Expert: Jamie Yocono - 4/11/2009

Question
Hi,

Our kitchen cabinets are splitting. They are a five piece door.   It starts with a
hairline crack on the seam of the frame.  Then, the doors that are used the
most end up splitting all the way down.  The wood panel insert remains
intact.  We have had this problem the first year since we bought the brand
new home.  Some of the doors have been replaced more than once.  The
cabinet maker does not want to stand behind his work.  We feel that since we
have had a problem since day one, they should still fall under the warranty.  
Any suggestions.

Answer
Hi Deb,

I'm not completely sure I understand the splitting that you're describing on your five piece cabinet door. Is it a hairline crack at the joint, where two perpendicular boards meet? You went on to say that most of the doors end up splitting all the way down - are you talking about the entire piece of wood, or where the panel goes into one of the vertical members?

I have a suspicion your problem is due to seasonal movement that wood undergoes as the humidity in the room changes. In the winter, it's dry, so wood can shrink a bit. But in the summer, when it's humid, wood wants to swell up a little bit. If something is built without taking that movement into account, then it's liable to split, which is what I think is occurring with your kitchen cabinets.

However, you also mentioned that the crack is starting at the seam. Does seam mean the wood joint? If that's the case, you might also be experiencing some glue failure. This can be due to improper gluing procedures, or faulty glue. In theory, glue is so strong, that your piece is more likely to break (or split) somewhere within the wood, rather than a glue line. That means the wood will fail before the glue fails. But since that isn't the case with your doors, I suspect your cabinetmaker could have either used bad (possibly old) glue, or simply applied so much pressure during the clamping of that door that he starved the joint, which means all the glue squeezed out and left the joint without any glue.

Regardless, this problem is multifold, and it's difficult to say who is as fault. How old are the cabinets? How have you cared for them? I once saw some cabinet doors that were falling apart because the homeowner would wash them once a week with soapy water, and ended up more or less wearing all the finish off. She essentially was wetting the wood with every cleaning, and eventually, the glue joint failed. Once wooden pieces enter a home, the humidity changes, and depending on where the pieces are located in the home, many things can happen that are out of the cabinetmaker's hands. Heat ducts that are located too close to cabinets can dry out the wood, making the joints crack. Sun can bleach out some woods, and darken others. I built a cabinet once that someone placed OVER a heat register. In a very short time, the whole bottom of that cabinet buckled and cracked from the heat.

All of this is to say - without knowing more about your problem, it's hard to diagnose the problem and say who is at fault.

One last thing - do you know if the panel in the door is solid wood, or is a plywood/mdf panel? If it's solid wood, that is more prone to movement that a manufactured panel product. Solid wood doors are notorious for splitting if not made with some room inside the groove for the wood to expand.

I hope this helps shed a little light on your problem. I'm not sure who's "fault" this problem is, but hopefully this information will help you decide what to do next. Feel free to write back with more questions if you have any, and I'll try to help.


Jamie Yocono
Wood It Is! Custom Cabinetry
Las Vegas, NV
www.wooditis.com