Stove in basement causing floor to split

Try a humidifier

A pot on the stove will not add enough moisture
Get a humidifier your wood work needs a drink

bdaoust said:

My P68 is in the basement and it gets very got down there since the stove is used to heat the house via an open stairwell across from the stove and two registers in the same room as the stove.

The house has one of those wood floors that you can just lay down and snap together and unfortunately, it has split in some sections. My guess is the hot dry air. I'm also noticing some cracking around some of the moldings in the room (it's a partially finished basement)

Should I be burning a pot of water on the stove to produce moisture? If so, something like a cast iron dutch oven? How quickly could it evaporate? If it does and im not home to refill, that doesn't cause any fire hazard - right?

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I purchased a wood stove steamer and put it on my P-43. It was a waste of money. The stove top does not get hot enough to evaporate the water. You should get a humidifier.

Sears makes a couple console models that work well. They're not the prettiest things (think Brady Bunch style decor) but who cares. The model I use can be filled with a 5 gal bucket, only takes one bucket to fill, and has a 12 GPD output. There are others that require jugs to be filled. IMO, much more INconvenient.

Do you have something under the stove to protect the wood from the radiated heat?

My house has over 2000 sq feet of the floating snap together floor and my son has just as much. We've seen neither house have any cracking and it's been down for over 5 years. The base of the flooring is particle board which has no grain and should not split unless it was installed improperly to start with. OR someone has spilled water on it or is washing the flooring with water, both of which are verboten. The flooring will shrink and swell from season to season but that's why you are SUPPOSED to leave at least 1/4" of space in all directions at the edges. It's not a humidity problem IMHO.

If your house has a lot of air leaks it will make a difference in humidity levels.

Having it redone could be an expensive project since you can't just take out the middle bad pieces. You have to start at one end and rip it ALL out until you get to the bad parts. Then you have to hope that the design is still available. They change designs often and matching lot numbers and exact colors will be pure luck. That's the downside of snap together flooring.

I've installed a fair amount of this flooring (known as laminate flooring) and have it in our kitchen now (product designed for high moisture areas - not all are). Quality can vary considerably, so that could be part of the issue. Also, as someone else notes these floors are supposed to "float", in that they need at least 1/4" of space anywhere they touch the perimeter of the room, to allow for expansion and contraction. That's normally covered with moulding NOT nailed to the floor. Check to make sure you don't have a problem with it being nailed somewhere on the perimeter.

I think this actually IS a humidity problem. Older versions of laminate didn't deal with humidity or variations in temperature as well as some of the new products. However, as noted, putting a pot of water on a pellet stove does almost no good at all (not like a wood stove). Buy a humidifier. Depending on your square footage and how tight your house is, you may struggle to get enough humidity into the room. 40 - 60% is a great range, but most homes can't achieve 40% when heating is needed most of the time, the differential between inside and outside temps is significant, AND if the house is "leaky" (much more than 35% air exchange per hour). However, you may be able to prevent damage to the floor by just raising it a bit, into the 30%+ range. Your sinuses and skin will be happier, too...

I've got one of those steamer pots- you can see it in my avatar. I think it was around $20 at TSC. It really is only for looks/aroma since it only boils out a quart or two a day.

I also have one of those console humidifiers. It helps a bit, but I have an old, leaky house and just about every piece of wood contracts in the winter.

Lucky you didnt have a woodstove, be even hotter, when i was burning wood temps were easily over 90+ degrees in my basement