How To Fix Swollen Wood Floor

Wood flooring gives off an incredibly welcoming and homely feel to where it lays. The natural coloring of such a floor is enough to make a room pop. Over the years these floors have become more and more desirable for people who take ultimate pride in their home space.

Although this the choice for many homeowners given that you can choose from a variety of different styles and colorings it doesn’t mean that it isn’t susceptible to damage, flooding and water damage are two of the biggest issues when it comes to wood flooring and it’s unfortunate because it’s not like it is directly your fault.

These damages can have very big consequences that lead the floor to begin to “swell” or buckle from the humidity that the water can cause, fortunately there is a simple solution but be aware that the entire repair process can take the person months to resolve.

Assess The Swelling

Before you do anything in terms of fixing the problem it’s important to properly assess how badly the floor has been damaged from the infiltration of water.

The first thing to do is to work out where the water or moistures source is. Once you determine this it’s important to fix the leak, without doing this it makes the rest of the process completely pointless. Once this is fixed you need to learn where the floor has begun to buckle.

You will be able to determine if the floor is damaged by seeing if it looks swollen or if there is any mold that has started to appear on the wood flooring. Again if this is the case you need to take care of the mold before moving on to the next step of the process.

Controlling The Environment

Now that the wood flooring has been properly assessed and any damages such as mold has been taking care of it’s important to control the environment of the room, for example if the damage was caused by humidity it is highly recommended that you set proper ventilation up within the room in question to allow proper air flow and dry the room out.

If you are worried that this may be very time consuming then you can always add a dehumidifier to the room to help speed the process up. This is a very important step when it comes to solving the overall problem but it isn’t a quick process.

To completely dry out wood flooring can be very time consuming, it can take up to several months before the room has returned to its normal state and lacks any signs of previous or new moisture.

Changes To The Floor

During this process the flooring can become swollen or buckled. However, the floor often returns to its original finish. If you have followed the steps and the floor has returned to its normal state then you might decide that the floor needs refinishing to give it a new feel. This can also prevent the problem from rising again.

Due to the damages mainly being from water leakage it is imperative that you dry out the wood, this will allow you to learn if the floorboards even need to be fixed or if they’ve returned to their original finish.

In some cases the wood can split at the point where you normally connect the flooring together. If they are damaged this way then they are unfortunately unfixable and the boards that represent this issue should be replaced.

You can determine this yourself however, if you are still unsure on what you’re looking at it is recommended to have a professional come and take a look before you begin to replace panels or a new entire floor.

What You Can Also Do

After assessing the damaged floor you may notice that it has only bubbled up and hasn’t split then you may be able to get away with a quicker fix than anything else you’ve tried, you could perhaps take a cloth and place it over the bubbled up area and run a hot iron over it. This will hopefully be a quick solution and rid you of your swollen floorboards.

Although it is important to note that this may only be a “quick fix” without properly assessing where the leak or damage has come from you will only be temporarily out of a problem.

These problems are not necessarily expected when it comes to wood flooring but they are the most common that take place, if you’ve laid the floor correctly and left enough space for the floor to properly ventilate itself when you first lay it down then these problems won’t occur unless something has sprung the issue like a leak.

It is with high importance that you locate a leak as quickly as possible and deal with it before the floor becomes too damaged and needs replacing.

In Summary

Wood flooring is a very desired style of flooring especially in the modern age of housing, it’s a very cost effective way of having a brand new floor and is something that is easy to do for most relatively new DIY doers. Unfortunately this style of flooring can be damaged by something as simple as water or the changes of the season if the room is not properly ventilated.

To avoid this problem arising it is important to leave a little gap from where you’ve first laid the flooring to the wall to allow it proper space to breathe and not become overly warm throughout the seasons changing.

However when it is a leak that has started the problem that is when action is required, like stated above it is important to determine the source of the leak and completely fix that problem before you begin to deal with the damaged flooring. You must then dry out the room which the leak is in and once the repair process can begin shortly after, although this can take a long time.