Acclimation is important for your floors

Before installing new floors sometimes professionals will recommend acclimation of those floors. Firstly, it should be EVERY TIME for almost any floor. Acclimation is good for most building materials since there can be dramatic differences in temparature & humidity between the products' origin and the jobsite.

So especially for hardwood (solid or engineered), bamboo, cork, laminate acclimation of 2-7 days is recommended. Here are my own timing recommendations:

• Pre-finished solid hardwood 2 Days minimum, 4-7 days preferred.
• Unfinished solid hardwood 2 Days minimum, 6-7 days preferred.
• Pre-finished or unfinished engineered hardwood 2 days
  
• Solid Bamboo 2 days minimum, 4-7 preferred.
• Engineered Bamboo 2 days
• Cork 2 days
• Laminate 2 days
• Carpet 1 day if possible (mostly a temperature issue)
  
• Tile 1 day if possible
• Any Radiant Heat jobsites should double the preferred time and the heat must be maintained at constant room temperature the entire time of acclimation AND the flooring should be on a pallett or something not directly on the heated floor.
  

How you acclimate a floor is as important as the concept itself. Here are my guidelines:

• Leave the product in the cartons or package. Do NOT open.
• The product must be in the room(s) that the intended installation will occur in or nearby.
• The temperature of the jobsite and specifically of the installation area should be normal room temperature.
• Acclimation CANNOT occur in a garage when the installation is inside the home.
• The interior Relative Humidity (RH) should be as close to normal as possible.
• Check the subfloor moisture level and the product moisture level when you start acclimation. Inexpensive Wood Meter
• Prior to installation check the moisture levels again on the subfloor and product to make sure that the original differences are closing in on each other.
• Do not have a non-heated jobsite put the floor in the room, install it; then tape and texture walls (which adds massive humidity) and then turn on the heater. Your floor will fail.

The whole point of acclimation is to normalize the moisture levels between the product and the subfloor/jobsite as much as possible. Humidity is everywhere is is changing constantly. Your interior humidity is also always changing especially as you run heat or air conditioning.

Despite all of these words the concept is simple: Get the product into the rooms that they will be installed in a couple days or a bit longer for best results.

BTW - There are exceptions to every rule, Kahrs for example doesn't require acclimation time, however, I would still recommend having "normal living conditions" inside the installation area.