Cracked floor in cold weather | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

Cracked floor in cold weather

Cracked floor in cold weather
Date picture taken (may be approximate): 
Saturday, January 23, 2016

Comments

Greetings.  Not an expert just to share my experience so the cause may be similar.

The floor here buckled up due to its failure to withstand compression which in turn either from rise in air temperature or moisture occurring some distance from this spot.  I had this problem when water flooded the hardwood flooring, the wood expanded. The expansion gap along the walls was not sufficient so the pressure travelled some distance and pushed up the weakest spot in this case the floor tiles.  This happened every spring, recovered in summer but never completely, until finally I eliminated the cause of the flooding from snowmelt. Regards,  Peter 

Hi Peter,

In this case it was due to the building contracting faster than the floor slabs due to an unusually cold spell. There are some notes about it towards the bottom of https://gwulo.com/node/30402, and the next day was the day we had ice at the Peak: https://gwulo.com/node/30427

Regards, David

Thank you David.  I did not know there is already an explanation on another page.  Learn something new every day, this time tiles and concrete.  Regards,  Peter