Water Damage to wood laminate flooring

Pete Simmons

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546
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Melbourne, FL
Hot water heater let go last night. Caught it early but still a lot of water spread around laundry room, under walls into bedroom and living room.

Any thoughts on what to do with wood laminate flooring? Seams are already raised.

Less than 20% of wood flooring area damaged but is there any chance to replace half of it.
I would bet damaged area will increase next couple of days as water had to creep under most of the floor area. Maybe in some ways it might be better to NOT have a level floor!!!

I would be surprised if 8-10 year old flooring could be found to match the rest of what is there.

Replace the whole floor my only option?
 
Florida. Humidity. Not good for drying out a wetness that creeped under walls to the next room. I'd get the insurance adjuster there pronto, get the wet stuff pulled out and try to prevent mold. This may be a bigger mess that appears on the surface. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Hope I am wrong, but there may be long term issues that go beyond replacing the floor.
 
Adjuster scheduled in next couple of business days. Air Condition turned way down (I am cold inside) to help drying out.

Yes, concerned about mold and realize I am probably looking at new floor and rugs. Rugs were old anyway.
 
Had the same thing happen at a place I worked and I would not hold out any hope that it will dry up and look OK. Years later the floor looks like the day the leak occurred. Warped and buckled looks bad but boss decided not to repair and live with it.
 
We had some that never recovered as well by our dishwasher. I just replaced all of it with new that has the edges with a chamfer look to them so dont' have to worry about edges quite matching as well if it happens again. If the water tank didn't have a pan under it, may consider adding one this round. ;)
 
Tank had a pan. Just could not keep up with flow rate.

I will be sure the drain line from it is clear once I get the old tank out.

I need to bend up a pan to mount under our tankless unit on the utility room wall, there is a drain on the floor, but there's a half wall and a UPS for the tankless unit directly under it on the floor. Guess I should probably consider a shelf for that up higher too. :)
 
Always been afraid of a leaky tank, since ours is in the attic and flooding would be costly. We installed one of the auto shut off systems when the tank was installed and the plumber said it was a waste of money because the pan would catch the spillage. Sure enough, after a few months, the tank sprung a massive leak (due to plumbers error) and the drain hose had construction debris in it so the pan started to fill up. The device kicked in and shut off the water to the unit just in time. The plumber fixed his error and bought me a new device. Highly recommended. Something like this:
http://www.homedepot.com/catalog/pdfImages/d7/d78de4c9-2349-4cc4-b159-4959bcba24f2.pdf
 
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