Forum
« I love how Corcoran's dumpsters are so "upscale" RENEGOTIATING THE RENT »
December 29, 2008
Speed bump in our livingroom!
Hiding under our couch for has been a speed bump in the form of buckled floor boards. The warp spans about 10 slats across and about 8 feet long and at the high point is off the ground about 6 inches. There is no sign of water anywhere near the buckled boards, although the buckling extends under our HVAC unit. We had the HVAC unit checked for leaks immediately upon discovering the floor problem (if i hadn't gone to clean under the couch, we might never have known!) and there are no leaks at all (the HVAC unit itself is brand new, installed in August - we discovered the damaged floor mid-Sept). There has been no external sign of water but the only way anyone thinks this buckling could have happened is if water was involved.
We know the floors were fine when the new HVAC was installed so there's about a 45 day window that this had to have happened. The building engineer (hired by the co-op board) says he thinks there must have been water that leaked when the OLD HVAC was removed and the new one was installed but we were here during the install and there was no water visible before, during or after the new unit was installed.
The mystery of HOW this happened aside, we filed a claim with our homeowners insurance and they denied the claim because they said the original flooring is covered under our co-op's proprietary lease. The co-op management company says it's not their problem and they refuse to file a claim at all with the coop insurance because it would not even meet their deductible, as they didn't cause the damage (we thought water might have come in from the outside wall, which has many facade cracks, but the engineer says that's not possible because that wall is over a foot thick and the cracks are surface cracks).
So we still have this speed bump and while we're still trying to figure out why we're paying for insurance that won't actually cover damage to our floor, we need to start the process of getting it fixed. I don't think replacing just a section of the floor is really an option, so we're going to have to install new flooring.
Before we do that we want to simply look at what's underneath the warped boards and see if the source of the water can be determined from any stains on the subfloor, etc. We're afraid to open the floor ourselves and risk doing more damage - but who do we call for something like this? Not to install new floor - but to carefully open up this section of damaged floor so we can see what, if anything, is going on under it? We don't have a lot to spend, obviously, and we can't afford to install new floors till later next year. Perhaps if the source of the damage becomes clear, we'll be able to go back to one or both insurance companies and get them to pay up.
Any advice is appreciated.
Comments
I don't understand why you're making such a big deal about this.
You should be able to get those floor boards pulled up and reinstalled for a couple hundreds bucks in less than a day.
Why would you want to get your insurance company involved in such a small repair?
Posted by: IronBalls at December 29, 2008 9:31 PM
How are your skateboarding skills?
Posted by: gennaro at December 29, 2008 9:37 PM
Can't help you with insurance, but can tell you this looks exactly like my living room (rental, landlady took care of it) after the washer drain hose accidentally got disconnected. the floor buckled up just like that, it took about 5 days to dry after the floor got opened up, and then a couple of new floorboards did the job.
Posted by: zapzap at December 29, 2008 9:37 PM
Yes, if that's pine, it won't be very expensive to replace them. You should get an estimate from a flooring company or 3 before going any further.
I'd be curious to know exactly how that happened, and I'd agree that it's moisture related. Wonder if there are any steam pipes in that area?
As for insurance, you implied that it's your HVAC unit, not the co-ops, and if it's the cause you are most likely responsible for the damage. If the cause is a steam pipe, then it's the co-op's responsibility. Keep the managing agent in the loop, and take pictures...
Don't despair, though. As a reference point we had a new pine floor put in our 10x11 kitchen this year: $1100.
Posted by: Bolder at December 29, 2008 9:43 PM
What floor are you on?
You have heard right, this could ONLY be caused by water underneath the floorboards.
Who do you call? You call an engineer. I can suggest a couple, email me thru my profile.
It's highly unlikely that the floor is salvageable, based on my past experience. You cannot patch, you will have to replace the floor in the whole room. Nevertheless I would wait a few weeks. If in fact the water was a one-time incursion, the floor may contract and settle down. The bump will not go away completely, but since it's under your sofa, maybe you could live with a small rise in the floor where it is not visible. I'd disagree with the coop engineer that water spilled when the old AC unit was removed. Of course he's an engineer and I'm not, but you did say that you saw no water.
If by an AC unit, you mean an air handler with an external compressor, I'd like to know where the condensate is going. Where is it being pumped to? I'd be suspicious of this new AC unit. I'd suspect the condensate is not being removed properly and that it leaked during the summer. It takes a while for small amounts of water to work their way thru the subfloor and floor.
As to who's responsible for replacing the floor, this gets very tricky. If the water is coming from outside, your policy may consider it flood damage and will not pay (remember Katrina). Also, your oak floor may be considered a 'decorative element' like paint or wallpaper by the proprietary lease. In that case, you would be responsible for replacing it. Especially if your AC unit caused the leak. Nevertheless you should not depend on a bunch of anon posters on a real estate blog, but you should pay for an hour or two of an atty's time to review said lease and policy.
BTW if it's the coop's responsibility it is irrelevant whether it is covered by the master coop policy or not--the size of the deductible is a business decision made by the board and if they have decided to self-insure the small stuff (like your floor)that has nothing to do with whether or not they file a claim.
Posted by: denton at December 29, 2008 9:51 PM
Check with Verrazzano flooring about repair before you decide that the only option is to replace the entire floor.
Posted by: SenatorStreet at December 30, 2008 9:53 AM
It's coming from the HVAC unit, either as condensation or rain water/melting snow. You won't see the water now if it was from the A/C but you may see a place under the unit where the wood has blackened or become discolored. Many times dirt and dust/cat hair builds up in the base of the units drip pan and clogs the condensation drip drain. Since this was a new installation I would check for debris left by the contractor during the installation. Also the unit may not have been properly installed and weather proofed (caulking?) from the outside. The floor can be repaired. They just run a circular saw down one side and r and r the damaged area. My guess it's about $1000 w/refinishing of the entire room. This is new construction? Is the floor laid over a concrete slab?
Posted by: IMBY at December 30, 2008 11:10 AM
Thanks for the responses so far. We will probably call Verazano first to see what our options are. Since we really can't afford to install all new flooring right now (due to large coop assessments for needed facade and roof work), we may do a patch job temporarily and not worry about refinishing since it is hidden under the couch. Just means we can't change the layout of the room :)
The reason a patch & refinish job isn't really a good option anyway is that it would be very difficult to refinish the floors with no way to remove the major pieces of furniture (like the couch). It's a 480sf alcove studio and the apartment entrance door is situated around a corner - with a few feet between the door and the hallway wall that's across from it, a stairwell entrance to the right of the door. The sofa had to be taken apart to get it into the apartment 5 years ago when we bought it and removing the sofa isn't an option without taking it apart again (we had to take apart our old sofa to get it out when we bought the new one). The sofa fits through the door just fine - it just doesn't have any clearance to actually turn the corner. Even if we could get the sofa and the rest of the furniture out, there's no where to put it. It can't be left in the hall, obviously and there's no storage in the building. To refinish he floors in sections, just moving furniture around, makes for a long and more expensive process that we're not looking forward to living through (even when we painted we had to move out for 3 days because it was impossible to live there while everything was being moved around, covered, etc and it's too time consuming to put it all back together at the end of every work day.)
Installing prefinished floors throughout the studio (sans the kitchen and bath, both of which actually have new floors from their respective renovations) is the only sensible solution for us.
The current HVAC unit is not the source of the leak. It provides heat & AC. The water pipes come up from the basement. Out unit provides the compressor and blower. There is no leak and nothing is clogged. The source may have been the old unit, which was always problematic (was installed by the coop 5 years ago, we went through 4 compressors in 6 years), hence our replacing it on our own. Since that unit is now gone, we'd have a hard time proving that it caused the water damage.
To answer some other questions - we're on the 2nd floor and the wood floor is over a very thick concrete subfloor. There are no apartments under us - we're over a lobby vestibule and there is no sign of a leak in the ceiling below us.
Posted by: laurie11201 at December 30, 2008 1:51 PM
Ah, you pointed out the problem in the very last paragraph. It looks like the wood floor is glued to the concrete substrate. There is no wood sub-floor. This is a very common shortcut used in apartment conversions. A proper installation would have had a plywood sub-floor installed first. Ideally there would be 2 layers which would be screwed to the concrete. The wood floor would then be nailed to the plywood. The glue under your wood floor has separated from the concrete. The problem is that the concrete is dimensionally stable and the wood, especially if its pine is not. Any moisture, which can include ambient humidity can cause the wood to swell and buckle. If this is recent as you say, it will probably go down as the air drys out with the heat coming on. But watch out in the summer, it will likely come back. The only real fix is to tear out the floor and install a sub-floor. As a stop gap, you can get someone to cut the floor boards thinner and reglue them to the floor, but don't be surprised if you see this happen again. I was on the board of a co-op that was converted in the 80's and this was a common problem in the building.
Posted by: intheshorts at December 30, 2008 3:23 PM
A prefinished 3/4" toung and groove floor can be made to "float" - be attached to itself and not glued or nailed down. This type of floor can be installed directly over concrete.
If the type of floor was never meant to float, it was also never meant to be installed directly over concrete and as intheshorts said, it would need to be installed over a sub-floor.
Posted by: SenatorStreet at December 30, 2008 4:05 PM
its and ss, I agree with one addition--there should also have been a vapor barrier in there and should be if you re-install over concrete.
However if this was a faulty installation and not an AC issue you should see other apts in the building with the same problem, as ITS indicates.
Then perhaps you can look to the board for assistance.
Posted by: denton at December 30, 2008 5:25 PM
Pull it out to see what's underneath - whether glued directly or padded and how thick. Doesn't look nailed on a subfloor, more like glued gone bad. The thickness of the wood will tell you if it's engineered, laminate or real hardwood. If floating, there was not enough room to contract (1/4 of an inch off the wall) on all seasons. Padding is moisture barrier for floating, w/out it, any flooring will eventually buckle bec concrete absorbs moisture, and the woody doesn't like it.
Posted by: cb6 at December 30, 2008 5:54 PM
I highly recommend Shalom Flooring. It's run by the sweetest guy, Daniel. We had a lot of floors done in our house and we got bids from Verrazano and from Shalom - I don't remember if one was much lower or higher, but I don't remember a huge difference. I definitely came away feeling like Shalom would give much more personalized service. Daniel is like a flooring artisan - he really takes time to figure out the best solution - as well as the most economical. 516-942-4478. You got probably just get him to look online at the picture you have posted and he could give you his thoughts.
Posted by: twocats at December 30, 2008 7:04 PM
Have someone remove the highest slat, reglue the remaining boards to the concrete. Trim the tongue and any extra off the removed slat so it fits easily but don't glue it until you see if there is any more swelling, or for that matter never glue it.
Posted by: mod squad at December 30, 2008 10:41 PM
This exact thing happened to me when I rented an apartment on Mott Street in Manhattan It was like a mountain range grew in my living room over a couple days. It turned out that my radiators were turned partially on, as opposed to all the way on or all the way off. When they are partially on, some of the water won't covert to steam and will seep out of the valve. The water seeped, unbeknownst to me, into the floor boards and this was the result. So ANY moisture collecting under your HVAC could do the same thing, no matter how small (my radiator water was unnoticeable). My landlord took care of it by ripping up the floor boards, leaving the underneath open to dry out for a few days (I had a scary view into the cellar of my building during that time), and then the floorboards were replaced. I never had to pay anything.
Posted by: bpmbpm at December 30, 2008 10:51 PM
You've gotten a lot of sound advice here and one or two suggestions/remarks that you might want to steer clear of. Definitely take up the damaged floor boards. You're never going to know the cause of the problem until you do that. It's a pretty common mistake for some builder's subcontractors on small projects to glue down a tongue and groove flooring onto a concrete surface when it was meant to be a floating floor. Also, very often, even if they didn't glue down the boards, they neglect to leave a minimum of a quarter inch gap around the entire room to allow for it to expand and contract.
With that said, even with your space issues and not having a place to store the furniture during a repair job, a patch job makes much more sense then tearing up the entire floor and putting down a new one. It sounds like the rest of the floor is in good shape. You sould be able to go to any home improvement center and find a pre-finished flooring that comes close to matching what you already have down. I can't see how redoing the apartment's entire floor is a better option for you than doing a patch job if you use prefinished stock. It would be more expensive and require moving all the furniture out of the apartment if you did the entire room.
Also, if the renovation during which this floor was laid was done as a building wide project, the damage is the coop's responsibility, no ifs, ands or buts. If the flooring was laid down as an indivudual renovation project and the water/humidity is not seeping in from a source outside your apartment, it's your responsibility.
I once lived in a coop in Park Slope and there was a leak coming from an old cast iron roof drain pipe embedded into the brick wall behind the plaster. The damage was limited to our apartment but the repair was still paid for by the coop.
Posted by: BrooklynSteve at January 2, 2009 10:51 AM
Post a comment
Please be patient while your comment is published. It may take a moment.