What Can Be Done for Moisture Damaged Flooring?

Repair­ing Your Water Dam­aged Floor

When com­pared to cor­ro­sive mate­ri­als and falling objects, mois­ture might seem like the least of your floor’s con­cerns. How­ev­er, if left unchecked, mois­ture can deal seri­ous dam­age to all types of floors, even con­crete. Spilled liq­uids should always be cleaned right away to pre­vent dam­age, but as it turns out, mois­ture below your floor is more of a threat than mois­ture above it, and it often goes unno­ticed until it has already caused damage.

Water in the ground beneath your floors escapes in the form of mois­ture vapor. Con­crete ​“breaths” allow­ing the trans­fer of mois­ture vapor, when you install any type of floor cov­er­ing it reduces the amount of ​“breatha­bil­i­ty” of the slab. With­out the pres­ence of a con­crete mois­ture bar­ri­er (also called a vapor bar­ri­er), this mois­ture is con­stant­ly try­ing to equal­ize with the air above the floor cov­er­ing. When the build­ing is sealed and the HVAC is run­ning it reduces the RH (rel­a­tive humid­i­ty) in the build­ing, how­ev­er the mois­ture com­ing from the floor is still try­ing to equal­ize with the low­er RH air above the floor covering.

Over time, you may begin to notice signs of water dam­age on your floor­ing. Com­mon indi­ca­tors include:

• Bub­bles
• Blis­ters
• Stain­ing
• Spalling
• Pres­ence of a brown liquid
• Delam­i­na­tion
• Efflo­res­cence (alkaline/​salt deposits)
• Growth of mold and mildew

If your floor is pre­sent­ing any of these symp­toms, there’s a good chance mois­ture is the cul­prit. Here’s what you can do about your mois­ture dam­aged flooring.

How to Repair a Water Dam­aged Floor

Find the Source and Fix It

The first step to fix­ing any prob­lem is iden­ti­fy­ing its root cause. Test­ing for the RH mois­ture con­tent in the con­crete is the first step. It is pos­si­ble but not typ­i­cal that water may seep into your floors due to bro­ken, leaky pipes, a mal­func­tion­ing plumb­ing sys­tem. If your floor is on top of stand­ing water, you may need to remove the water with a sump pump. What­ev­er the case may be, fix­ing the issue will allow you to suc­cess­ful­ly restore your floor­ing and ensure its longevity.

Install (or Replace) a Mois­ture Mit­i­ga­tion System

One of the lead­ing caus­es of mois­ture dam­age is a lack of a prop­er mois­ture mit­i­ga­tion sys­tem. These sys­tems encom­pass a num­ber of meth­ods and instal­la­tions to reduce the rate of water vapor emis­sions, MVER (Mois­ture Vapor Evap­o­ra­tion Rate) and keep mois­ture from dam­ag­ing the floor. A mois­ture mit­i­ga­tion sys­tem might include vapor bar­ri­ers or retar­dants, sur­face mem­branes like seal­ers and epox­ies, and some adhe­sives that can tol­er­ate high­er mois­ture lev­els. Using the right com­bi­na­tion of these meth­ods can keep mois­ture from dam­ag­ing your floors.

Fin­ish the Job with a Prop­er Sealer

After you’ve iden­ti­fied the root cause of mois­ture intru­sion, repaired or replaced your sub­floor, installed or improved your mois­ture mit­i­ga­tion sys­tem, it’s time to seal your floor for addi­tion­al pro­tec­tion. Com­mon coat­ing options include epoxy, ure­thane, and ure­thane cement toppings.

Con­sid­er invest­ing in Pol­ished Con­crete Floors

If you don’t want to deal with the main­te­nance involved with con­crete floor coat­ings, you might con­sid­er hir­ing con­crete pol­ish­ing con­trac­tors instead. Pol­ished con­crete floors are nat­u­ral­ly beau­ti­ful and shiny, incred­i­bly durable, well-pro­tect­ed against water dam­age, and easy to maintain.

If mois­ture has dam­aged your floor­ing, there is plen­ty you can do to restore and enhance your floors. Kaloutas pro­vides all of the ser­vices nec­es­sary in this pur­suit, includ­ing mois­ture mit­i­ga­tion sys­tem instal­la­tion, con­crete pol­ish­ing, epoxy coat­ing ser­vices, con­crete floor repair, and more. To learn more about us and all that we do, con­tact us online or give us a call at 978−532−1414.

Kaloutas is New Eng­land’s pre­mier con­trac­tor for com­mer­cial & indus­tri­al paint­ing, floor­ing, and relat­ed ser­vices. Estab­lished in 1987, Kaloutas has become a trust­ed resource for gen­er­al con­trac­tors, facil­i­ties man­agers, and build­ing own­ers from Con­necti­cut to Maine. Our team prides itself on high qual­i­ty work­man­ship, jobs done on time & bud­get, and tack­ling com­plex projects that oth­er con­trac­tors don’t have the expe­ri­ence or resources to han­dle. Con­tact us today for a paint­ing or floor­ing esti­mate, or give us a call at 978−532−1414 to learn more.