A floor you may not know you have

Narrow oak strip flooring was the standard finish in the living rooms, halls and bedrooms of many houses built in the 1950s and 1960s. Later owners often covered it with carpet. A water loss is sometimes the first time anyone has seen the wood in decades.

When carpet and pad get wet over hardwood, the pad acts like a sponge pressed against the wood and holds water on its surface. The wood soaks up moisture from the top, and from the subfloor too if water got underneath. Uneven moisture makes the boards swell unevenly, so the edges rise above the centers. That's called cupping. The reverse, centers higher than edges, is crowning, and it often shows up when someone sands a cupped floor flat too soon.

The carpet and pad versus the wood below

Carpet and pad

  • Soaked pad almost always comes out; it holds water and is cheap to replace
  • Carpet can sometimes be dried after clean water and fast action, but it often comes up over wood so the floor can dry
  • The tack strip around the edges usually gets replaced
  • Contaminated water means both carpet and pad go

Oak strip floor

  • Solid hardwood can often be dried in place with the right setup
  • Cupping often flattens partly or fully as the moisture evens out
  • Boards that split, buckle off the subfloor or stay cupped may need replacing
  • Sanding and refinishing should wait until readings match unaffected wood

A realistic sequence for drying a hardwood floor

The timing depends on how wet the wood got, the subfloor under it and the drying setup.

Day of the leak
Stop the water, pull back or remove the carpet and pad, extract surface water, and read the wood against a dry room.
First few days
Dehumidifiers and air movers run, sometimes with special mats that draw moisture out of the boards. The cupping may look worse before it improves.
First week or two
Daily readings should trend down. The crawlspace or basement below may need drying at the same time.
When readings normalize
Someone evaluates the boards again. Many flatten on their own, and the rest get marked for replacement.
After a settling period
Sanding and refinishing, once the moisture content has held steady. Rushing this step causes crowning.

Questions to ask about a wet hardwood floor

  1. How did the readings on the wet boards compare with dry oak elsewhere in the house?
  2. Is the subfloor or the space below wet too?
  3. Will you use floor drying mats or only dry the room, and why?
  4. At what reading will you call the floor dry?
  5. Who decides which boards get replaced, and when?

General information for Lakewood, not a quote or professional advice. In an emergency, call 911.