We are in a new home. We've lived here just under two years. This weekend my husband found water leaking into our basement. He traced it back to our front loading LG washer. Pulled out the washer and found a slow leak from the water connection into the washer. It must have been leaking for a long time as we have laminate flooring in the laundry room. It finally saturated the floors and started to leak into the basement. My husband and I know nothing about these things and what to do. LG won't repair the washer as it's past our one year warranty. I really don't care that much as to what the floor looks like behind the washing machine but wonder if we need to worry about mold with a water leak. What a mess! Any help would be great. We've debated just ripping up the floors in the laundry room and replacing the laminate with ceramic tiles. If we would have tile to begin with we wouldn't have water in the basement. Anyone deal with this before or have any suggestions? Do we need to worry about mold or even the wood weakening?
Thanks!
Yes you need to get the floors checked out. My parents had a similar situation, but it was in the walls and they had to tear out and replace the wall b/c of mold.
Yes, mold could be an issue in the laminate. If it's warped, it has absorbed some water. I'd rip it up and see what the subfloor looks like as that may have to be replaced. If you aren't comfortable with doing this yourself, then start looking for a reliable handyman to help you out.
Even with ceramic, you can have water damage. But, the water probably would have come out from behind the washer and you would have noticed it sooner.
I feel for you. We recently had a leak in our ice maker/fridge and could hear the water running non-stop. After looking in the basement and seeing no water, we went nuts trying to find out if and where the fridge was leaking. The darn fridge was squeezed in our cabinets so tightly, we couldn't pull it out to see behind it. Finally, we found the leak going into our garage (Not a big deal), but my husband had to dig a whole in our drywall to try and get to the fridge leak. Long story short, that didn't work and we somehow got the fridge pulled out. But digging through the drywall wasn't such a bad thing, cause all the insulation was soaking wet and it would have started to grow mold. We are replacing both the drywall and insulation. Thankfully, our hardwood floors were not damaged. Isn't being a homeowner just grand!!!
Yes you have to worry about mold. I had a small hole in our bathroom(dropped something) and I didn't think much about it at first. Just from the little water from everyday use of the bathroom mold started growing under the laminate.
If you don't really know anything about home repairs, I'd hire someone to come in and look at the floor. You may have to replace the subfloor and possibly some drywall. It's best to have it evaluated by a professional. You can talk to several people to get estimates on the repairs. Unless, of course, you are lucky enough to have a friend or family member that's very handy. I wouldn't know the first thing about that kind of stuff!!!! I really hope that it's not a huge deal to get fixed.
Hi E., yes you definitely need to get this replaced. The sub floor is going to be the main problem because that's the foundation of the first floor of your home. We had a water cooler in the kitchen of our old house, and we had hardwood floors (about 1/2" thicker than laminate). It leaked for about two weeks and we had to get the floor and sub floor all around it replaced.
You definitely don't want to take a chance with little ones in the house. I would call Coleman Floor in Aurora at ###-###-####. That's who we used and they did a great job.
