Wood Floor Water Damage - A DIY Guide

The purpose of this article is to impart some helpful ways of restoring wood floors to their original beauty and purpose, and to be able to guide you with easy step by step, do-it-yourself instructions. All these will be presented to you in simple words to make it easy to understand and faster to accomplish, giving you the benefit of less reading time and more significant time to make your floors clean, safe and easy to walk on again after a wood floor water damage has occurred.

When wood floors have seen the wrath of nature and have been covered in mud, stain and water, they need to have a quick but thorough cleaning. They have to be flattened out and sometimes when the damage can no longer be repaired, replacement is another option.

Here are some tips to help you bring back the usefulness of your floors:

Clean your wood floor well by mixing some detergent with water. Using a brush with non-scratch bristles, scrub out all the mud and debris including those you see in corners and cracks on the floor. This step must be done before the mud and dirt from the flood dries up on the surface of the floor. Rinse well with water and wipe dry.

If mild dew and mold have accumulated, scrub it with a mixture of baking soda and water. Use this proportion: 4 to 6 tbsp. of soda per gallon of water. After scrubbing it, rinse the floor well with clean water and let it dry properly. When it dries, put a coat of mildew resistant solution to finish it off.

When you see that mold and mildew have already spread and stuck to wood under the paint or wood varnish, strip off the paint or varnish and scrub the floor well with a coarse floor cleaner. After scrubbing, apply a mixture of one cup chlorine bleach, 4 to 6 tbsp. of trisodium phosphate for every gallon of water. After that, roughen the wood with sandpaper and apply a bit of bleach to any stained spot. If the bleach doesn't work the first time, you have to apply some again until the stain disappears.

Wash the floor with a mixture of weak ammonia and water then clear the floor by rinsing well with water. Dry the wood floor very well and put some preservative for the wood before re-applying paint or varnish. Wood preservative can be bought at hardware stores.

Some parts of the floor may need to be nailed in place once again for them to straighten out and when there are bumps, use sandpaper to smoothen.

Leave the windows open for thorough drying of the floors after all the cleaning and scrubbing is done.

Wood floor water damage can cause a lot of discomfort especially when kids are present in your household. Quick thinking and fast work therefore is needed to restore your floors to make them safe to walk on once more.

When there is a lot of water on your wood floors and it can not be extracted in a couple of hours, it is probably better to hire professionals to clean, dry and restore your wood floor. They have the right equipment for the job and know what to do and how to tackle the problem precisely. In the two video beneath you can see what a professional can do for your wood floor.