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Soaked oak flooring. Advice needed

I've been in the wood floor business for 28 years.
That looks like a factory finished 3" or 3/14" hickory but maple is totally possible. Both are not the most stable woods to begin with and wider boards are even less stable.
It will never lay down or dry out again. The labor to try and salvage it isn't worth it. Even sanding the aluminum oxide floors is a hassle.
If you can find a marking or name on the backside of the boards you may be able to get more. The problem with factory finished flooring is that even the same mills change things so often.

It definitely looks like there's a lack of fasteners or they skip nailed during installation. As others have mentioned you need to remove whatever you can and then get fans and dehumidifier running on the subfloor.

The new flooring should come in totally dry and if you're going with another plank you want to have the subfloor within 4 % of the new wood. If it's not totally dry the new floor will cup.

Edit... Yup I can't read you said maple lol
 
I had the fitting on our fridge line crack from flexing when the water was cycled...went into the kitchen one morning and was "why the fuck are my socks wet"..:homer:
Pulled out fridge and nothing leaking...went hmmm...put glass under water dispenser and as soon as it started flowing the line flexed a bit and fitting started misting...mustve been doing that for months..:mad3:
 
Depending on how bad the floor is cupped after drying pieces, take and rip lengthwise down the back to 3/4 plank depth. Will allow the board to flex more, but may crack at weak spot. Better than replace cost, and only out some labour if it goes wrong.
 
magnatrac said:
I've been in the wood floor business for 28 years.
That looks like a factory finished 3" or 3/14" hickory but maple is totally possible.
Click to expand...
It could be hickory, I have no idea how to tell them apart, and since my cabinets are hickory, that would make sense. The picture below shows a 4-foot board, there is not a marking in sight. There are four staples in it though - should there have been more????

20240426_133204.jpg
 
Unka-Boo said:
I had the fitting on our fridge line crack from flexing when the water was cycled...went into the kitchen one morning and was "why the fuck are my socks wet"..:homer:
Pulled out fridge and nothing leaking...went hmmm...put glass under water dispenser and as soon as it started flowing the line flexed a bit and fitting started misting...mustve been doing that for months..:mad3:
Click to expand...

Half the insurance work on wood floors is in the kitchen from the refrigerator!
Like you said they leak for a long time before you realize it.
Typically it's because the water line isn't fastend to the fridge. All the stress is on the plastic fitting .
The newer fridges have a flex line running out of of them that works a lot better.
 
spaceman said:
It could be hickory, I have no idea how to tell them apart, and since my cabinets are hickory, that would make sense. The picture below shows a 4-foot board, there is not a marking in sight. There are four staples in it though - should there have been more????

20240426_133204.jpg
Click to expand...
You want a fastener ever 8-10" , shoot for one to catch the joist and one in-between.
Staples are great but you need to be careful using them on many species. You need to make sure you're not cracking the tongue while installing. A lot of loose noisy floors are caused by that.

Just from what I see on my phone I'm leaning towards hickory. You should have some boards that have drastic swings in color on the same piece. The higher the grade they do pick some of that out.

If it's not stamped on the backside there may be a sticker on one of them after you get a bunch tore out.
 
Here is the culprit - cut the 1/2" copper line under the 'box' and installed a sharkbite for temp purposes. For some reason it was really easy to remove the 150% soaked gypsum board...

You can clearly see the crack on the outside and inside...

20240426_151613.jpg



20240426_153625.jpg
20240426_153640.jpg
 
spaceman said:
it's wet floor, right now. Looks like whatever OSB was in fashion in 2003.
Click to expand...
Not to be a Debbie Downer, but you "may" need to replace that too. Are you doing an insurance claim? If so, tear out the flooring and get a Remediation Co. to handle the subfloor, drywall, framing affected. Then put your new flooring down. I bring this up from the mold standpoint. That shit can show up 2 months or 2 years later.
I'll admit I do not know your location and enviromental conditions.
 
Bogus One said:
Not to be a Debbie Downer, but you "may" need to replace that too. Are you doing an insurance claim? If so, tear out the flooring and get a Remediation Co. to handle the subfloor, drywall, framing affected. Then put your new flooring down. I bring this up from the mold standpoint. That shit can show up 2 months or 2 years later.
I'll admit I do not know your location and enviromental conditions.
Click to expand...

That's where I was going to head asking about the subfloor!
It's amazing how much water can be pulled from a floor. We just refinished one that had the dishwasher leak.

They did such a good job pulling the water out ( didn't get nearly this much water) that we only had to replace a few boards. The homeowners and insurance company were thrilled because they would have had to pull a huge island for us to repair it. It was also 2 1/4" red pad and thats more forgiving than this one.

The damage here is well worth a call to the insurance company unless there's already been claims.
 
Ok I had quickly scanned this thread earlier because I was working.
That solid hickory floor should not be over radiant heat IMO.
1 1/2" staples were probably used to avoid going through the subfloor assuming it's 3/4 osb. They may have set their fastener schedule to avoid the heat tubes just to be safe. That heat will dry that floor depending on how much water it saw if you're still using the heat.
The fastest way is to used a remediation company. And regular osb isn't nearly as forgiving as products like advantech.
Whenever it's dry i'd recommend an engineered floor. They make wood flooring with a very thick actually sandable veneer. They are available in 5/8" or regular 3/4" depending on your tolerancees . We use them on anything wider than 4" just for stability. Its not the cheapest but totally stable. With the heat I would glue and fasten the floor.

All that said I don't know how much floor you have vs. what's damaged. If the whole house is that flooring you can find something to match at a breaking point. Whatever you replace it with it needs to be glued even if it's the exact same thing.


A product like bostics best or bona 850 is what id use. We've the had our engineer ( site finished with glitsa) floor glued to concrete have a pipe burst above it. They mopped up the water and nothing happened.

Owens makes a great engineering floor available in pre finished or unfinished. There's actually a bunch of companies with similar products.
 
I did engineered plank glued to plywood substrate that was glued to concrete slab 30+ years ago in our old house.
I'm putting down SuperCore LVT on my slab substrate in the new house as we speak. Completely waterproof. Why not go that route?
 
Bogus One said:
I did engineered plank glued to plywood substrate that was glued to concrete slab 30+ years ago in our old house.
I'm putting down SuperCore LVT on my slab substrate in the new house as we speak. Completely waterproof. Why not go that route?
Click to expand...
I'm not opposed to anything at this point, just gotta dry everything out and figure out plan of action. Insurance, etc. etc.
 
spaceman said:
My bad - it is solid maple flooring

We have some time to wait, and an upcoming wedding to pay for, oops, I mean attend, in June.

This was original plumbing from the builder. Looks like the brass connection for the shutoff valve cracked somehow (but nothing has been frozen in the house or crawlspace)?!??!?

We've got time. It's not in the best location as that is the doorway to get outside, but it is manageable since we are only here on weekends.

The boards are nailed, about every two feet or so with staples. The staples are fairly short though, as there is radiant floor heating Pex under the subfloor.

There is a breaker in the outside panel, but I keep the panel locked. My routine is that every time I leave (well, most every time I leave), I go into the crawlspace (6 feet tall, so no issues getting in), inspect the boiler and radiant heating stuff, then turn off the remote panel switch next to the well pump and unplug the water softener. I obviously need to change something different in my routine or figure out how to wire in a remote smart switch to control the well pump!?!?

It is full 3" wide maple product, just pre-finished.



Thanks for all the replies - we'll continue to dry things out and assess from there. I'm putting money on probably having to rip it out and replace, not looking forward to putting in something that is a different (lower) height, and I don't really want to add another layer between the radiant heat and the final floor. Ugh. When I get to that stage, I'll have more questions :D
Click to expand...
Matching height is easy, just an extra step. But there's a million products in the market, you'll be able to get heights figured out fine.

I'll let the 28yr guy finish the thread, I only did it for 8:flipoff2:
 
spaceman said:
It could be hickory, I have no idea how to tell them apart, and since my cabinets are hickory, that would make sense. The picture below shows a 4-foot board, there is not a marking in sight. There are four staples in it though - should there have been more????

20240426_133204.jpg
Click to expand...
Yikes. Even cleats should have been closer than that. Thats why it lifted.
 
Bet you'll be surprised what straightens back out. It was all wet once :flipoff2:

Replacement depends on location. Where I'm at I'd struggle to find a natural oak tree within 1000 miles.
So I'd try and salvage everything, since it's horrendously expensive.

If you're on the East Coast and oak is almost garbage everywhere, it would likely be a waste of time as new is cheap.
 
Bogus One said:
I did engineered plank glued to plywood substrate that was glued to concrete slab 30+ years ago in our old house.
I'm putting down SuperCore LVT on my slab substrate in the new house as we speak. Completely waterproof. Why not go that route?
Click to expand...
We typically just do real wood but have done a couple basements with kolay plank. That stuff is really nice and I'm thinking about putting it in my basement because the carpet is junk.
Some of the vinyl stuff is really nice these days!
 
I'd be tempted to try stompin on it after rippin the wood stove wide open for a week.
 
magnatrac said:
We typically just do real wood but have done a couple basements with kolay plank. That stuff is really nice and I'm thinking about putting it in my basement because the carpet is junk.
Some of the vinyl stuff is really nice these days!
Click to expand...
Yeah, this stuff is REALLY nice.
It's got nice texture, 9" x 72" x 8mm thick planks. The core is cement based with an intigrated rubber backing. Cuts great with a chopsaw. Locks tighter than a frog's ass.
We're really happy with it.
 
All this non sense caused a by water line to a refer. No fancy bs with the refer and floors last a lot longer. There is still the dishwasher 🦜
 
After my neighbor had a toilet supply line burst while they were at work and do $38k in damage to their house I installed the YoLink robot water valve .

Comes with sensors .
All wifi stuff .

If a sensor gets triggered it shuts off the main water supply into the house .

My house had a ball valve, the YoLink just bolts to the ball valve .


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