buckled oak floor

[rgamache]

Help,

I discovered over the weekend that our dishwasher has been leaking, probably has been for quite a while. Anyway, the water seeped from the washer under a wall and under the dinning room floor, between the oak floor and the plywood sheeting underneath. The oak floor at the wall, approximately 3’ x 1.5’, has started to buckle.The boards, three different pairs, have apparently swelled with the water and are rising at the joints. The oak is about 3/4” thick, I’m assuming, and about 2.5” wide. Should I wait until the boards dry, and hope they lay flat again, or is some intervention needed?

[Mark F]

We had a leak from an ice maker that caused our dining room oak floor boards to warp. The leak only existed for about 8-10 hours, but probably hundreds of gallons flowed across, through and beneath the floor down to the crawl space. I put fans on the floor and in the crawl space for 3 days to get things dried out. After about a month the boards returned to normal. Since your leak may have existed for an extended period of time you may not be so lucky. Either way, you should give the floor a good amount of time to dry before attempting to correct the situation.

Mark F

[Lou_williams]

Mark's right.

I had a very small pin hole leak in the Ice maker filter line (one more reason I hate GE and will never by another product from them)

By the time I found the leak I had a real mess. The floor continumed to warp for about 2 weeks after the leak and it took about 4 months for it to return to the maximum it would. I then refinished the floor to fix the issue.

You might have to go a long time before you know if any real work will be required to fix it.