Cracks, Knots and Colour Shifts in Teak Root Tables: Which Are Normal and Which Aren’t

A teak root table starts as the base of a tree that grew for decades. The root is dug out of the ground, dried, shaped and sanded by hand. Nothing about it is uniform, which is the whole appeal. It also means the first months of ownership can bring surprises: a hairline crack that wasn’t there on delivery, a knot darker than the photographs suggested, a patch of paler wood near the edge.

Most of these are the wood behaving as wood does. A few are worth raising with us. This guide goes through the things owners notice most, explains what causes each one, and draws a clear line between character and fault.

Why a root moves more than a plank

Wood is never completely still. It takes in moisture from the air when a room is humid and gives it back when the air is dry, swelling and shrinking slightly as it does. Day-to-day changes are too small to matter. Seasonal ones are the changes you notice. A finish slows the exchange of moisture but doesn’t stop it.

Wood also moves more in some directions than others. Across the growth rings it shrinks about twice as much as it does from the centre outwards, and barely at all along the length of the grain. In a sawn plank the grain runs one way, so the movement is predictable and a furniture maker can design around it.

In a root, the grain twists, divides into branches and changes direction every few centimetres. Different parts of the same piece are trying to move by different amounts, in different directions, at the same time. Some of that tension is released as small cracks at the surface.

Teak is one of the better timbers for this. Published figures put its shrinkage at about 2.6% radially and 5.3% tangentially from green to dry, low for a hardwood, and its stability is a large part of why it has been used in boatbuilding for centuries. A teak root moves less than most roots would. It still moves.

Cracks and splits

Normal: fine checks that open and close

The crack people notice most is a fine line following the grain, often on end grain or near the outer edges of the root. These are called checks. They form when the surface dries and shrinks faster than the wood beneath it.

In the UK, checks tend to appear or widen in winter, when central heating dries the air, and narrow again in the damper months. Makers of teak garden furniture see exactly the same pattern outdoors: hairline checks that come and go and don’t affect the strength of the piece.

A check like this won’t spread through the base or weaken it. It’s best left alone. Filling a crack that is still opening and closing with the seasons tends to push the filler back out, or shift the stress so a new crack forms beside it.

Also normal: splits that were there from the start

Most teak root bases have larger splits and fissures that formed while the root was in the ground or while it was drying. Makers keep them as part of the piece’s character, and they are sealed along with the rest of the base. The listing for our round teak root dining table describes a finish that deliberately leaves the knots and grain of the original wood on show.

If a split was visible when you unpacked the table, has the same finished surface inside it as the rest of the base, and hasn’t changed since, it’s a feature rather than damage.

Worth watching

Some cracks are worth keeping an eye on without being alarmed about. Watch any crack that:

• appeared after delivery and is still growing longer or wider after a full year of seasons;
• runs across the grain rather than along it;
• shows raw, pale wood inside, while the rest of the base is sealed and darker.

A photograph taken every month or so, with a coin or a ruler beside the crack for scale, will tell you quickly whether it moves with the seasons or grows steadily. Most turn out to be seasonal.

Get in touch

Contact us if:

• the base rocks, creaks or shifts when you lean on the table;
• a crack runs through a part of the root that carries the glass or meets the floor, and you can see it open when weight goes on the table;
• the glass no longer sits level, or a crack appears at the same time as a change in how the table stands.

These point to a structural problem rather than surface movement, and they are exactly what we want to know about.

Knots, holes and voids

Roots are full of knots where the root branched. Many bases also have natural hollows, bark pockets and small holes where the wood grew around stones, soil or other roots. Makers usually keep these, because removing them would mean removing much of what makes each piece individual.

A sound knot is firm and tight in the surrounding wood. A fine gap around the edge of a knot is also normal, because knots shrink differently from the wood around them.

Two things are not character.

A knot that moves or falls out. Now and then a knot loosens. It can be glued back in, and it is not a structural concern, but tell us if it happens soon after delivery.

Small round holes with fine dust beneath them. Natural voids are irregular in shape, with smooth, darkened or sealed surfaces inside. Holes left by wood-boring beetles are different: small (usually 1 to 2mm across), round and clean-edged. Fresh, powdery bore dust, known as frass, around or below the holes is the clearest sign that insects are active. Teak heartwood is very durable, but it is only moderately resistant to powder post beetles, and the paler sapwood is less durable than the heartwood. If you find fresh holes with dust, move the table away from other wooden furniture and contact us.

Colour: variation from day one, and change over time

Every teak root table looks different from its photographs. Our listings say so plainly: the table pictured is a representative example, and the one you receive shares its specification but not its exact shape or colouring. The tables are packed at source in Indonesia, so individual pieces can’t be photographed before they ship.

Within a single base you will usually see several tones. Teak heartwood runs from golden to medium brown. The paler, creamy patches that sometimes appear near the outer edges are sapwood, the younger wood that grew just under the bark. Darker streaks and near-black lines are common in teak, and especially in roots, as is deeper colour around knots and areas of dense grain.

The colour also changes with time. Teak heartwood darkens with age. Indoors this happens gradually and usually warms the wood. Parts of the base that get more light will change faster than parts in shade, so a table beside a bright window may end up slightly different on its sunny side. Sapwood darkens too, which tends to soften the contrast between light and dark areas over the years.

You may have seen teak turn silver-grey. That is weathering of bare, unfinished teak outdoors, not something a sealed base in a living room goes through.

What isn’t normal is a whitish or grey bloom, or fuzzy spots, on the surface. That points to damp, usually from a table stored in a garage or standing in a damp room, not to a problem with the wood itself. Wipe the area, dry the room out and let us know if the marks come back.

The first winter

The biggest change in conditions a teak root table goes through happens after it leaves the workshop. It is dried in Indonesia, packed, shipped and stored, then delivered to a centrally heated British home where winter air can be drier than anything it met on the way. Most of the checking owners notice appears during this first heating season, as the wood settles to the conditions in the room.

A few habits help:

• Keep the base away from direct heat. A radiator right beside the root, a heating vent blowing onto it or a stove in the same corner will dry one side faster than the other.
• With underfloor heating, the base stands directly on the heat source. A steady, moderate floor temperature is kinder to it than a hot one.
• Avoid rapid swings. Taking a cold room to very warm for a weekend is harder on wood than keeping it steadily warm.
• Give new checks time. Cracks caused by seasonal movement usually narrow again when the air turns damper in spring and summer.

For routine cleaning and upkeep, see our guide to caring for teak root dining tables.

Where the table stands

Where you put a root table matters more than it does for most furniture. A sunny conservatory is the hardest place indoors for any solid wood, combining strong light with large swings in temperature and humidity through the day. A spot directly in front of a large south-facing window brings some of the same stresses on a smaller scale. A room that stays damp, such as a basement or an unheated extension, brings the opposite problem.

The best position is an ordinary living or dining room with steady heating, out of direct sun for most of the day and a little way from radiators. That covers most dining rooms in most homes, so for most owners this means nothing more than not pushing the base up against a radiator.

The glass top

Our teak root dining tables have tempered safety glass tops. The glass on the round table is 10mm thick and arrives as a separate piece that sits on the base.

The glass is the one part of the table where we’d rather you didn’t wait and see. If you find a chip or crack in the edge or surface of the glass, stop using the table and contact us. It is also worth checking now and then that the glass sits level and doesn’t rock. If it starts to, the points where it rests on the root may have moved, which is worth reporting.

What to check when the table arrives

A teak root dining table is heavy: our 180cm round table weighs 100kg. Our delivery team brings it to your front door, so arrange help to carry it inside. Once it’s unpacked and in position:

• Photograph the base from every side in daylight,including the splits and knots already there. It gives you a baseline, so later you can tell whether a crack is new or has simply become more noticeable.
• Check it stands firmly without rocking.Many floors aren’t perfectly level, so check with the glass in place, and try moving the table a few centimetres if it rocks, before assuming the base is at fault.
• Look over the glassedges and surface for chips.
• Look under any small holesfor fresh dust.

Our returns page sets out how to report a problem.

At a glance

Living with a table that keeps changing

A teak root table isn’t meant to stay exactly as it was on the day it arrived. The checks that open in its first winter, the gradual deepening of colour and the knots that set each base apart are what separate it from a factory-made table. Knowing which changes are normal makes it much easier to enjoy the piece, and to spot the rare problem early.

If you’re choosing a table now, browse our teak root tables. If something about your table doesn’t look right, get in touch with a few photographs and we’ll take a look.