Hello All,

I have a 600 Square foot area that started to severely buckle due to apparent water damage through the sub-floor... it's so bad that it looks like we now have a 4-lane bowling alley. I'm thinking the problem could be two things:

1) After I crawled through the crawlspace, I found that an old cast-iron drainage pipe had broken in half, and all our hot water drainage from dishwasher/washing machine/sink, etc was pouring out onto the ground directly under the damaged area in question. I'm assuming this hot water, along with the steam it produced when pouring out of the pipe onto the ground, caused the subfloor to get wet. At this time, all piping has been fixed.

2) We purchased a new HVAC system 6 months ago. We used to keep our house around 73 to 74 degrees because it was the best our AC could do in the summer. With the new system, we now keep it around 64 degrees (yeah, we like it cold). I've noticed condensation on windows, inside cabinets, etc - so I'm wondering if this big change in temperature could cause moisture/condensation on our subfloor as well.

So, with problem #1 fixed, has anyone heard of problem #2 causing subfloor moisture issues? We are about to replace a good chunk of our subfloor and put down new hardwood, but the last thing I want are the same moisture issues happening.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Wish somone would sticky this link for all those people who post about their problematic crawl spaces.

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blo ... rawl-space

A dehumidifier would be your best bet for removing condensation/moisture.

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Edited By Admin: See our rules

A dehumidifier or two, placed in the crawl space, near the area of concern.


Being cool, you are creating an atmosphere, well below due point temperature. This is bad for wood. As the humidity levels increase, as the temperature goes down.

Good thought. But most people would have no clue the crawl space is the problem. Maybe something on moisture, or better yet

"How To Avoid Hardwood Floor Problems" Thanks for that tip. This page could use some additions.

http://www.hardwoodinstaller.com/hardwo ... rranty.htm

Therein lies another problem. Many people don't know how to search either. They aren't even thinking about problems ahead of time. All they want is a new shiny floor. If you go to Bing and use that term, the page above comes up #1. Google? Forget that for now..BUT hardwoodfloorsmag dominates the first page...don't ya just love one of the latest Google algo changes? So much for choices, but in this case a good one.

Then there's always Ehow on the second page(how wonderful eh?)