What To Do When Hardwood Floors Get Wet

It happened. The worst nightmare for a hardwood floor owner: There was a spill, leak, or flood of water, and your floors got soaked. Hopefully, all is not lost, and you can help save your hardwood floors. However, you must respond quickly and avoid certain things, or else a bad situation could become worse!

So, what do you do when your floors get wet? Let’s discuss what you can do.

Find And Eliminate The Source Of Water

This might sound obvious, but nothing will contribute to saving your hardwood floors more than quickly identifying the source of the water and eliminating it. The longer your floors are subjected to water, the higher the chances they will suffer more significant levels of damage. Even large spills and floods of water caught quickly and dealt with immediately can be easy to recover from.

Vacuum Thoroughly With A Wet Vac

Getting the water off the floors and underneath the hardwoods is a must. As soon as the water source is eliminated, the affected hardwoods must be dried as quickly as possible. A wet vac will get the standing water off the hardwoods and most of the heavy water from between the hardwood pieces and even underneath.

Set Up A Dehumidifier

Once all the standing water has been vacuumed from the hardwoods, using a dehumidifier is the next step. A dehumidifier will lower the humidity level in a room or space. This is an integral part of helping the hardwoods to dry. Hopefully, you were able to respond quickly to the leak or flood. However, if water has penetrated underneath the hardwoods, drying the bottoms of the pieces of wood will be challenging. It would also be good to turn on your air conditioner in the room or house as this will help fight the moisture in the air and help dry the hardwoods out. Whatever you do, however, do not use heat to dry your floors. Heat will cause the pieces of wood to expand, creating significant problems for your hardwood floor pieces! Using work fans or box fans would also help to dehumidify a room.

Contact A Hardwood Flooring Contractor

This is a step that most people don’t want to have to take. However, if you can find a hardwood flooring expert that you can trust, their help will be invaluable. A good contractor will not try to sell you products or services you don’t need. Instead, their priority should be to help you use and maybe even salvage the wet flooring. Getting a professional opinion is very important at this step as they can tell you if your floors have grown mold or if trying to use what had gotten wet will ultimately cost you lots of trouble and money.

Sand And Refinish Your Hardwood Floors

Considering how wet your floors got, this could be your best-case scenario. Once floors get saturated, they can begin to buckle and cup and do undesirable things. If you were able to catch the problem and react quickly, you might not even need to do an intensive refinishing. However, if the leak was extensive and you couldn’t catch it fast enough, some of the floors might need to be replaced.

We know this is a difficult situation for an owner of hardwood floors. A room or house full of damaged and wet hardwood floors can feel overwhelming quickly. However, our experience and desire to help hardwood floor owners have saved homeowners thousands of dollars. So, if you need help with wet floors, let us help you!

If you would like a free estimate for hardwood flooring repair or refinishing, we would love to be able to assist you. We are currently serving Florida as well as Westchester Country, NY. For questions or quotes, please reach out to us today!