Oak Floor Risen - Help!!

SilverLiz

Hi everyone,




We have a real oak floor which has been down without problems for 9 years. Recently, over about 3 weeks an area of the floor near the doorway buckled and rose about 3 inches. The installer closed down several years ago and a carpenter informed us the floor was irreparable.


Our Insurer sent a surveyor to inspect the problem but says as water is not the cause of the problem we cannot claim on our home insurance. He thought the only cause could be 'ground changes' beneath the house due to excessive wet then excessive dry weather.


Has anyone else had this problem with wooden floors and would it be any use contesting the Insurance Company's decision?

phill99

Is it by the front door that it has buckled? If so it may well be an accumulation of moisture over the years as people come in with wet shoes etc. Wouldn't be enough to affect it over the short term, but over several winters this may be the result. Could also be water seeping under the door threshold.

You could try and challenge the insurers devision, but it may well go down as fair wear and tear. It would be up to you to prove that it had been caused by something that your policy would cover.

SilverLiz

Thanks Phil - no not near the front door but in-between hall and lounge. The surveyor tested for damp with his probe and found none.

phill99

Either somene has spilt liquid but haven"t told you or maybe there is a pipe under the floor which has butst. Alternatively, there has been insufficient expansion gap left, which has caused the floor to rise.

Can you post pics?

SilverLiz

I have got pictures but there appears to be no 'upload picture' icon on this site??

ukmaggie45

Load your photos onto Flickr (it's free) or one of the other online photo services, then give a link or embed (on Flickr if you look at an individual photo on your account there's a curved arrow to the bottom right (hover your cursor over that, and it will say something like "share this photo" and give you options to share in a blog, share on a forum, etc) that will give you the URL to embed the photo in your post.