When wood takes in or loses moisture, the wood will change. Wood will expand, shrink, and even split simply due to the amount of moisture in the air or on the ground. If the wood takes in moisture, it will expand and get bigger. The wooden planks will swell. If this occurs after the flooring has been installed, your floors will develop cupping. The edges will swell and now you will have bumpy edges surrounding each plank. If the air has very little moisture the wooden plank will shrink. If shrinking occurs after the floors have been installed, the planks will separate from each other and now you have gaps throughout your entire floor. If the wood floors don’t have the needed time to adjust to its environment, it can also develop other problems such as squeaking, crowning and even drying out and splintering. For this reason it is very important to allow the solid or engineered hardwood floors to adjust to its new climate. It is important to give the hardwood floors at least 48 hours to adjust, which means it will be a few days before you will want to begin installing the hardwood floors.