Hardwood Flooring in San Anselmo, CA

San Anselmo Creek runs right through the middle of town, and anyone who has lived here a while knows what it can do. The flood on the last day of 2005 put more than four feet of water down San Anselmo Avenue and damaged 290 homes. The 1982 flood was nearly as bad. Houses near the creek have taken on water more than once, and hardwood floors are usually among the first things to show it.

That history shapes the work we do here. We get called for cupped boards, buckled sections, and floors that somebody sanded flat too soon after a previous flood and that crowned a few months later. We put a moisture meter down before we touch anything, and if the subfloor is still holding water, we say so and we wait. Sanding a floor that has not finished drying is how people end up paying for the same repair twice.

If your floors took on water, our repair team can give you an honest read on what is salvageable. Call today for a free estimate.

How Long a Wet Floor Needs Before Anyone Sands It

This is the question that costs people the most money in this town. After a floor takes on water the boards swell and cup, edges up and middle low, and the instinct is to sand it flat as soon as it looks dry. If the wood is still giving up moisture, it keeps shrinking after the sanding, and a floor that was cupped comes back crowned, high in the middle. Now it needs to be sanded again, and there may not be enough wood left for that. So we meter it and we wait. Depending on how much water and how long it sat, that can be weeks. Sometimes months. The floor often flattens out substantially on its own during that time, which means less sanding when we do start. Nobody enjoys hearing that the answer is to wait, but it is the answer, and it is cheaper than the alternative. Upstream in Fairfax the same thing happens on the same creek.

When Boards Can Be Replaced Instead of the Whole Floor

Not every water-damaged floor is a full replacement. If the damage is confined, which it often is when a leak was caught quickly or a flood only reached part of a room, individual boards can be cut out and new ones woven in. Weaving means staggering the joints of the replacement pieces so the repair does not read as a rectangle in the middle of the room. Done properly and then sanded and finished as one floor, it disappears. What decides whether this works is how much of the floor is affected and whether the subfloor underneath survived. A subfloor that is delaminating has to come out regardless of what the finish floor looks like. We check that first, because a beautiful repair over a failing subfloor comes back within a year.