# tongue and groove , keeps shrinking and moving



## Spike7 (May 18, 2012)

i`ve written about the caboose i`m working on 
we`re at the stage where we`re putting the interior t&g on ( 1x4 , cypress)
the exterior is 1x6 cypress t&g.

after 5 months this exterior t&g , is still shrinking at the seams , splitting the caulking and paint 

the guy over-seeing me and the project ,"Richard " for the museum , insisted on , me screwing all the 1x6 cypress , with 2 inch galvanized screws , right on the surface .
even though i did use galvanized - ring-shank upon installation .. i shot them on each new tongue side , so as not to ruin the surface ( pissed me off at the time ).
he took it upon himself to fill all these screw holes , and caulk every joint with polyseamseal caulk.
richard is pretty handy , and is actually donating about 3-4 hours a day , so i cant` argue too much

since then this t&g , has been primed and painted twice , all with top of the line ben moor paint .
yesterday , we noticed about 20-30 v-joints coming apart enough where the caulking is opening up .
meaning we have to re-caulk , and re-paint.


what the hell!
trying to figure what to do so this doesn`t keep happening.
for the inside , i`m putting 6 mil plastic for a moisture barrier , hoping this helps keep the inside wood from moving too much

ADVICE ??


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## Tinstaafl (Jan 6, 2008)

I wouldn't have caulked it. Wood moves.


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## griz (Nov 26, 2009)

Was it KD & if so what was the moisture content upon delivery and then on install?


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## hdavis (Feb 14, 2012)

MC was too high. Painting slowed the shrinkage, who knows how long it will take.

Since the 1X6 are fastened in two places, cracking could occur.

There a few adhesive caulks that will stay bonded even with significant movement. The spacing had to be designed to get a proper caulk joint.

When that was originally built, gap filling was done with ioakum or lead putty, which hardened and cracked over time. Neither was used in an application like that. Just install the boards with the vee down.


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## hdavis (Feb 14, 2012)

3M 5200 is used for watertite caulking in marine applications. There are other ones that will handle more joint movement if needed.


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## rrk (Apr 22, 2012)

He is in Miami, super high humidity in the summer
its always going to move


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## Jaws (Dec 20, 2010)

rrk said:


> He is in Miami, super high humidity in the summer
> its always going to move


Yep

We won't paint TNG outside. Its gotta be stained. We pre stain it, touch up. Go back for free at a year and touch up. Usually ok after that. 

Like concrete is going to crack its gonna move 

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## Leo G (May 12, 2005)

Wood moves.

Imagine that.


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## Deckhead (Dec 9, 2010)

It's cypress so it's almost a guarantee it wasn't kd. Interesting enough cypress is considered dry at a higher MC then other woods. I think 14-16% is considered dry. The new growth cypress move A LOT no matter where it is. If you face nail and through the tongue, it is almost inevitably going to split if you didn't seal the endgrain with glue or paint. Also, one of the things that helps movement is to use the siding as a rainscreen rather than applied directly to the subsurface. You want to allow the back side to breath or it will dry in a non-uniform manner causing all types of issues.


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## Robie (Feb 25, 2005)

Drying Guidelines - Cypress Information







www.cypressinfo.org


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## Spike7 (May 18, 2012)

thanks 


yes , miami is real humid 
just last month , in coral gables ( very well to do area ) had to climb under a house , lay down 6 mil plastic , and install crawl space fans so as to make a vetilation , the house , even though it had foam blown onto the bottom of the wood flooring , still was rotting internally .
wood is always moving i agree , 
' its a dead tree . maybe we shouldn`t have caulked it


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## Spike7 (May 18, 2012)

hdavis said:


> MC was too high. Painting slowed the shrinkage, who knows how long it will take.
> 
> Since the 1X6 are fastened in two places, cracking could occur.
> 
> ...


 at this pint its too late ( thanks for the info though . i was wondering what they did in the 200`s)
but as for the inside ,you think its best NOT to caulk all the joints .?


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## hdavis (Feb 14, 2012)

I wouldn't caulk them. They didn't have caulk.


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## Robie (Feb 25, 2005)

You can look at any T&G porch ceiling from days gone by (and current) and you won't see caulk used. If it was, it probably looks like hell.


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## Spike7 (May 18, 2012)

yea , i just checked on a painting forum ,
most said not to caulk it , for the same reason mentioned ,
it WILL shrink , the caulking WILL crack , and then it WILL look like crap.
gonna have to talk with this old guy " Richard" he demanded it , he did it all , and I A GUY , WHO HAS ONLY DONE THIS OVER 40 YEARS!!.. didn`t research it !!
well , i`m gonna tell him not to do the interior , because its usually going to be open , and will be affected by the outside temperature 
This man Richard means well .
he`s a hobbyist, he`s a decent carpenter , but only as a person doing it for fun 
he insisted on hand brushing this whole caboose 
he and i butt heads about once a month 
but he is so passionate about this one caboose . his father actually drove it here in the 70`s , and he has an attachment to it .
he wants it perfect 
and i`m always worried about the time frame . its way over budget , but he`s blind to that


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## Leo G (May 12, 2005)

That's why at least paint the tongue, if not that and the groove so when it does move you don't see a raw line.


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## Spike7 (May 18, 2012)

MAN!!
MORE PROBLEMS . TONGUE AND GROOVE BUCKLING .

i`m still dealing with this caboose .
had to drop back and do another job for the last 4 weeks
just coming back to this project.
the floor t&g , has buckled up!
2 runs have popped up ( like a ramp)

i`m freakin 62 , been doing this kind of work since i was 16 with dad.
i thought i did everything right 
i have a 3/4 inch plywood sub-floor.
i put , on that 6 mil plastic.
i shot the wood down , with galvanized , 16 guage 2 inch nails, ( yes at angles , and in the v`s)
it looks good , very straight, staggered my joints .

DIDN`T CAULK THE JOINTS THIS TIME!
very frustrated .
will need to remove the buckled pieces , and replace
but because they buckled , doesn`t necessarily mean they are the problem
could have been the other pieces that moved , and pushed those 2 up
considering screwing it all down.


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## Robie (Feb 25, 2005)

I'm guessing it buckled along the width?

Did you leave gaps at each side where it meets the wall?


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## Kingcarpenter1 (May 5, 2020)

Plywood/pan moves also. Did you gap plywood. Hell the ground could be moving. Is it sandy

Mike


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## Mesilla Valley (Jun 10, 2020)

My two cents, on old houses the tongue and groove floors are nailed down over diagonally subfloor boards that are attached to the floor joists. Air circulates thru the cracks and allows drying of the floor boards from both sides. I believe the moisture is being retained by the plastic vapor barrier on bottom of the floor boards and the plywood. Not allowing sufficient expansion gaps on the sides of the caboose will also be part of the problem. Why we have base boards to cover the gaps when installing wood floors. As for the ceiling t&g opening up is maybe the opposite, roof heating up the inside of the wood causing shrinkage in a wood that wasn’t dry enough originally. Maybe air circulation behind would help, probably not. ( 17 years custom woodworker including 100s of doors where we always had to allow for wood expansion and contraction, 15 years working on remodeling homes) Have not worked with cypress. Good luck.


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## rrk (Apr 22, 2012)

why on plastic? in Florida? its holding in the moisture
air/moisture will go in and out of the wood constantly, expansion gaps are needed as is making sure moisture never gets trapped


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## rrk (Apr 22, 2012)

Kingcarpenter1 said:


> Plywood/pan moves also. Did you gap plywood. Hell the ground could be moving. Is it sandy
> 
> Mike


it's a caboose, on wheels


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## Kingcarpenter1 (May 5, 2020)

rrk said:


> it's a caboose, on wheels


I’m aware of that. Does that mean the ground under it don’t move

Mike


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## Tinstaafl (Jan 6, 2008)

Unless you condition the space inside the caboose to limit temperature and humidity swings, that wood is going to be constantly moving according to weather conditions. That alone, regardless of any other factors, means that this is a war you won't win.


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## 107415 (Sep 16, 2014)

This^^^^^^^^^


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## Spike7 (May 18, 2012)

I'll answer both of you guys.

If the comment about leaving a space on either side is the answer I think I'm going to slowly kill myself. I've installed a lot of laminate floors and I've no that's really important. But I never thought it would be with this wood but it makes total sense. No I did not leave any space at all I made it as tight as possible!
As for the old homes I know about subflooring their runs diagonal there's actually space between those subfloor pieces. I just don't think I would have done that in Miami because it's better to take totally keep moisture out and if you do what you said there's so much moisture in the ground it would come up also. I just had to install a dehumidifier under somebody else's house in historic Coral Gables which is all wood floor houses. We had to go in and put 6 mil plastic underneath the house directly on the dirt and then put it in the middle fire there so I don't think I could do that here. But I think my issue is I don't have the doors and windows in this Caboose so moisture and humidity is getting to it. So basically I screwed up


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## rrk (Apr 22, 2012)

If you can keep moisture out of wood in Florida you should get a medal
It's impossible

Laminate floors are nothing like solid wood floors, you should see what happens when a 50 gallon fishtank empties on a floor. It buckled and curled up 24" above the subfloor, a laminate floor would just have increased in thickness by 50-75%


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## Mesilla Valley (Jun 10, 2020)

Run a track saw down both sides is the easiest way to make the gap. If you don’t have one you won’t believe how handy they are once you get one. Every now and then I forget and make a mistake that I made 30 years ago and thought I had learned from.  I think that there is a difference between having plastic over a dirt crawl space and directly under the wood floor.


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## Spike7 (May 18, 2012)

i just saw these last posts to me .
i closed up the caboose , and ran a dehumidifier over night . it pulled out about 1-1/2 gallon- 2 gallons over night .
going to run it again a couple extra times ,
then i`m going to pull up some of the flooring , and refasten it.
i found that , my 2 guys installing it , didn`t have enough nails in it , and some boards hardly had any nails at all
you know how , when a carpenter , or helper hasn`t used a nail gun much , you catch them shooting it with no nails in it , because they don`t know that feeling when the gun is shooting blanks .
i believe that's what these ding dongs did .
one of the workers took ownership , and said he`d help me for a day for free to fix it.
not sure of i should surface nail it at this point ( with ring-shank nails), as opposed to pulling it all apart , and re-nailing, its only 8 feet wide,, not a big area . and most of it will be covered with walls , closets , , and furniture. i kow that sounds "hack`y" , but , i don`t want to pull it all up if i don`t need to.


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## Mesilla Valley (Jun 10, 2020)

At a minimum give a 3/8 gap down both sides. Wood expands and contracts with the seasons. Carpenters have been allowing for this expansion for centuries. Look at the end of a piece of wood and you’ll see hundreds of tubes. Those are the highways that get moisture from the top to the bottom of the tree. They expand when wet and shrink when dry. Nails will not stop this process and it will buckle up again when the humidity is high. 


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