Depth Of Relief Cuts In Wood Flooring

This would be done at 8 12 on center.

Depth of relief cuts in wood flooring.

Secondly it cuts the surface area that contacts the sub floor. The major reason for the kerf on the back of wood flooring is to lighten the weight of the boards after manufacturing. The stress relief prevents your hardwood flooring boards from cupping maintaining it s flatness. Cupping is when the board becomes curved across the width of the flooring.

Kerf cuts are small grooves sawed into the underside your deck boards using a circular or table saw to relieve the surface tension. Blade widths are usually 1 8 make sure that the cuts are evenly spaced either one cut creating two halves two cuts creating thirds three cuts creating quarters ect. Set the saw blade depth 1 16 in. Similar to plywood engineered flooring is manufactured by sandwiching top and bottom layers of hardwood around interior core layers of lesser priced processed composites.

Knowing what cut your hardwood flooring is isn t just for aesthetic reasons it s mainly structural. Freshly cut wood called green wood is well saturated with natural moisture from its sap and resins. The relief cut helped the molding span over the plaster grounds and the slight high spot right at the back of a jamb. Stress relief depth should be from 20 30 of overall thickness stress relief along the width should be from 50 65 of the finished width dimension.

This should be a series of grooves or fluted across the width not one large groove. The differing rates between the two thicknesses will cause a log or board to slip. For example if you re thinking about installing a wide plank hardwood floor in your home that means pretty much anything that s 5 inches wide or wider you may want to consider opting for rift and quarter sawn flooring. Saw two parallel relief cuts an inch apart down the center of the flooring plank to be removed.

For stress relief i would cut across the width of boards and not with the length. As soon as the wood is cut it begins to release that its moisture content with thin areas in the wood drying faster than thicker areas. Relief cuts in flooring these small cuts out of the bottom of flooring actually have 2 purposes. To help counter the differing degrees of shrinking and swelling among these layers of unlike materials the bottom layer gets kerf cut.

Plaster is pretty much the origin. Deeper than the thickness of the flooring. As shown in the example below. Firstly it breaks the tension that causes wood to cup.