Wet Warped Hardwood Floor

Fixing bowed hardwood floors.

Wet warped hardwood floor.

Hardwood floors are a great choice for home flooring. Wood responds to changes in temperature or humidity by warping and that can be bad news for your hardwood floor. The type of wood flooring you have affects the repair options available. For anyone who lives in hurricane and flood prone areas that have historic homes this comes as no surprise.

You want the area wet but not soaking. Standing water and hardwood flooring don t mix. Most often a warped wood floor is caused by standing water or heavy moisture below the floor due to an unidentified leak or other hidden water source. Not only do they look good they re easy to care for resist wear and they re even eco friendly.

Solid hardwood flooring offers the broadest range of options as you can sand and scrape away up to 1 4 of an inch of the wood to remove cupping or surface mold and. Hardwood floors need to be cleaned maintained but make sure you use as little water as possible while mopping. Warping manifests as gaps between the boards. Water is the enemy of hardwood flooring.

Wet down the floor boards slightly. Due to the porous nature of wood moisture can be easily absorbed into the material. If your wood flooring is covered by wet rugs mats or carpeting you ll need to remove them immediately. If major amounts of water flood related or not have come into contact with your wood floor your floors will never be quite the same as new again but you can take steps toward saving them from the junkyard.

The area underneath your wood floor won t dry while the wood is still wet. Sometimes even a nearby water source like flooding underneath the house can cause enough of a moisture imbalance to result in warping. If your carpets and rugs have been soaked and they are not immediately cleaned they will usually need to be discarded due to mildew concerns. So your flooring may show signs of staining from small spills the wet floor may also begin to buckle and cup when large amounts of water are absorbed as the planks swell.

However hardwood flooring does have one draw back it can t stand up to prolonged exposure to water so if water is allowed to stay on a hardwood floor the wood will be damaged either stained or warped. As suggested in the wood flooring 101 section of our website the type of wood flooring you have limits the range of possible repairs for your wood floor.