Air Pockets under vinyl floor

marksmith99

We have vinyl floor (a sheet not tiles) fitted in our upstairs toilet.

The toilet cistern leaked a couple of months ago, which we have had fixed. However, water must have got under the vinyl floor and now it has air pockets under it, so that when you walk in there its a bit like a mild version of treading on a balloon, the air moves around under your foot.

Its livable, but if it is easy to fix it I'd like to try - anyone know how?

betheebee

Try making a tiny pin hole then stand on the air filled bit, it should go flat, use a little clear nail varnish to seal the hole
Good Luck

startrekker

When cushionfloor gets wet from underneath the backing absorbs the water and makes it go like you have described. The flooring has had it. When you push the bubble it goes somewhere else on the floor. What has happened is basically it has altered the structure of the flooring. The only possible solution would be to uplift the flooring, let it completely dry and try to lay it back down, but this time glueing the flooring down all over. This seldom works though.

Avoriaz

Contact your insurance company as they might pay for repair or renewal.

It is possible sometimes to rescue vinyl flooring but you will need to lift it completely and take it somewhere to dry. You may have to clean the underneath if mould has attacked it. Then make sure both floor and vinyl are completely clean and dry and attempt to relay it.

Read on for my story though it is a bit lengthy…..

A mains pipe supplying an outside tap running underneath the kitchen floor leaked. As the water was rising from below, by the time we noticed the vinyl was well soaked over quite an area and the concrete floor was very wet.

I contacted our household insurance. They sent their assessor round and he agreed to pay for a firm to provide drying equipment and also agreed that the vinyl needed replacing.

Our kitchen is large and T shaped (extension) and the worst affected piece of vinyl was the smallest section on one leg of the T (if that makes sense). I lifted this completely and left it in the garage to dry. I folded back some of the rest sufficiently to expose all the damp parts.

It took about 10 days of running two huge and noisy fan almost 24/7 to dry the floor.

The insurance company gave me approval to spend up to about £680 on new flooring and said that they would settle directly with the store. I called them up and asked “ if I spend more will you pay £680 towards the cost”? They said “Yes, or we can just send you a cheque for £680 now in full and final settlement. So that is what we did.

I spent a few hours carefully cleaning the mould and grot off the vinyl that I had lifted. I did the same to a small area of the larger section that I had folded back.

I then relaid the lot. It took quite a lot of effort and time getting it right, especially matching the join exactly. By the time I had finishing it looked pretty much as it did before. There were a few small tears at the edges from the folding back but you don’t really notice them. The rest of it is a flat as a pancake and good for another 10 years I think.

It was a lot of time and effort but I was £680 up on the deal and that was good value for my time.

Please don’t think I conned the insurance company. It really did look a terrible mess and their assessor agreed unhesitatingly to approve replacement. I just chose to keep the £680, and expend a lot of time and effort on repair rather than have brand new.

plumb1_2

Avoriaz wrote:

It was a lot of time and effort but I was £680 up on the deal and that was good value for my time.

Please don’t think I conned the insurance company. It really did look a terrible mess and their assessor agreed unhesitatingly to approve replacement. I just chose to keep the £680, and expend a lot of time and effort on repair rather than have brand new.

And of course you informed the tax man of you extra earnings ?

Canucklehead

[

QUOTE]It was a lot of time and effort but I was £680 up on the deal and that was good value for my time.

Please don’t think I conned the insurance company. It really did look a terrible mess and their assessor agreed unhesitatingly to approve replacement. I just chose to keep the £680, and expend a lot of time and effort on repair rather than have brand new.

[/QUOTE

][/QUOTE]

And now all other insurance policy holders will bear the cost of your efforts. That's money saving?

C.G.

Avoriaz

Canucklehead wrote:

]...And now all other insurance policy holders will bear the cost of your efforts. That's money saving?

C.G.

What rubbish. You really are a Knuckle Head.:p

We pay new for old on our insurance so we were fully entitled to claim the full cost of drying out the kitchen and the cost of having a brand new floor installed. Instead I chose to expend a lot of time and effort in reusing the old vinyl.

The insurance company, who sent an assessor to inspect, paid out the costs of the drying fan hire plus £680. It was the insurance company who volunteered to send me the cheque for £680.

Whether I used that £680 to buy an new floor or put it on the favourite in the 3:30 makes absolutely no difference to them or to other policy holders.

It is no different to having an accident in which an insured car is written off; accepting the insurance company payout: buying the car from them and repairing it and putting it back on the road. That happens all the time with the insurance companies knowledge and indeed support.

We could have had a brand new floor. Instead we have the old floor restored with a lot of time and effort and £680.

And nobody has been cheated.

Now that is Moneysaving.:D

Avoriaz

plumb1 wrote:

And of course you informed the tax man of you extra earnings ?

There were no taxable earnings.

Even the best “squeezer of blood from a stone” couldn’t make a case for taxing that £680.

It was an insurance payout and they are not taxable. Well not yet anyway. No doubt the dour Scot is looking at it.

Anyway, this thread is about helping the OP to sort out his floor. Instead of nit picking my insurance claim, why not do what I did and offer him some advice and assistance.:p

quidsin

Going back to to the original problem- I'd go for this-

betheebee wrote:

Try making a tiny pin hole then stand on the air filled bit, it should go flat, use a little clear nail varnish to seal the hole
Good Luck

if there is a pattern on the vinyl, you could cut a small line that you might not see after in it- then glue the area where the bubble was!

Advice for anyone planning on putting a vinyl floor down who has a dog- don't leave the vinyl unattended :eek: Mine lasted 8 hours :eek: what a waste of £60 and a few hours fitting it :eek: :eek: :eek:

Canucklehead

My comment still stands.

P.S. It's my O.H. who is canucklehead not me!!

C.G.

Avoriaz

Canucklehead wrote:

..My comment still stands….

You remind me of the guy in Oxford Street with the sandwich board that reads

“Repent for the world will end tomorrow”

He comes back every day, despite the fairly obvious proof that he was wrong.

I suppose one day he will be right but by then, who will know?:D