Ugh...water damage to cork floor, and WWH&G do?

[TBM]

Sorry for the long explanation.

We have noticed some problems with the floating cork floor in the hall leading from the living room to the guest room, lounge, and master bath, but we thought that it was because they didn't grind all of the weird lumps down and the soft cork floor was settling or something.   That hall has gotten a lot more use lately than in the past.

Yesterday I noticed some weird buckling in addition to the lumps, and today DH looked along the edge by the closet with the hvac and water heater, and realized that there is water under the floor)  He figured out that it was from the overflow thing on the air conditioner not working properly and got it draining correctly outside, but there must be a leak in an area (of course not visible or easily accessible) inside.

I know we need to call our homeowners insurance, but we haven't yet (DH is waiting until he has a break later) and have been thinking about what our options will be for repairing/replacing the floor.  

Replacing the damaged section will be noticeable, because even if they can just piece it in without issues (it currently goes into the guestroom from the hall with no transition boards and that section of the hall is damaged) the finishing the new section would leave lap marks.

We have the same tile that we used in the kitchen and the hall off the kitchen, lounge, and master bedroom.  We bought it to use in the bathrooms but haven't gotten to them yet, so we were thinking that having the hall and main bath done at the same time might not be a bad option, since it would help it there was a water issue with either the hvac or the water heater.  Maybe it wouldn't look too weird to have the transition there since the hall is on the same wall as the door to the kitchen (the wall is pretty symmetrical, with the openings on either side of the TV) and the tile is the same color as the cork flooring.

Another thought is to just do that whole side of the house in tile, and include the guest room (rarely a guest room-more of an exercise room/library).  Putting tile in that room would probably make DH feel better about the treadclimber being in there, since it is crazy heavy and cork dents, but would that be weird?   We would still keep the cork floor in the lounge, which is in the center of the house with doors leading to both halls.

Any other ideas?   

Thank you for reading this long, and hopefully coherent post.

[TBM]

May 6, 2016 11:35:02 GMT -5 @juno said:

I'm sorry That stinks. I'm having a really hard time following though. Pictures or maybe a floor plan sketch to understand where you're talking about and how it all fits together? I'm a visual gal! I have a vague idea that your house has a kitchen in the middle of some wings but I can't put it together in my head from the pics I remember.

That said, in FL, I don't think all-tile is a terrible idea. I was never that happy with my cork flooring anyway.

I've been looking for the floor plan on our computers and haven't been able to find it, and I am too lazy to draw it.

Our house orientation is actually perpendicular to the street, although the living room (which is at the front), runs parallel to the street.     If you split the interior wall (opposite the three tall front windows)  in half, each half has around 3 ft of wall, then a door/opening, with 5+ feet of wall/tv between the two openings.  The opening on the left is the hall, and the opening on the right is the kitchen.  The rooms/hall on the right side of the house look out onto the courtyard, studio and the ugly side of our next door neighbor's house.

[TBM]

@juno ,  I found the listing photo so you can see the layout, except that the kitchen door is missing from the right side.  The doorway you can see is the hall.  If you were looking down the hall, on the right would be a closet, some built in cabinets, the mechanicals and the door to the lounge.  On the left, pretty far down the hall, is the door to the guest room and then the door to the main bath.



It's weird to see the room without the faux beam, dark trim and teal wall....and with the fireplace and ugly fan still in it.



ETA:

[TBM]

The hall!  Before cabinets art and new doorknobs. lol

[TBM]

May 6, 2016 17:16:40 GMT -5 @juno said:

 I can tell you that we had our wood floors matched and run right into the doorway of the existing floors, and you absolutely can't tell at all where the new boards start. They did a superb job finishing to make it look continuous. So it might not be impossible to patch. 

I am worried that the finish coat would never blend, because they had a hard time when they finished the floor to begin with and it definitely wasn't perfect, except that area was actually done the best. lol  I think they would have to hand sand the entire floor (living room, hall, guest room and lounge) and recoat.  I could be wrong though.   We probably have enough flooring leftover to do the part of the hall where we can see the damage, but having seen hardwoods damaged by an undetected leak underneath, we know that it is possibly much further than what shows.

I don't think DH called our insurance, (I was out of commission with a headache and wasn't in the mood to deal with it) and he is going oot early tomorrow but will be back on Sunday.  I think we are going to take some pictures tonight and we might open a can of worms and open up a section to see how bad it is.



Thanks for weighing in.  I appreciate it.

[nursecramer]

Ugh. That sucks. Water where you don't want it is the worst.

I think the tile would look fine, though, especially since it's the same as the kitchen.

Before you make a claim on your insurance, find out how much it will change your rates. We found out after our basement flood that the increase in our rates actually cost more over the next three years than just paying for the damage outright would have been. Also, when we made a second claim, they dropped our coverage. I would ask your agent for all your options before pulling that trigger.

[TBM]

May 6, 2016 19:19:15 GMT -5 nursecramer said:

Before you make a claim on your insurance, find out how much it will change your rates. We found out after our basement flood that the increase in our rates actually cost more over the next three years than just paying for the damage outright would have been. Also, when we made a second claim, they dropped our coverage. I would ask your agent for all your options before pulling that trigger.

Thanks. And thanks for the insurance info. My husband is on the fence about involving them, for that reason.

[FormerlyRR]

May 6, 2016 20:19:37 GMT -5 TBM said:

May 6, 2016 19:19:15 GMT -5 nursecramer said:

Before you make a claim on your insurance, find out how much it will change your rates. We found out after our basement flood that the increase in our rates actually cost more over the next three years than just paying for the damage outright would have been. Also, when we made a second claim, they dropped our coverage. I would ask your agent for all your options before pulling that trigger.

Thanks. And thanks for the insurance info. My husband is on the fence about involving them, for that reason.

No home warranty? I have an older home with mechanicals that (hopefully) will fail soon, so I have kept a warranty on my house. 

[TBM]

May 7, 2016 10:20:49 GMT -5 FormerlyRR said:

May 6, 2016 20:19:37 GMT -5 TBM said:

Thanks. And thanks for the insurance info. My husband is on the fence about involving them, for that reason.

No home warranty? I have an older home with mechanicals that (hopefully) will fail soon, so I have kept a warranty on my house. 

No. To be honest, we've only known one person irl who has one.

We replaced most of the mechanicals when we moved in. I think the only thing left to replace is the water heater that lives in and only services the master bath. It is much newer than the main one that we replaced was.

I think the problem this time was with the drain to the outside. It is hard to get used to maintenance of things we have never owned before, and harder to get used to how much weird gunk acccumulates and clogs things here. Florida is a weird place. ; p