Who to call when a wood floor starts buckling after a flood?
Water seeping from an area like a closet can cause wooden floors to bulge and buckle so severely that doors get stuck, leaving homeowners unsure whether to panic about what is underneath or who to call. Standard wood floor contractors often just want to refinish the entire surface, which fails to address the root leak or localized damage.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1having the building dry out the apartment
- 2getting someone to come over and inspect the floors
- 3testing for asbestos in the mastic
- 4Calling a wood flooring company for quotes on repair and refinishing
- 5Trying to figure out who to call and what to ask for to fix the source of moisture
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“this is what was underneath them… should I be scared”source ↗
“Recently, the wood floor in the area in front of the closet door has started buckling and bulging, to the extent that it's now difficult to even open the door.”source ↗
“I think water is seeping from this closet, under the threshold, into the floor outside.”source ↗
“Generally, I'm still trying to figure out who to call and what to ask for to fix this, since it seems like the wood floor guys are, understandably, mainly interested in refinishing my whole wood floor, which is not really the primary goal.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 2Sudden split and missing chunks in bathroom subfloor
- 11Do I need a structural engineer for a sagging floor beam?
- 11How to clean mold under water damaged flooring without DIY experience
- 4Why is my subfloor wavy and dropping?
- 12Why is water coming up through my basement floor during heavy rain?
- 15Why do foundation repairs cost so much more than quoted?