Laminate water damage
We had a pipe spring a leak behind the bathroom sink in the wall which has allowed water under the laminate floor in adjoining closet. Leak detected and repaired within 24 hrs of onset. Have noticed some of the laminate section edges with a slight curl and you can see water in the seams. We're trying a dehumidifier in the closet with the door closed to pull as much moisture up as possible. Has anyone been successful drying up the floor this way without removing the flooring? It's a laminate floor floated on a concrete slab. Or are we wasting time and should just pull up, replace it? Wasting time. Laminate should never be used in a kitchen or bathroom. You now going to have mold growing under the flooring. Tile would have been a far better choice and would add value to the room not lower it like laminate. I assume the adjoining closet is in another room. You will need to remove the laminate as soon as you can as it will never dry out. You should start removing it from the closet until you find dry floor. If the damage is extensive your home insurance might cover repair costs but you have to do it soon as insurance companies do not normally pay for mold remediation. I would use a multi tool and cut the laminate at the inside threshold of the closet and remove all the closet laminate. Hopefully it will have sequestered itself in that area. If so, you can always re-lay the closet independently of the adjoining room. Laminate is a sponge so you have to get to it rather quickly. I have never heard of an insurance company not paying for mold remediation due to water damage they covered. Yes, the area affected is a 8x10 walk in closet for the bedroom. I pulled up the corner piece right at the spot closest to the leak in the wall. It was bone dry as was the underlayment and the floor. We had run an industrial size dehumidifier for about 20 hrs in there with the door closed. Temps reached 90 degrees in there and humidity dropped from about 50% to 33%. I have that corner laminate area kinda propped up now with a fan blowing, circulating air under it. We are seriously considering just replacing the piece I gouged some when I pulled it up, reinstalling the quarter round and calling it good. I will watch the area for a few days first to look for any mold growth. What does it usually look like? How obvious is it? Your not going to see the mold growing. It's going to be spreading under the flooring. You said a leak has allowed water under the laminate floor in adjoining closet. You need to be sure how much water. If a couple of tablespoons then it's no big deal but if it was a bucket full then the floor will not dry out. A good investment would be a contact moisture detector which would cost less that fifty bucks for a simple one and tell you if the floor is dry or not. Laminate floated on concrete requires an underlayment with a built in vapor barrier. Given that, and the fact that the water will seep to the lowest available location first, I thing that the OP is OK to peel back the flooring and dry underneath as most of the moisture will be under the vapor proof underlayment. I would pull the underlayment, let the slab dry, install new underlayment and put the floor back together. No doomsday scenarios in this case. Even though the floor appears dry now, I'm leaning towards pulling up most if not all the closet flooring as a precaution. I can get 100 sq ft of same flooring for about $200 I think. Anything I need to do to the interior wall area where the leak was? It's dry now also. Also, I can't see under the vanity with the cabinet floor. The water never was visible on the floor more than some in the seam cracks, none covered the surface. Is that more descriptive of the size of the leak?
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