Expert: Dan Griffin - 8/25/2010

Question
Iown a fifty plus year old pier and beam home in Texas. This summer has
been very wet and humid, I noticed recently that the hard wood floor in
my house has started to buckle in certain places. It's mostly in one certain
part of the hall, one bedroom and in a couple of places in the living room.
During the summer the house shifts I guess and the windows won't open
and the front door will not close. In the winter it's fine. I'm just concerned
about the floor, in certain places it's buckled pretty high and looks wavy.
Could this be due to the weather or do I have a more serious problem? I
do know that in the hallway, living room and bedroom, there were a ton of
cracks above the doorways, on the ceiling and in corners that had to be
fixed. I'm just worried that there may be a foundation problem and if so
how do I fix it? Thank you!

Answer
Jamie, you seem to have quite a problem.  If the hardwood floor is humping up, this is a sign of moisture.  A wet hardwood floor swells and can raise up substantially.  Winter months are drier and the wood floor shrinks and often has gaps between the boards.  If the floor was layed tight in the winter, the humidity in the summr can swell the floor.  I assume you have air conditioning so the humidity should be under control.  Lack of AC, use of a swamp cooler, or other moisture source would be my first suspects.

The shifting foundation that affects windows and doors sounds like the opposite problem.  If you are down in clay country, the ground dries out so much in the heat of summer that the clay shrinks.   When the rains come, the clay swells and pushes stuff back to where it belongs.  It may be as simple as judicious use of a sprinkler or soaker hose.  It may be worth contacting one of foundation jacking outfits like PermaJack to see what they might suggest.