Buckling Floors? Now What?

Buckling floors are the most common issue we get calls for here at Midsouth.

Unfortunately, replacing your beautiful hardwood floors is not going to make the problem go away. You'll end up in the same place you started. They will keep buckling if the moisture in the crawlspace is not addressed. When moisture from under the house penetrates the sub-floor, it causes your flooring to swell, and therefore, to buckle.

Moisture comes from two places, ground water seepage and outside air that carries droplets.

• Ground water is pretty obvious. It can sneak in under the house, under the footings, between the footings, through cracks in poured walls, etc. For this problem, we install a sump pump in the ground that wicks the water towards it. When it fills to a certain level, it will automatically send it through our smart pipe, out and away from the crawlspace. So this regulates the water coming in from underneath.
  
  
• Outside air (think high humidity) is unfortunately a common culprit here in the south. Just ask your mama when she walks outside after fixing her hair. This is air that's moving significant amounts of water from place to place. It can bring surprising amounts of moisture through large and small openings. This is why we always seal up the crawlspace completely, including vents, gaps, doors, etc.

After we install our sump pump and close off all openings, our waterproofing system totally wipes out the crawlspace moisture. Not only do we cover the ground with a 20mil CleanSpace liner, we also seal up the walls as well. Topping it off, we install a dehumidifier to regulate the airflow inside the crawlspace. This communicates with a monitor inside the home, so you can keep an eye on it and make sure everything is working properly. We even offer a warranty on our system because we are so confident in our products.

Usually, floors settle back down after getting to the root of the problem! Give us a call today to save your hardwood! 1-601-898-0891

"My crawl space is doing well.. There are several areas where the floor boards flattened out nicely after the crawl space was encapsulated. The air seems cleaner somehow. During the ice storm the crawl space temperature dropped very little when the outside temp stayed below freezing 3 days straight. I had no worries of frozen pipes there." - Jackson, MS