus cracking and warping.
What Flooring is Best for Hot Climates?
Residents in Lutz Lake Fern often avoid hardwood flooring because of the hot climate. When shopping for flooring that suits hot climates well, you have several options, including:
- Rubber.
- Porcelain tile.
- Concrete.
- Luxury vinyl tile.
Each type of flooring listed above has its own individual pros and cons. This is why it’s best to speak with a flooring specialist about the best type for your home.
Please note the luxury vinyl tiles mentioned above don’t refer to peel-n-stick tiles. Luxury tiles come constructed from various layers of material to improve durability and longevity.
How to Care for Floors in Harsh Climate Weather?
Do you want or already have hardwood flooring? Follow these helpful tips to get the most out of your hardwood floors when living in a hot climate.
Install the Floor Properly
The installation process used when installing hardwood flooring largely determines how long it’ll last. Hardwood flooring installed in hot climates should always allow room for expansion. You can easily cover this expansion space to look nicer by installing baseboards.
Use Zoned Heating and Cooling
Zoned heating and cooling makes it simple to adjust temperature and humidity levels in various parts of the house. As a result, it becomes easier to decrease expansions and contractions in the flooring. This translates into less damage to your floors.
HVAC zoning is particularly of advantage for homes with multiple floors. As the hotter air rises in the house, the upper floors get warmer than those on the main level or in the basement. Zoned heating and cooling can keep upper-level flooring cooler as well as any flooring throughout the house that gets exposed to lots of natural lighting.
Keep Your Floors Clean
The best tip you can follow when it comes to caring for hardwood floors in hot climates is to keep them clean. You can lightly mop and dry the floors each day or week to keep them their cleanest. Make sure to use as little water/cleaning solution as possible when cleaning them so as to reduce moisture buildup.
It’s also important to keep the floors clean of any mud, dust, dirt and debris. The best way to do this is to make sure everyone removes their shoes when entering your home and before walking on the hardwood floors. If your home has a foyer, keep the floor cleaner by storing shoes in a shoe bench or hanging them in the foyer closet on a shoe hanger.
Do you worry about caring for your floors and making them last as long as possible? Contact Yeager Flooring today to learn about proper floor installation and care for hardwood and other floors.
Image provided by iStock
About the Author: Jim Yeager, Owner
