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.
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