Hardwood floor can really make a home beautiful. But when disasters like a pipe bursting happens, the water does not respect the beauty and offend drenches the floors. Hardwood floors require special attention when suffering from water damage. Many people believe that replacement is the only option when their hardwood floor is affected in a water loss. However, this is not always the case.
At Restoration Authority, in most cases we are able to save the floor. Restoration Authority can formulate a plan to put our drying system to work for you. This top rated equipment, when paired with hardwood floor drying panels, has saved many homeowners and insurance companies thousands of dollars in replacement costs.
How does it work?
The black panels you see in the picture to the left have been placed on the hardwood floor with an air tight seal placed around the edges. The small yellow lines that you see are then attached on one side to holes in the panel. The other end of the line is connected to the larger yellow suction line. This line is connected to the drying system forming a suction underneath the panels. Air will travel from between the subfloor and the hardwood floor through the grooves between the boards, bringing with it any moisture. This system combined with very dry air from our desiccant dehumidifiers will pull the moisture right out of the wood.
When dealing with any water loss, a fast response time is a critical factor in mitigating the loss, and it is especially important in the case of hardwood floors. The longer they are wet, the greater the chance that buckling will occur. So the next time you’re dealing with a wet hardwood floor, don’t just count it as a loss, count on Restoration Authority to get it dried in a hurry!
Determining the type of flooring and installation
When repairing a hardwood floor, figuring out the type of flooring is very important. Hardwood comes in many kinds of wood; oak, pine, maple, and cherry. Different woods have different challenges. This is because each type of wood absorb water at different levels.
There are also types of flooring that look like they are wood but they are not. They can have a laminate on the top but underneath have particle board. If the water seeps into these, drying is a lot harder.
The installation process is also important when restoring hardwood. The flooring may have been nailed, glued, or installed using a floating method. Flooring that has been installed with nails face the issue of the nails lifting. If the flooring was glued, the water can make the glue release. With floating flooring, the tongue and groove may “cup” after absorbing moisture.
Drying the hardwood floor
After the floor type and installation method is figured out, the restoration can start. We will use both surface and subsurface methods if necessary. Surface methods include water removal and dehumidifying the area around the floors. Subsurface drying is done by forcing airflow beneath the surface of the floor to get rid of the moisture. We may need to access the floor from below to increase the speed of drying.
Unfortunately, this process is very slow. It can take from several days. The hardwood drying continues until the wood’s moisture levels reach four percent of the floor’s dry standard. At this point, nature will remove the remaining water. This will take anywhere from three to six months.
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