Hardwood Flooring in Dixon

Dixon Conditions That Affect Solid Hardwood

Dixon sits at about 62 feet in Solano County. The regional Sacramento Valley record shows summer air cycling widely within each day rather than staying uniformly dry. In the National Weather Service publication "Climate of Sacramento, California" (revised August 2010), average relative humidity at Sacramento is 78 percent at 4 AM against 30 percent at 4 PM in July, a swing of roughly 48 points inside the same day. Those are Sacramento readings taken about 20 miles from Dixon, not local measurements.

Measured Humidity and Solid Wood Movement in Dixon

University Airport, Davis, 6 miles from Dixon and at about the same elevation, supplied the 62,832 hourly dewpoint readings, 2015 to 2025, behind these figures. Warm that winter air to 70°F without adding moisture and it settles at a median 37.4% relative humidity, with 24% of heating-season hours below the 30% floor NWFA sets for wood floors; the same air reaches 56% in summer. Solid hardwood follows those numbers: its equilibrium moisture content runs from about 7.3% in the heating season to 10.3% in summer, and on the Forest Products Laboratory's coefficients for American white oak that swing changes the width of a 5-inch plainsawn board by about 0.056 inch (about 1/18 inch) — against 0.029 inch for the same board quartersawn. That is inside the range solid wood is specified for, but without much margin, so in Dixon board width and cut get decided before species does.

Source: Hourly ASOS dewpoint observations 2015–2025, Iowa Environmental Mesonet (Iowa State University); equilibrium moisture content from USDA Wood Handbook FPL-GTR-190 Eq. 4-5; movement from FPL-GTR-282 Eq. 13-3 and Table 13-5

Subfloor and Foundation Work

USDA-NRCS soil survey data map nine map units inside Dixon's city limits, seven of them soils. Yolo silty clay loam covers 62.6% of the incorporated area, at a depth-weighted linear extensibility of 3.69%, in the moderate shrink-swell class. Capay clay covers 6.5% at 9.94%, in the very high class; all of it lies in the two detached parcels southeast of town, land the City's background report associates with its wastewater treatment facility. The City's General Plan 2040 says Dixon's soils 'range from low to high shrink-swell potential, with the highest-potential soil in the northern tip of the city.'

On a slab, solid hardwood is the least forgiving floor there is: it cannot be nailed into concrete, and it responds to vapor drive from below more sharply than anything else we install. Where we're going over slab we test the concrete for moisture first — an in-situ relative humidity test per ASTM F2170 rather than a guess — and where the readings rule out solid wood, we say so and price engineered instead of hoping for the best.

Over a crawlspace, solid hardwood is in its element — plank or plywood subfloors take fasteners well — but only when the crawlspace itself is dry. We check the ground cover, look for standing water and rot at the joist ends, and read the moisture content of the subfloor from below. Cupping in a solid floor is almost always a crawlspace problem that surfaced upstairs.

Source: NAHB analysis of the Census Bureau Survey of Construction, foundation type by region (2024)

Dixon Homes We Work In

ACS 2020-2024 five-year estimates count 7,121 housing units, spread across four decades: 18.6% built 1970-1979, 17.5% built 1990-1999, 16.1% built 1980-1989, and 15.3% built 2000-2009. Pre-1940 units account for just 0.7% of the stock. Construction continues, with 6.0% of units built 2020 or later. Dixon's 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s stock is directly relevant here, because homes of that period frequently have a board or plywood subfloor that will hold a nail-down installation, and sometimes original wood still under the carpet. We check for both before quoting a full replacement — refinishing what's already there is often the better answer.