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oppsie_gw

Wood laminate flooring hit by basement leak

oppsie
17 years ago

We had a huge thaw/rain/snowmelt last week and it opened up a crack in our foundation that instead of draining to the floor drain instead flowed into the living area of our basement which is covered with laminate floor from Costco (Harmonics). Seems to have gotten between the vapor barrier padding thing and the boards. A couple of questions that hopefully somebody out there can help with:

-- what's the best way to dry it out? I am going to pick up a dehumidifier but I'm not sure what else to do. As it has been a few days I think it is drying anyway, I pressed on one of the boards and unlike a few days ago water did not bubble up out of the seams

-- is there any way to salvage the boards that have started to warp? I can see some warping on several boards but not all, but not warped to the point where they look totally horrible (meaning total U-shape). Just some of the edges warping a bit that hopefully only I would notice.

-- how worried should I be about mold/mildew? What can I do to mitigate? Am I SOL and will have to pull up all the boards in the affected area, dry, and replace? The layers are: laminate--laminate plastic vapor padding underlayment--visqueen--subfloor covered with patchy tar from removal of old linoleum tiles.

Thanks for any advice. (Yes, we have a basement waterproof contractor set to go; unfortunately he can't get to us for another three weeks and I fear we'll have another thaw and rain by then.)

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