Wood flooring help?

[Guber12]

I have installed, filled, buffed and polyed hard wood floors. I have also installed pre - finished hardwood flooring. I have always gotten it tight.

Well I bought a house about 2 years ago and did not install the pre - finished cherry hardwood floors. I just found my ceiling in my basement had some water damage and I thought it was my radiant floor heating in my house must be leaking. No, it is that some of my flooring cherry planks are not tight enough and water is proceeding to seep through the plank and through the plywood sub floor. This has created the water damage in my basement on the ceiling.

Does anyone have any ideas on what should be done?

Here are some of own my ideas:

Leave the floor the way it is and create a plastic seal in this area in the ceiling above the drywall and insulation ( Might work.) Maybe even create a drain from the plastic that would drain outside.

Remove the planks and put back in tight so that this the leak stops ( but not a guarantee the leak being gone as the boards still do not go all the way to the wall so it could possibly get under the trim and leak again)

Do a light sand, filled and Refinish the pre - finished floors ( should work, but must remove the trim boards so that I can fill in the cracks against the wall)

just coat with some more poly to seal the cracks ( not even sure if this will work.)

Thanks for your input, recommendations and advise in advance.

 

[Edger]

Would fixing the leaking water be easier so it did not get onto the floor? I do not like your chances of waterproofing the floor.

 

[A_Pmech]

Well I bought a house about 2 years ago and did not install the pre - finished cherry hardwood floors. I just found my ceiling in my basement had some water damage and I thought it was my radiant floor heating in my house must be leaking. No, it is that some of my flooring cherry planks are not tight enough and water is proceeding to seep through the plank and through the plywood sub floor. This has created the water damage in my basement on the ceiling.

I don't understand... Are you washing out your living room with a fire hose?

Why on earth do you want a water tight finished wood floor?

 

[rlitman]

I don't understand... Are you washing out your living room with a fire hose?

That's what I'm picturing too, but on a more serious note, pre-finished floors don't lend themselves to sanding. The "wood" on top is typically only a veneer, and if you sand the contours of the surface flush (to remove any old finish), you will almost certainly go through it.

I'm not sure how easy it would be to lift the floor one piece at a time and put everything back together tight, without destroying and breaking many pieces, but you can always fill any gaps at the edges with caulk, since it will be covered with the shoe and base molding anyway. This is what I often do with floating floors too.

Another question, is if you fit everything together tight, will it buckle when the wood expands in the summer?

 

[Guber12]

No guys I am not washing my floor with a fire house. LOL.
I live in Colorado and in the winter time, We track in snow and when it melts it does not just stay and eventually dry out. It finds the cracks in the wood floor and leaks onto the plywood and than drips through the floor and of course on top the drywall. ( which of course is currently removed, this is how I found the leak) BTW, this is right next to the main entry door. it gets a a lot of traffic.

So when the snow melts or the some drops a significant of water on the floor it just leaks through.

At edger, There is no leaking water just tiny gaps (about 1/16 of an inch) in between the 5 1/4 inch planks. The rest of the floor is pretty tight. I just think this is the area where they finished. It seems as if this might be a low point in the floor too.

Thanks for your ideas and input.

 

[Guber12]

@ Rlitman. No, I do not believe it expands in the summer, but if it does it is very little. and I have never seen buckling except when water gets under the wood and soaks in it.

Also they are pre finished real wood 5 1/4 planks by 3/4 inch thick planks.

Thinking back, when I remodeled the basement a little over a year ago, it also seems as if this has been going on for years because some of the drywall above cabinets I removed was had signs of water/ mold. And at the time thought nothing of it. Just that it was maybe from an old leak.

And I am thinking that maybe the plywood is old and not absorbing as much of water as it used too. I will try and post pictures of my issues as soon as possible. So that everyone might get a better picture.

To everyone that has posted a reply. THANKS FOR YOUR INPUT.

 

[red]

Install a ceramic floor or stop the water at it's source. (the snow being tracked in) Some Scandinavians have a water pan at the entrance way with a steel grate. This pan has a drain in it for the melting snow. All shoes come off at the door.

What ever you do, do not install plastic above the sheetrock. Had a handyman do that in my Aunt's bathroom and two years later I was removing the tiles (were falling off again) and the rotten 2x4's in the wall. Good Luck!

 

[rlitman]

Colorado. Ok, yeah, good, you're not going to get huge expansion issues like I have from humidity on Long Island.

Are you 100% sure the wood is one piece. I understand it is "real", but I've seen plenty of "wood" flooring that has a 1/8" layer of pretty wood on top, and a 5/8" layer of something else underneath (could still be wood, just not necessarily something you want to sand through to).
Anyway, perhaps you could sand it, fill the gaps, re-stain it, and reapply poly, but that's a HUGE job (and I own a floor sander, and have done two rooms in my house with it).

Assuming that the tracked in snow is the source of the ceiling's water damage (and that seems like kind of a sketchy assumption to me, but for the purposes of this argument, lets go with it), maybe it would be best to cut out a section of floor near the door, and tile it. When I re-did my basement apartment, I put in slate tile in 26 square feet around the entrance door. It's a great compliment to my cherry laminate floor (I wasn't doing hardwood in the basement because of moisture risks), and you can trim it with a molding that keeps the water in place. It was a couple of afternoon's worth of work (the epoxy grout was the hardest part), and was pretty inexpensive, because I only tiled a very small area.

I'd think tiling a small area might still be less work than ripping up or sanding the while floor.

Oh, and you can lay the tile over a waterproof membrane (I'd use Ditra, because it also protects the tiles from any movement in the wood subfloor, so you don't need to use mud).

Edit: Looks like red said this before me. Totally in agreement.

 

[MoonRise]

Wood floors are almost never 'waterproof'.

If you are tracking in enough snow/ice/mud/water to be an issue with water 'leaking' through the wood floor and dripping to the ceiling below, then you need to set up a 'mud room' area where all the 'wet' shoes and clothes come off. Tile or other stone-type waterproof flooring is the choice there.

 

[A_Pmech]

I suggest taking your boots off before you walk on your finished floors, or install a tile landing and boot drying area in front of the door as the others have suggested.

It simply is not a good idea to leave standing water on a hardwood floor of any kind. That's the fastest way known to man to destroy it.

 

[Guber12]

@ red - Thanks for your input. I will consider that. And I will not put plastic above it.

@rlitman - will check the wood I believe the other owners left me a piece of the flooring in the garage. And if I have to rip the floor up to get it tighter. I might replace a small portion with tile good idea. Thanks

 

[Guber12]

@ A_P Mech - I understand that is that standing water is the worst way to ruin a hardwood floor. But by the time a grab a towel half of the water has already found it way below the hardwood floor. Thanks for the idea of the tile landing too