Upstairs floor boards cracking?

puntosporting

Im in a new house since feb 04 and lately ive noticed a couple of foorboards upstairs cracking!
They crack mainly at night and they often wake me up at night the crack is so loud!
Ive had the upstairs floor boards sanded and varnished and the are fully exposed could this be part of the reason?
Does anyone know how i can stop the boards cracking?
Also one particular board has split very noticably the whole length of the room!
Any suggestions or comments would be great!

beer enigma

Had that in one room of a new house a couple of years back - turned out that the planks were still green (slightly damp) and the central heating was drying them out so fast they cracked.

Had to get the builder to replace them all & it solved the problem

Victor

As a new building settles and dries out, some cracking is common, although it usually manifests itself in plaster cracks, not floor board cracks, which I would consider unusual.

Are you certain that the cracking is getting worse and not that what you are hearing is piping expanding and contracting at night?

I suspect it's too minor an item for Homebond, but a word with the builder should sort it out.

If this is a one off house, I suggest strongly you mention it ASAP as the defects liability period is usually one year.

puntosporting

Its a new housing estate being built still building away!
I will have a word and see how i get on.
They are deffo cracking and its not the pipe.

Lex Luthor

I presume you mean they are "creaking"?

It's just to do with them expanding and contracting with the heat on & off. I've a few boards that have split also. They can be replaced if you're handy enough. Wait till they start to show gaps between them and then you'll be wishing you carpetted over them.

Mind you, we had an extension put in over a year and a half ago and the guys who did it also fit wooden floors and there is a difinate difference in quality between the new tongue & groove and the existing.

wideband

as others have pointed out its just a case of timber shrinking....in some cases you shall get farly noticible cracks where the boards are jointed very tightly and instead of the joints parting uniformly...the boards actually split.

the floor boards may have been left out in the rain for sometime before fitting and left fairly damp making the cracking even worse....if you get no joy from the builder you should fill the cracks with plastic wood...choose a color which matches the grain and revarnish

did you notice the saw-dust "balling" when you were sanding?

Wertz

Andip wrote:

Had that in one room of a new house a couple of years back - turned out that the planks were still green (slightly damp) and the central heating was drying them out so fast they cracked.

Had to get the builder to replace them all & it solved the problem

Yup. Definitely a green wood problem.
With the building boom the way it is at the moment, builder's timber suppliers aren't drying out the timber (it's done in a low temp kiln) for long enough, or even in cases where it is dry, our weather combined with mucky sites has made it damp again.
Nail these boards down in a house and turn on the heat and they start to warp slightly and the knots (assuming it's pine) start to shrink. Cracking in certain cuts of wood is to be expected and unless the board cracks the whole way through and splits, I wouldn't worry too much about it, unless it bothers you from a cosmetic POV.
If the noise is bothering you or the boards warping is leading to uneveness then snag it to the builder; the fact that the site is still under construction will work in your favour...