Wet floor, water leak. What to do?

[floor20292]

Hello everyone -

Yesterday, we noticed a water leak in the dishwasher (dripping from the front/bottom of appliance). We have floor mats in front of the dishwasher so we discovered the water underneath the mats. I would estimate that about one to two cups of water were found there, however, we don't know if the leak was there undetected before yesterday since the mats could have hidden the water. I dried the floors as fast as I could and used a blower for like an hour on the area (I don't have a fan or a dehumidifier unfortunately). I am sure the water penetrated underneath the wood board since where the boards join together, it is darker color (check the pictures). This morning, it is still dark so I guess this will take a while to dry by itself. The affected area is about 4 ft. by 2 ft (indicated by yellow rectangle in one of the pictures).

This is new to me and I need help on how to proceed.

Questions:
1. Do you think in this case I should get professional help? What is the process? Professionally dry the floor or replacement? If replacement, not sure how they are going to match the wood.
2. Is this covered by home owner insurance? Should I report the incident start a claim?
3. What is the order of things? First contact insurance and then the professionals?
4. I don't know about companies that do this kind of work, if you can recommend one that would be great. Also, I wonder if they just come to make an assessment and if they generally charge you for the first assessment visit

Thanks a lot for your help!

Regards

Wetfloor guy

 

[highup]

I'm not sure how much you can actually do but let it dry out on its own. It might help to play a few 1 by 4 boards across that area can add some heavy weights while the floor dries out. In theory that would keep the boards from warping a lot more than they are now.
My idea of course would make that area hard to use or walk through for a week or so. I'm not sure if put on a small fan near the area would be of any benefit. None of these ideas with making things worse so that's a good thing.
You would probably want to keep an eye on the places that are wet now and see if they travel outwards from there. That might give you some indication as to how much water leak underneath it.
It might be worth looking to see if your insurance will cover that.

 

[havasu]

You claim a water leak, and you will be placed on probation for the next 5 years. You also will be forced to stay with your existing insurance company for a minimum of 5 years, but this is what I found out in California.

I purchased a home where the previous owner filed two water claims. One claim paid the old owner $16k. The other was a $600 claim, that was never followed up on That haunted me as a new owner for 5 years before I was able to change insurance companies even I replaced the roof within 6 weeks of moving in, and was the cause of the water damage.

 

[Jon]

You claim a water leak, and you will be placed on probation for the next 5 years. You also will be forced to stay with your existing insurance company for a minimum of 5 years, but this is what I found out in California.

I purchased a home where the previous owner filed two water claims. One claim paid the old owner $16k. The other was a $600 claim, that was never followed up on That haunted me as a new owner for 5 years before I was able to change insurance companies even I replaced the roof within 6 weeks of moving in, and was the cause of the water damage.

Dont we love insurance companies

 

[alpha1976]

OK. I can tell you something from my experience. We were away for 4 days and when we came back we found water dripping like crazy from the upper floor. This is where one of the toilet hose had failed. I am not sure how long the water was leaking but there was a lot of water on main floor right under and almsot 200 sq ft of hardwood floor looked similar to yours and warped. I got like 6 big fans from Lowes and ran them for several days. I opened the drywall up after like a month as some smell used to build up overnight. I found mold but mostly between baseboard and drywall. All was replaced. No change in smell. So this summer I decided to pull hardwood floor as I thought water had gone in and there must be mold there (I called a few contractors and they all suggested it was a very strong possibility). I removed all hardwood floor where I could see any sign of water under - and I found absolutely no trace of water under the hardwood floor and subfloor was completely dry!!! So then I had to install new floor and so much of unnecessary work. So based on that I would say it is not easy for water to get under. Now if the leak had gone undetected for a very long time that may change things but I'd suggest not to pull it like I did. Try other ways and do it only if no other ways.

 

[highup]

Love to hear how it came out.