Guide to Wood Floor Damage Types, Diagnosis, Repair
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Here we discuss types of damage that occurs on various types of wood flooring in buildings, and we describe repair approaches for various wood floor damage. Our photo at page top shows cupped wooden strip flooring and an easy way to detect this condition..

Also see Wood Floor Types, and FLOORING TYPES & DEFECTS. If examining resilient flooring that may contain asbestos, also see FLOOR TILE HISTORY & INGREDIENTS and FLOOR TILES CONTAINING ASBESTOS. If you are concerned about mold-contaminated wood flooring, see MOLD CLEANUP - WOOD FLOORING.

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A Catalog of Damage to Wood Floors

Buckled wood flooring due to leaks or high moisture

This 1940's wood floor buckled severely because of wet conditions in a gymnasium after the roof leaked. But even if a building is not subjected to flooding or wet floors, if the wood floor was installed without adequate clearance around its perimeter buckling can occur when moisture increases in the building. Very large wood floors (such as in this gym) may need an inch or even more of side clearance at the building walls - a detail accomplished by building out floor/wall baseboard trim if necessary, or in the case of newer products, by the combination of clearance gaps and a floating floor design.

Cupped Wood Flooring - Causes & Cures

Compare our photo at left of concave (curved down) cupped wooden floorboards with the convex (curved up) cupped floor boards in the photo at the top of this page. At left you can easily see the concave cupping of the floor at left by looking at our flashlight beam across boards in the upper portion of the photo. (The center of concave cupping is down and edges of concave-cupped floor boards are raised - think of "cave" as "caving in" if you want to remember this distinction.) Diagnosing why a wooden floor has become cupped is an important step in correcting the problem, since we need to identify and correct the moisture source. There are exceptions, but in general a board swells on its side that is most moist. So on an interior floor like the one shown at left, the fact that the center of the floorboards is cupped "down" we infer that it is the down-side of these boards that is more moist than the finish side facing the room. We find this condition in homes with finished wood flooring installed over a damp or wet basement or crawl space. At our page top photo the finish floor boards seem to be cupped "up" - suggesting that this floor has been wet from above. If the floor board cupping is minor and hard to see, you might decide to just address the moisture problem and leave the floor alone. It won't recover, but it the floor should not get worse. How would we repair a badly cupped wooden floor? Sanding the floor flat is an option unless the boards have not only cupped but come loose from the subfloor. In that case floor replacement may be necessary.

Cause of Outdoor Deck Board & Stair Tread Cupping & Shelling - Bark Side Down Advice for Decks & Steps

Indoors we find that floor boards tend to cup so that the concave side of the board is towards the floor's more dry side, and the convex side of the cupped or curved boards tend to be facing the floor's more wet side.

Apparently when a wooden board has uneven moisture content across its thickness it will tend to expand more on its more wet side, causing that side to "arch" or become convex.

But outdoors where despite temporary wetting from rain, deck boards and wood step boards open to air on both sides ultimately have a uniform moisture content across the board's thickness.

In this case experts expect an outdoor wooden board to naturally curve towards the "bark" side of the wood. As Steven Bliss asserts, "always install trim [and outdoor deck boards and stair treads] “bark-side down,” since the annual rings try to straighten as the wood shrinks."

If you click to enlarge the photo at above left you might notice that the two most-rotted deck boards (photo center) were installed with deck boards cupped upwards or "concave"; you can also plainly see the end grain in the two 3x12's forming the deck girder (photo lower center). You'll see by the wood end grain pattern that the girder right-hand board has it's "bark side" facing right, and the left hand board has its "bark side" facing left. Both of these boards curved towards the "bark side" - a good example supporting the "bark side down" wisdom when building an exterior deck or stair.

Cupped ramp boards (or deck and platform boards) hold water and form algae or ice more quickly than boards that drain properly. They sometimes rot faster too, as we show in our photograph. Look at the end-grain of any deck, ramp, or wooden walkway board and notice the curved lines that mark the winter wood layers of the tree from which the board was cut. If these lines arch "upwards" when the board is placed, most boards will also be curved upwards (convex) and will drain better. But before nailing a deck or ramp board in place, look at the board surface itself - sometimes the boards don't follow these "cupping rules".

Outdoors where a wooden board has both sides exposed to the weather (and to roughly the same moisture conditions) as it dries from its original green state a wood board will cup away from (trying to straighten) the curve of the wood layers that comprise it.

(Sketch courtesy S. Bliss, Best Practices in Residential Construction.)

For this reason when building a deck we like to look at the end grain of the wood and install deck boards with the "bark side" down so that cupped boards won't form puddle-collecting dips on our deck. See DECK & PORCH CONSTRUCTION.

But look at your actual individual boards or stair treads when you are building an outdoor structure. If we are installing a deck board that is already rather cupped, we install it with the convex or "outward curve" side facing up for best drainage.

Watch out: On wooden decks and stair treads a defect "shelling" can occur with the bark side down method. Shelling is a term used by some builders to refer to the loss of portions of a board surface as llate wood growth (the outer surface of the tree and thus the "bark side" of the board) separates from early wood growth (the inner portion of the tree or the tree-center side of the board).

Shelling is reported to occur more often in lumber made from Douglas Fir and Southern Pine. When building an outdoor deck wooden stair tread, it is a good idea to avoid using boards with questionable, likely to separate, portions of their upper surface. Shelling may be less of a problem with wood trim that is to be placed vertically and kept painted or sealed.

Gaps Between Wood Floor Boards & in Parquet Flooring: Cause & Cure

Gaps between wood floorboards may occur for several reasons, but the common underlying cause is a moisture problem. Installing wood flooring before it has had an opportunity to acclimate to the indoor moisture level of its new home often means that too-moist flooring was nailed in place, later shrinking as building heat further dries the wood. The gap between the flooring shown at left is viewed from the under-side of the floor of an older building. This is a ship-lap joint whose boards have separated about 3/16".

Gaps can also appear between sections of a wood parquet floor, as shown in our photo (left). Do not rush to fill in gaps like this in wooden floors. Particularly in the case of wideboard flooring the width of individual boards increases and decreases seasonally as building indoor moisture levels increase (typically in the summer) or decrease (typically in winter). If you fill the gap between floor boards in the dry (wide gap) season, when the building moisture increases and boards swell the swelling floor boards will push against the gap filling material, actually crushing the edges of the floor board. Then when the building dries out again a new gap will appear. Or in extreme cases the floor may buckle in damp weather. In either case, it's better to just vacuum out the dust and debris and leave these wideboard floor gaps alone. At Wood Floor Types where we illustrate a restored and re-finished wide-board floor in an 1860's home, if you click and enlarge the photo you'll see that we left the flooring gaps open. In fact during restoration we sometimes have to pick out putty or other stupid crack fillers that someone has applied earlier.

Gaps and shrinkage damage to wood floors installed over radiant floor heating systems

A common complaint we've investigated is shrinkage gaps in wood flooring installed over radiant heat tubing. The underlying cause may be flooring that was too moist at installation (see above), or operating the heat at a higher than recommended temperature. In the gapped wood floor over radiant tubing shown here, the owner, attempting to eliminate a smell associated with the radiant heat tubing, ran the heating system at high temperature, perhaps contributing to this floor gap problem. Also see RADIANT HEAT Floor Mistakes to Avoid where we illustrate a costly and incompetent radiant heat installation below ceramic tile on slab on grade.

Mold Stains or Mold Damaged Wood Floors

See MOLD CLEANUP - WOOD FLOORING where we discuss removing mold from wood flooring surfaces. Cleaning mold from wood framing, or wood building sheathing and similar wood surfaces is discussed at MOLD CLEANUP - WOOD FRAMING & PLYWOOD. Readers should also see the general advice at MOLD CLEANUP GUIDE- HOW TO GET RID OF MOLD and finally, see Wood Floor Damage Also see Hidden Mold in Flooring & Subflooring. Also see TRAPPED MOLD BETWEEN WOOD SURFACES for a discussion of the immobility of mold between wood framing and other surfaces, and see MOLD GROWTH on SURFACES for an index of what mold genera/species are frequently found on various building surfaces and materials.

Pet Stains on wood floors

Pet urine stains on wood floors - pet stains can ruin wood flooring. Stains are deep enough into the wood that almost no amount of sanding will remove them. We have had some wood floor stain removal success by careful, by-hand bleaching combined with sanding, followed by careful blending of hand-mixed wood stain products to return the color of the wood floor section to that of its neighbors. See Black Flooring Stains from Animals for details. Nail & moisture stains on wood floors - Where small black stains developed in a wood floor in a 1920's bungalow that we restored (our lab and office) we had great success by combining sanding with spot bleach using a Q-tip to lighten the black spots where in prior years moisture had caused bleed and corrosion staining around those fasteners. Any exposed nails were set into the flooring before sanding. After sanding we sat with a q-tip and a damp cloth, dabbing and bleaching black spots, wiping and washing off the bleach when the stain was light enough - thus avoiding over-bleaching the floor. We mixed wood stain products to bring the color of the stained-bleached spots back to the surrounding flooring.

Surface Scratch Repair on Hardwood Flooring

Here is a long strip solid oak wood floor that's shows ugly but fairly superficial scratches. To make this 1970's strip oak wood floor look perfect, sanding and re-finishing may be necessary. But an alternative to try first is thorough cleaning, perhaps buffing with steel wool, followed by application of a sealant and finish coating. Often superficial scratches in a wood floor disappear from view when the scratched finish coating is restored. It's usually a better practice to repair a floor with the least aggressive means possible, preserving the material for a longer life.

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• America's Favorite Homes, mail-order catalogues as a guide to popular early 20th-century houses, Robert Schweitzer, Michael W.R. Davis, 1990, Wayne State University Press ISBN 0814320066 (may be available from Wayne State University Press)
• American Plywood Association, APA, "Portland Manufacturing Company, No. 1, a series of monographs on the history of plywood manufacturing",Plywood Pioneers Association, 31 March, 1967, www.apawood.org
• Asbestos products and their history and use in various building materials such as asphalt and vinyl flooring includes discussion which draws on Asbestos, Its Industrial Applications, D.V. Rosato, engineering consultant, Newton, MA, Reinhold Publishing, 1959 Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 59-12535 (out of print).
• Best Practices Guide to Residential Construction, by Steven Bliss. John Wiley & Sons, 2006. ISBN-10: 0471648361, ISBN-13: 978-0471648369, Hardcover: 320 pages, available from Amazon.com and also Wiley.com. See our book review of this publication.
• Building Research Council, BRC, nee Small Homes Council, SHC, School of Architecture, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, brc.arch.uiuc.edu. "The Small Homes Council (our original name) was organized in 1944 during the war at the request of the President of the University of Illinois to consider the role of the university in meeting the demand for housing in the United States. Soldiers would be coming home after the war and would be needing good low-cost housing. ...  In 1993, the Council became part of the School of Architecture, and since then has been known as the School of Architecture-Building Research Council. ... The Council's researchers answered many critical questions that would affect the quality of the nation's housing stock.
  • How could homes be designed and built more efficiently?
  • What kinds of construction and production techniques worked well and which did not?
  • How did people use different kinds of spaces in their homes?
  • What roles did community planning, zoning, and interior design play in how neighborhoods worked?
  "
• Isham: "An Example of Colonial Paneling", Norman Morrison Isham, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. 6, No. 5 (May, 1911), pp. 112-116, available by JSTOR.
• Manufactured & Modular Homes: Modular Building Systems Association, MBSA, modularhousing.com, is a trade association promoting and providing links to contact modular builders in North America. Also see the Manufactured Home Owners Association, MHOAA, at www.mhoaa.us. The Manufactured Home Owners Association of America is a National Organization dedicated to the protection of the rights of all people living in Manufactured Housing in the United States.
• Pergo AB, division of Perstorp AB, is a Swedish manufacturer or modern laminate flooring products. Information about the U.S. company can be found at http://www.pergo.com where we obtained historical data used in our discussion of the age of flooring materials in buildings.
• Plank House Construction: webslog from plankhouse.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/plank-house-construction/ and where plank houses were built by native Americans, see
  Large 1:6 Scale Plank House Construction / P8094228, Photographer: Mike Meuser
  06/12/2007 documented at yurokplankhouse.com where scale model Museum quality Yurok Plank Houses are being sold to raise money for the Blue Creek - Ah Pah Traditional Yurok Village project.
• Weaver: Beaver Board and Upson Board: Beaver Board and Upson Board: History and Conservation of Early Wallboard, Shelby Weaver, APT Bulletin, Vol. 28, No. 2/3 (1997), pp. 71-78, Association for Preservation Technology International (APT), available online at JSTOR.

Books & Articles on Building & Environmental Inspection, Testing, Diagnosis, & Repair

• Our recommended books about building & mechanical systems design, inspection, problem diagnosis, and repair, and about indoor environment and IAQ testing, diagnosis, and cleanup are at the InspectAPedia Bookstore. Also see our Book Reviews - InspectAPedia.

• "The Elimination of Unsafe Guardrails, a Progress Report," Elliott O. Stephenson, Building Standards, March-April 1993
• "Are Functional Handrails Within Our Grasp" Jake Pauls, Building Standards, January-February 1991
• Access Ramp building codes:
  • UBC 1003.3.4.3
  • BOCA 1016.3
  • ADA 4.8.2
  • IBC 1010.2
• Access Ramp Standards:
  • ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), Public Law 101-336. 7/26/90 is very often cited by other sources for good design of stairs and ramps etc. even where disabled individuals are not the design target.
  • ANSI A117.4 Accessible and Usable Buildings and Facilities (earlier version was incorporated into the ADA)
  • ASTM F 1637, Standard Practice for Safe Walking Surfaces, (Similar to the above standards)
• America's Favorite Homes, mail-order catalogues as a guide to popular early 20th-century houses, Robert Schweitzer, Michael W.R. Davis, 1990, Wayne State University Press ISBN 0814320066 (may be available from Wayne State University Press)
• American Plywood Association, APA, "Portland Manufacturing Company, No. 1, a series of monographs on the history of plywood manufacturing",Plywood Pioneers Association, 31 March, 1967, www.apawood.org
• Animal Allergens: Dog, Cat, and Other Animal Dander - Cleanup & Prevention Information for Asthmatics and regarding Indoor Air Quality.
• Asbestos: How to find and recognize asbestos in Buildings - visual inspection methods, list of common asbestos-containing materials
• Asbestos HVAC Ducts and Flues field identification photos and guide
• Asbestos products and their history and use in various building materials such as asphalt and vinyl flooring includes discussion which draws on Asbestos, Its Industrial Applications, D.V. Rosato, engineering consultant, Newton, MA, Reinhold Publishing, 1959 Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 59-12535 (out of print).
• Asbestos Identification and Testing References
• Asbestos Identification, Walter C.McCrone, McCrone Research Institute, Chicago, IL.1987 ISBN 0-904962-11-3. Dr. McCrone literally "wrote the book" on asbestos identification procedures which formed the basis for current work by asbestos identification laboratories.
• Stanton, .F., et al., National Bureau of Standards Special Publication 506: 143-151
• Pott, F., Staub-Reinhalf Luft 38, 486-490 (1978) cited by McCrone
• ASHRAE resource on dew point and wall condensation - see the ASHRAE Fundamentals Handbook, available in many libraries. The following three ASHRAE Handbooks are also available at the InspectAPedia bookstore in the third page of our Insulate-Ventilate section:
  • 2005 ASHRAE Handbook : Fundamentals : Inch-Pound Edition (2005 ASHRAE HANDBOOK : Fundamentals : I-P Edition) (Hardcover), Thomas H. Kuehn (Contributor), R. J. Couvillion (Contributor), John W. Coleman (Contributor), Narasipur Suryanarayana (Contributor), Zahid Ayub (Contributor), Robert Parsons (Author), ISBN-10: 1931862702 or ISBN-13: 978-1931862707
  • 2004 ASHRAE Handbook : Heating, Ventilating, and Air-Conditioning: Systems and Equipment : Inch-Pound Edition (2004 ASHRAE Handbook : HVAC Systems and Equipment : I-P Edition) (Hardcover)
    by American Society of Heating, ISBN-10: 1931862478 or ISBN-13: 978-1931862479
    "2004 ASHRAE Handbook - HVAC Systems and Equipment The 2004 ASHRAE HandbookHVAC Systems and Equipment discusses various common systems and the equipment (components or assemblies) that comprise them, and describes features and differences. This information helps system designers and operators in selecting and using equipment. Major sections include Air-Conditioning and Heating Systems (chapters on system analysis and selection, air distribution, in-room terminal systems, centralized and decentralized systems, heat pumps, panel heating and cooling, cogeneration and engine-driven systems, heat recovery, steam and hydronic systems, district systems, small forced-air systems, infrared radiant heating, and water heating); Air-Handling Equipment (chapters on duct construction, air distribution, fans, coils, evaporative air-coolers, humidifiers, mechanical and desiccant dehumidification, air cleaners, industrial gas cleaning and air pollution control); Heating Equipment (chapters on automatic fuel-burning equipment, boilers, furnaces, in-space heaters, chimneys and flue vent systems, unit heaters, makeup air units, radiators, and solar equipment); General Components (chapters on compressors, condensers, cooling towers, liquid coolers, liquid-chilling systems, centrifugal pumps, motors and drives, pipes and fittings, valves, heat exchangers, and energy recovery equipment); and Unitary Equipment (chapters on air conditioners and heat pumps, room air conditioners and packaged terminal equipment, and a new chapter on mechanical dehumidifiers and heat pipes)."
  • 1996 Ashrae Handbook Heating, Ventilating, and Air-Conditioning Systems and Equipment: Inch-Pound Edition (Hardcover), ISBN-10: 1883413346 or ISBN-13: 978-1883413347 ,
    "The 1996 HVAC Systems and Equipment Handbook is the result of ASHRAE's continuing effort to update, expand and reorganize the Handbook Series. Over a third of the book has been revised and augmented with new chapters on hydronic heating and cooling systems design; fans; unit ventilator; unit heaters; and makeup air units. Extensive changes have been added to chapters on panel heating and cooling; cogeneration systems and engine and turbine drives; applied heat pump and heat recovery systems; humidifiers; desiccant dehumidification and pressure drying equipment, air-heating coils; chimney, gas vent, fireplace systems; cooling towers; centrifugal pumps; and air-to-air energy recovery. Separate I-P and SI editions."
  • Principles of Heating, Ventilating, And Air Conditioning: A textbook with Design Data Based on 2005 AShrae Handbook - Fundamentals (Hardcover), Harry J., Jr. Sauer (Author), Ronald H. Howell, ISBN-10: 1931862923 or ISBN-13: 978-1931862929
  • 1993 ASHRAE Handbook Fundamentals (Hardcover), ISBN-10: 0910110964 or ISBN-13: 978-091011096
• Best Practices Guide to Residential Construction, by Steven Bliss. John Wiley & Sons, 2006. ISBN-10: 0471648361, ISBN-13: 978-0471648369, Hardcover: 320 pages, available from Amazon.com and also Wiley.com. See our book review of this publication.
• Decks and Porches, the JLC Guide to, Best Practices for Outdoor Spaces, Steve Bliss (Editor), The Journal of Light Construction, Williston VT, 2010 ISBN 10: 1-928580-42-4, ISBN 13: 978-1-928580-42-3, available from Amazon.com
• Brick nogging used as soundproofing is mentioned in this article on Popular Forest
• Brick Nogging, Historical Investigation and Contemporary Repair, Construction Specifier, April 2006. Historical use of brick in timber-framed buildings, drawing on the investigations of the Kent Tavern in Calais, VT. "Brick nogging is a European method of construction which was brought to the new world in the early-nineteenth century. It was a common construction method that employed masonry as infill between the vertical uprights of wood framing." -- quoting the web article review.
• Photo of very rough in-wall brick nogging at an architects website
• Building Research Council, BRC, nee Small Homes Council, SHC, School of Architecture, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, brc.arch.uiuc.edu. "The Small Homes Council (our original name) was organized in 1944 during the war at the request of the President of the University of Illinois to consider the role of the university in meeting the demand for housing in the United States. Soldiers would be coming home after the war and would be needing good low-cost housing. ...  In 1993, the Council became part of the School of Architecture, and since then has been known as the School of Architecture-Building Research Council. ... The Council's researchers answered many critical questions that would affect the quality of the nation's housing stock.
  • How could homes be designed and built more efficiently?
  • What kinds of construction and production techniques worked well and which did not?
  • How did people use different kinds of spaces in their homes?
  • What roles did community planning, zoning, and interior design play in how neighborhoods worked
• The Circular Staircase, Mary Roberts Rinehart
• Construction Drawings and Details, Rosemary Kilmer
• Construction Drawings and Details, Rosemary Kilmer
• "An Example of Colonial Paneling", Norman Morrison Isham, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. 6, No. 5 (May, 1911), pp. 112-116, available by JSTOR.
• Dust from the World Trade Center collapse following the 9/11/01 attack: the lower floors of this building contained spray-on fire-proofing asbestos materials.
• Energy Savers: Whole House Systems Approach to Energy Efficient Home Design - U.S. Department of Energy
• "Energy Savers: Whole-House Supply Ventilation Systems", U.S. Department of Energy energysavers.gov/your_home/insulation_airsealing/index.cfm/mytopic=11880?print
• "Energy Savers: Whole-House Exhaust Ventilation Systems", U.S. Department of Energy energysavers.gov/your_home/insulation_airsealing/index.cfm/mytopic=11870
• "Energy Savers: Ventilation", U.S. Department of Energy
• "Energy Savers: Natural Ventilation", U.S. Department of Energy
• "Energy Savers: Energy Recovery Ventilation Systems", U.S. Department of Energy energysavers.gov/your_home/insulation_airsealing/index.cfm/mytopic=11900
• "Energy Savers: Detecting Air Leaks", U.S. Department of Energy
• "Energy Savers: Air Sealing", U.S. Department of Energy
• Falls and Related Injuries: Slips, Trips, Missteps, and Their Consequences, Lawyers & Judges Publishing, (June 2002), ISBN-10: 0913875430 ISBN-13: 978-0913875438
  "Falls in the home and public places are the second leading cause of unintentional injury deaths in the United States, but are overlooked in most literature. This book is unique in that it is entirely devoted to falls. Of use to primary care physicians, nurses, insurance adjusters, architects, writers of building codes, attorneys, or anyone who cares for the elderly, this book will tell you how, why, and when people will likely fall, what most likely will be injured, and how such injuries come about. "
• Fiberglass: Indoor Air Quality Investigations: Health Concerns About Airborne Fiberglass: Fiberglass in Indoor Air from HVAC ducts, and Building Insulation
• Humidity: What indoor humidity should we maintain in order to avoid a mold problem?
• Ice Dam Leaks in building attics and roof cavities, how to inspect for evidence of leaks, identify causes, and correct bad attic ventilation, improper roof venting, and these causes of attic mold or roof structure damage
• "Insulation: Adding Insulation to an Existing Home," U.S. Department of Energy - tips on how to do your own check for the presence of absence of insulation in a home
• Insulation: Selecting Insulation for New Home Construction, U.S. Department of Energy - "Your state and local building codes probably include minimum insulation requirements, but to build an energy-efficient home, you may need or want to exceed them. For maximum energy efficiency, you should also consider the interaction between the insulation and other building components. This is called the whole-house systems design approach."
• Insulation Types, table of common building insulation properties from U.S. DOE. Readers should see INSULATION R-Values & Properties our own table of insulation properties that includes links to articles describing each insulation material in more detail.
• Lighting, proper use of: proper aiming of a good flashlight can disclose hard to see but toxic light or white mold colonies on walls.
• Mobile Home Inspections common defects unique to factory built housing, inspection methods
• The National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST (nee National Bureau of Standards NBS) is a US government agency - see www.nist.gov
  • "A Parametric Study of Wall Moisture Contents Using a Revised Variable Indoor Relative Humidity Version of the "Moist" Transient Heat and Moisture Transfer Model", George Tsongas, Doug Burch, Carolyn Roos, Malcom Cunningham; this paper describes software and the prediction of wall moisture contents. - PDF Document from NIS
• Nogging: See this photo of exposed bricks on a building exterior on a building exterior in Canada. [Thanks to Carson Dunlop, Toronto - see References below].
• Pergo AB, division of Perstorp AB, is a Swedish manufacturer or modern laminate flooring products. Information about the U.S. company can be found at http://www.pergo.com where we obtained historical data used in our discussion of the age of flooring materials in buildings.
• Piquet Wall Construction: See this photo of piquet wall construction - involving timber-framed wall construction with long top girts, diagonal timber bracing, and small diameter logs placed vertically along with concrete chinking to fill in the wall plane.
• Plank House Construction: weblog from plankhouse.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/plank-house-construction/ and where plank houses were built by native Americans, see
  Large 1:6 Scale Plank House Construction / P8094228, Photographer: Mike Meuser
  06/12/2007 documented at yurokplankhouse.com where scale model Museum quality Yurok Plank Houses are being sold to raise money for the Blue Creek - Ah Pah Traditional Yurok Village project.
• Re-Bath, tub lining products is a bath tub relining manufacturer and distributor located in Tempe, Arizona - see rebath.com
• Rubblestone Wall Filler: See this Lartigue House using exterior-exposed rubblestone filler between vertical timbers of a post and beam-framed Canadian building.
• Slips, Trips, Missteps and Their Consequences, Second Edition, Gary M. Bakken, H. Harvey Cohen,A. S. Hyde, Jon R. Abele, ISBN-13: 978-1-933264-01-1 or ISBN 10: 1-933264-01-2, available from the publisher, Lawyers ^ Judges Publishing Company,Inc., www.lawyersandjudges.com sales@lawyersandjudges.com and also from the InspectAPedia Bookstore (Amazon.com)
• The Stairway Manufacturers' Association, (877) 500-5759, provides a pictorial guide to the stair and railing portion of the International Residential Code.
• What Mold and Allergens Look Like: mold identification photos to help identify mold - choosing what to sample in buildings
• How to Clean Moldy Wood Framing & Sheathing How to clean/seal mold from/on exposed lumber or plywood subfloor or roof sheathing indoors - some suggestions based on our field and laboratory research
• Lighting, proper use of: proper aiming of a good flashlight can disclose hard to see but toxic light or white mold colonies on walls.
• Manufactured & Modular Homes: Modular Building Systems Association, MBSA, modularhousing.com, is a trade association promoting and providing links to contact modular builders in North America. Also see the Manufactured Home Owners Association, MHOAA, at www.mhoaa.us. The Manufactured Home Owners Association of America is a National Organization dedicated to the protection of the rights of all people living in Manufactured Housing in the United States.
• Mold spores in the Home - a Photo ID Library for detection and identification of mold allergens.
• How to Find and Test For Mold in Buildings A "how to" photo and text primer on finding and choosing the right spots to test for mold in buildings
• Stuff that is not mold but is often mistaken for it - things you may not want to test. Also, not all "black mold" is toxic - here are examples of harmless black mold.
• Simple Adhesive Tape Sampling of Moldy Surfaces - how to send a mold sample to our lab
• Mold Sampling Methods in the Indoor Environment - In-depth article: detailed critique of popular mold testing methods - Is your mold test kit worth the bother?
• Mold-Resistant Building Practices, advice from an expert on how to prevent mold after a building flood and how to prevent mold growth in buildings by selection of building materials and by anti-mold construction details.
• Slips, Trips, Missteps and Their Consequences, Gary M. Bakken, H. Harvey Cohen, Jon R. Abele, Alvin S. Hyde, Cindy A. LaRue, Lawyers and Judges Publishing; ISBN-10: 1933264012 ISBN-13: 978-1933264011
• Slips, Trips, Missteps and Their Consequences, Second Edition, Gary M. Bakken, H. Harvey Cohen,A. S. Hyde, Jon R. Abele, ISBN-13: 978-1-933264-01-1 or ISBN 10: 1-933264-01-2, available from the publisher, Lawyers & Judges Publishing Company,Inc., www.lawyersandjudges.com sales@lawyersandjudges.com and also from the InspectAPedia Bookstore (Amazon.com)
• Steps and Stairways, Cleo Baldon & Ib Melchior, Rizzoli, 1989.
• The Staircase, Ann Rinaldi
  
• Common Sense Stair building and Hand railing, Fred T. Hodgson
• The Art of Staircases, Pilar Chueca
• Building Stairs, by pros for pros, Andy Engel
• A Simplified Guide to Custom Stair building, George R. Christina
• Basic Stair building, Scott Schuttner
  
• The Staircase (two volumes), John Templar, Cambridge: the MIT Press, 1992
• The Staircase: History and Theories, John Templar, MIT Press 1995
• Steps and Stairways, Cleo Baldon & Ib Melchior, Rizzoli, 1989.
• Steps and Stairways, Cleo Baldon & Ib Melchior, Rizzoli, 1989.
• "The Dimensions of Stairs", J. M. Fitch et al., Scientific American, October 1974.
• "The Elimination of Unsafe Guardrails, a Progress Report," Elliott O. Stephenson, Building Standards, March-April 1993
• "Are Functional Handrails Within Our Grasp" Jake Pauls, Building Standards, January-February 1991
• "Weather-Resistive Barriers", how to select and install housewrap and other types of weather resistive barriers, U.S. DOE
• Weaver: Beaver Board and Upson Board: Beaver Board and Upson Board: History and Conservation of Early Wallboard, Shelby Weaver, APT Bulletin, Vol. 28, No. 2/3 (1997), pp. 71-78, Association for Preservation Technology International (APT), available online at JSTOR.
• What Style Is It?: A Guide to American Architecture, Rev., John C. Poppeliers, S. Allen Chambers, Wiley; Rev Sub edition (October 6, 2003), ISBN-10: 0471250368, ISBN-13: 978-0471250364
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