Hello everyone! I have just bought a house that had a continuous engineered oak flooring downstairs. There was an obvious buckle in the floor in the hall, at the centre of the house that we were told by surveyor/builder was due to poor fitting as expansion gaps had not been left between rooms. This made sense as the position of the buckle was the juncture of flooring that spanned the entire length and width of the house (see attached plan). Yesterday, our flooring fitter removed the engineered flooring in the hall to discover that the buckle was caused by what appears to be oak parquet flooring that was water damaged. In fact, there was a puddle of water on top of the parquet flooring where the buckle was. The parquet flooring was only present in the first part of the hall. By the time the Plumber came round that evening, the puddle was gone. He remove some of the flooring, inspected pipes in the area, and there was no sign of a leak, or there having been a leak. We removed all the parquet flooring, and although one plank in the region of the buckle was slightly damp, with some sort of green moss growing on it, the rest of the planks were quite dry, with signs of having been previously water damaged. The concrete underneath the parquet flooring was bone dry, and the batons it attached to showed no signs of significant rot. Currently our best guess is that condensation has caused this problem, however no one can explain what caused it. Currently, we are thinking our best course of action would be to fit ply in the void left by the parquet flooring to bring up the floor level, so the engineered floor can be re-layed. If, however, we did this, wouldn't we have the same condensation problem? assuming that was the cause. This has got all our professionals stumped, so I was looking for some guidance please. Thanks very much! Carrieann
How old is your property ? When was it built ? You say the concrete slab is dry Have you had it tested ?
Also, there are no other signs of damp. It's also worth mentioning that the building was vacant for over a year before we purchased it.
Sounds like a leak from somewhere. Is that a new toilet behind that wall? Sub Floor looks like it will most likely be damp. Those battens set in concrete don't look bone dry from here! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Whats that big hole on the left of the floor by the radiator? Need to damp test it firstly if there is no obvious signs where the water is coming/came from.
Surveyor has just been, he measured the concrete and batons with a reading of 15%. He too could not explain where the water had come from.
15% what ? What did he use to test the floor ? It takes a minimum of 72 hours to do a test correctly !!!!!!!!!
Did he drill a probe into the floor or put a box down ? In all the tests I've ever done I've never had One as low as that ?
