Hi,

There was a water leakage event and my Shamrock Engineered floor (White Oak 2 ¼ X 5/8 and it is glued down to concrete) has been wet for 2 months (Extech 445580 meter reading showed above 30% reading).

Is the floor wet for too long to save it? I am so fed up with the other people, including insurance, kept on coming back to take moisture reading hoping it dried up even though I have 2 reports saying I need to replace it. What if the floor is dried after 3 months? I am just trying to see if there is a point of no return when the floor is wet for that long.

Thanks.

It very well could be rotting underneath. Send the insurance company a registered letter informing them your afraid there might be mold growing under it and they will be liable for mold remediation. The mold word gets there attention.

Also what kind of water leak? Any black water from a drain or toilet should be ripped out and possible even the bottom of the walls.

It's actually from the sprinkler system. The cold weather caused one of the valves to fail. The pipe is outside of my condo but the water came in because no one could access the area for hours.

once the floor dries out after being saturated for two months the boards will have crushed edges that will not go back to original state. You will have 1/8" gaps throughout. take a measurement of a set of 40 boards it should be close to 90" and I bet its 91 and some change. Its sounding a lot like a lost floor to me, it's engineered which has helped it from buckling off the floor but it has to be swollen. Fiber saturation point of wood is 28% anything over and its dripping wet. im surprised it hasent turned black being white oak.

Extech 445580 meter reading showed above 30% reading) googling this meter I found it measured relative humidity in the air and temperature. You need a meter that measures moisture content. Mold and mildew starts at 20% moisture content which would correlate to 88% relative humidity. 30% relative humidity would equate to 6.2% moisture content no high at all. Was this remediated by say, Service Master with heated blowers. If so it probably is salvageable. Engineered wood is 95% more stable than solid wood. As stated get a digital micrometer and measure but check with the mfg most 5” are nominal numbers and if you check it is usually less than 5%.
If you truly want to get an assessment go to www.nwfacp.org and find a nwfa certified inspector in your area to take measurements and accurately assess the floor.
2 years ago we had a record freeze in El Paso out of 100 floors assessed only two had to be replaced and they had been under water for days. People out of town.
If the floor has not released from the concrete it is unlikely will need to be replaced. Moisture meter readings showing less than 10% moisture content, not RH, should indicate it will be fine. Finally the two reports that stated it needed to be replaced what tests were conducted to determine that? A moisture meter such as Lignomat Versa Tech can, in scan mode, measure moisture content at ¼” and ¾”, if the lower reading is higher than 20%, which is the measurement that mold begins, then you have definitive proof that mold can be an issue. And replacement should begin.
Good Luck!

Sorry the report listed the meter in the wrong order. The moisture content was read with a Delmhurst Jlite meter.

The last report was done by an inspector with NWFA certification. At the time of his reading it was almost 2 months after the water break.

I was given a humidifier and a fan and told to run for 3-5 days right after the water break. Two weeks after that I hired ServPro and they had 3 fans and a dehumidifier going for 6 days. My first inspection report with high moisture reading was done 1 week after ServPro packed up its fans/dehumidifier. My second report (the one mentioned in the last paragraph) was done 3 weeks after the first inspection.

Although I was told I have engineered floor, it sure doesn't look like it. I went to the manufactured website to see the difference between its engineered and solild wood, and mine sure looks like solid wood because it doesn't have the normal 2 layers that you would see in an engineered floor (even the manufactured's site shows two layers for the engineered floor).

Also, I started to noticed a discoloration on the floor...... is this an issue? The color is darker in person.


Lastly, how long do I have to wait before I know the floor is not going to come lose? It's not yet hot enough to see the full expansion yet. One part of my floor has a lot of gaps (the area not directly in contact with water), while the rest has almost no gap (cupping, though).

That discoloration coupled with a high moisture content is most likely, as Stephen says, a mold issue. I would remove those areas and have it tested for mold. If so they will need to replace it all. I have seen solid 3/4" testing at top of wood 13% bottom of wood 19% and plywood over 50% that insurance company advised just let it dry out and sand it.

If that were done it would then crown if it ever dried out. Insurance company doesn't want to replace in the face of an NWFA Inspection report saying it needs to be then get a lawyer. They might pay attention to you then.

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