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What You Need to Know About Water Damaged Wood Floors:

STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND CALL US

(770) 751-9100

We offer a full restoration process for your flooring and other parts of your house, if you have experienced water intrusion or flooding then give us a call, we are fully equipped to handle to entire process and work with you to restore your home to better than original.

Step One – Stop the Cause

If you are left with water damaged wood floors in the aftermath of flooding caused by cracked foundation, faulty appliances, burst pipes or another incident in your home or office. First and foremost, you must stop the source of water entering the area. Second and equally important you must dry the wood floors with the use of fans, blowers and dehumidifiers. The final step is repairing and refinishing or replacing your wooden floors.

What happens to The Hardwood Flooring?

Water / flood damage happens when water saturates a hardwood floor often the result is referred to as cupping. This happens because more moisture is absorbed by the unfinished underside of the boards causing the bottom of each board to expand more than the top essentially a water logged floor. The result is a wavy / cupped appearance and each plank of wood is raised at the seams and gives a unwelcomed texture and appearance.

Step Two – Drying

Essentially the toughest part when dealing with water damaged floors is waiting for the wood floor to dry out and be good to go. If the floor is cupped like a washboard they may flatten out with time and you may avoid replacement. After about one week of drying out your cupped floors, give your flooring contractor a call. The contractor will take a moisture reading and depending on the results you may simply wait a couple more weeks for another round of tests.

Once the moisture content of the flood damaged boards stabilizes with what the surrounding unaffected floors are reading refinishing or patching can happen. What you don’t want to do is have the floors re-sanded while they are still wet and cupped. If a floor is sanded before it is fully dried, it will be flat initially, but there will be problems down the road. When the floor eventually dries out, you will get the reverse effect of the cupping referred to as crowning then you will have to replace the floor vs refinishing.

If instead of cupping you have floor boards peak up off the floor 4-5” chances are your floors will need to be replaced. In this case the floors need to be removed and the area needs to dry out thoroughly before laying new floors. If there is a sub floor issue ( foundation issue, concrete damaged, or high humidity area ) chances are you will not get the floors dry enough with out replacement of the wood floors.

Step Three Repair, Replace and Refinish

The final step, returning the shine and luster to your wood floors. Depending on the severity of the damage, your floors may only need to be refinished. In some cases patching is required to replace the damaged boards prior to refinishing. In the worst case scenario, the entire floor needs to be removed and replaced. Most of the time the flooring will have to be replaced, unfortunately a cupped floor is not ever going to be perfect again.

Prevent Water Damaged Flooring

Sometimes the cause of water damage is beyond our control but sometimes we can take simple steps to prevent accidental water damage.

Immediately clean up any water spills or large of water on your wood floors. When you see any signs of moisture, grab a clean, dry cloth or mop immediately. Quick action will minimize or eliminate any impact and damaged areas on your floors.

Keep your floors in good repair. Floors that have lost their protective coating of polyurethane are susceptible to damage more readily than floors with a layer of polyurethane. Hardwood Floors Center is a turn key service company that can handle every aspect of water damaged flooring, we have top of the line flooring products and expert refinishing and installation team.

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