We live in Virginia and are having our house remodeled. New interior, solid wood cherry doors were installed before the summer humidity, but not yet stained/sealed, Now that the summer is here they have all swollen and are sticking.
Question - should we wait until the dry weather in september when the swelling should go down to have them sealed? or should we adjust the frames now and seal them while they are swollen.
The remodeled should know what to do.
Regardless if you have sticking doors the door should probably be adjusted, not the frame. Assuming you door frames were correctly installed.
If only replacing the door and not the jams, trim the doors to fit and seal/paint/stain.
Keep in mind that you should also seal the tops and bottoms of the doors to reduce swelling.
I worked in Williamsburg at CW and recall that the humidity stayed high for the summer months in Tidewater, VA. Assuming the frames and doors were well hung (so the doors and frames are plumb, level and square with even reveals) and sticking is the only issue, the swelling may not reach it's maximum for a few more weeks. Being cherry we can probably assume that paint will never be applied so no additional room is needed in the reveals (gaps) to allow for paint thickness. If lacquer is being used an allowance should be made for the finish thickness. Penetrating finishes (e.g., oil based) shouldn't affect the fit.
Once the fit is corrected the timing of the finish itself generally isn't critical. At best the finish will slow down the seasonal dimensional changes but it will not stop them. I wouldn't expect any type of finish to swell the wood beyond the seasonal maximum...
Thank you, Leon. Only 2 (of 10) new doors are sticking, so we will adjust the frames for those two.
Thank you, John. This information is very helpful. We will be using a penetrating oil finish. I am relieved to know that we can go ahead and seal them without waiting for dry winter weather! Our contractor wants the indoor humidity to be below 55% for a few days before we seal the doors. Does that sound reasonable to you?
How would you propose to do that for a (presumably) finished install with casing and all?
That's going to be a treat, methinks. How you going to grow the header length to widen the opening evenly without gaps appearing? Or, if you just spread the bottom, then the opening isn't square and even and the angles of the casing are out.
Get out the smoothing plane, sharpen it up well and take a few licks off the edge, instead.
Perhaps to acclimate to the inside humidity level.
If they have been hung for a while I'd think they should be acclimated to whatever the indoor conditions are. I suspect he's either thinking that a few days would drop the moisture level of the wood... (I'm thinking "a few days" wouldn't have a practical affect on that. A week or two, yes... a few days, no.) -- OR -- The product he is using calls for a humidity level of
55 or lower. If the whole house is "damp" from high humidity I'd think it would take more than a few days for that to dry out too. Alas, this is all best guess based on my prior experiences. ;~) As the homeowner I'd take my lead from the contractor as he's responsible for the results.
Besides being in a high-humidity climate, much depends on just how big a rush the contractor was in to finish up -- fresh drywall is replete with moisture and if the house was open until relatively recently, there's a lot to dry out.
Just too many variables unknown here to say much -- I'd definitely want the humidity reduced and held down for at least a couple weeks before I made any definitive judgements.
An oil finish will do virtually nothing effective at all to seal them, though, unless is top-coated with a non-permeable coat of varnish or lacquer.
--dpb
Even then - there could be some expansion/contraction - our last home had factory-made oak kitchen cupboards that had a couple doors that would rub in summer - and have a full 1/8 inch space in winter. John T.
That doesn't necessarily signify much though. While one would expect the factory to put something waterproof or at least water resistant on kitchen cabinets, that doesn't mean that they _do_. Friend of mine had a new bathroom installed--after it was done he realized he wanted some more shelves. I made some up for him and Magnamaxed them. 10 years later they still look great but the finish on the factory-made stuff is shot to Hell.
...
There WILL be SOME expansion/contraction -- one cannot/will not stop all moisture transfer outside encasing in bartop epoxy or the like.
Just need to ensure are at a reasonable nominal starting point to judge from -- even in VA, heating during the winter will drive inside RH down significantly over summer although nothing like what happens out here in the SW corner of KS where having an outside RH of as much as 50% is the rare event, not vice versa. (And, yes, did spend 10 yr in piedmont region of VA and 20+ in E TN so know what humidity back there is in comparison. :) )
Yes, it's the indoor humidity to which the homeowner referred and to which I was responding. In the case of the homeowner's situation there is moisture coming out of a lot of things... That may or may not include glue, paint, joint compound, framing lumber, sheet goods, concrete, grout, etc. They may be living in the house too so there is moisture from respiration, cooking, showering, etc. With the house closed up and the A/C running the air itself will dry out pretty quickly. However, it will take quite a while for the materials themselves to dry out in that air... more than a few days. I'd let the contractor set the pace as he's the one that will get the call backs if he fouls up.... and ideally he knows the conditions better than us. ;~)
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