Warping, buckling, and cupping are a hardwood floor's worst nightmare, and excess moisture is usually the culprit. Testing moisture levels is the single most important step you can take to protect your flooring investment.
The short answer: To properly test moisture content, use a pinless moisture meter on both your subfloor and your wood planks. Your wood subfloor should read under 12% moisture, and your hardwood planks should be within 2% to 4% of the subfloor's reading. If your numbers fall outside this range, you must acclimate the wood before installation.
Here at ReallyCheapFloors.com, we are constantly asked about moisture levels and the process of "acclimating" wood floors—which simply means letting your new wood sit in your house to adjust to the environment before installation. To help set the record straight for your 2026 home renovations, we have put together this comprehensive guide.
Moisture: Hardwood’s Greatest Enemy
The purpose of acclimating is to ensure that the moisture content of your new flooring adjusts to the conditions in the space where it will be installed. Moisture, of course, can cause wood to expand, which is disastrous for floors. In some situations, allowing the boards to sit in the home for 7 to 10 days with the ends of the box open can solve any potential moisture problems that may arise.
However, acclimating distressed hardwood floors is not always the right thing to do. For instance, if you acclimate boards in a room with excessive moisture, such as a basement or a crawl space, the moisture level in your flooring is just going to rise. To reiterate: acclimating floors in a room with a high moisture content will only make things worse.
How to Test for Moisture Content In Your Hardwood Floors
Before you acclimate or install your new flooring, you should first perform a moisture test. The best way to test the moisture level of your subfloor and floorboards is to buy, rent, or borrow a moisture meter. Testing the moisture levels is imperative. Our preferred model of moisture meter is the Wagner MMC220, which is a handheld device that can measure moisture in all species of distressed wood.
The Wagner meter is one of many pinless meters available. A pinless meter uses radio frequencies to measure moisture levels in your wood floor, as well as any wooden subfloor material such as plywood or OSB. Some pinless moisture meters are designed to measure moisture in concrete subfloors. A glue-down installation over concrete will not need perfect moisture content levels like a wooden subfloor does.
Other meters will use metal pins, or even have an attachment with a long sharp probe. These are made to extend deep into a wooden subfloor as a way to determine if the moisture content at the bottom of a subfloor is too high. Pinless meters are preferred as they do not leave a hole in the finish of your hardwood floor.
What Does A Moisture Meter Do?
First, use your meter to test the moisture content level of your wood subfloor. If the meter indicates that the level of moisture in your wood subfloor is over 12 percent, the room is too wet to install your wood flooring. A moisture content of around 7 to 9 percent is ideal.
Next, you should determine the moisture content of the wood flooring itself. Hardwood floors are typically milled at about 6 to 7 percent moisture, and they can get up to 10 percent without significantly changing form. You will want to make sure that the moisture level of your wood flooring is within 2 to 4 percent of the moisture level of your subflooring.
Should Your Wood Flooring Be Acclimated?
If your flooring and your subfloor are within 2 to 4 percent of each other and the subfloor is under 12 percent moisture content, there is no need to acclimate. As long as you have met the above conditions and the temperature in the room of your job site is above 50 °F and below 90 °F, you can start installing your floorboards. If your flooring and your subfloor are out of the 2 to 4 percent range and the subfloor is under 12 percent moisture, you should acclimate the boards in the room for 7 to 10 days.
Does Humidity Matter?
All homes have a certain amount of relative humidity, which will vary in most of the country by season. Expect higher relative humidity in the air in the spring and summer, and lower levels of humidity in the fall and winter. Lower humidity should mean lower moisture levels in your home. The EPA recommends that we keep the relative humidity between 35-65% all year long. Failure to do this may mean higher moisture levels in your house, which may cause damage to your wood.
Another way that relative humidity is elevated is from seepage in a basement, either through concrete walls or a concrete slab. In this case, we recommend a dehumidifier be placed in the space with a hose attached. That will ensure that you don't have to empty the water from it frequently. Try to verify that your relative humidity stays within the correct parameters by placing an inexpensive hygrometer somewhere it can be easily read.
Purchasing Hardwood Floors
If you have any additional questions about acclimating hardwood floors or need help deciding which type of wood flooring you should choose for installation in your home, don’t hesitate to contact ReallyCheapFloors.com! Our team is always happy to give advice and answer any queries you may have. We have a huge selection of overstock, seconds, discontinued wood, LVP floors, and engineered hardwood flooring on sale at competitive prices. Browse our collection of hardwood floors today!
