On Oct 25, 6:22 pm, "G Wood" wrote:
"J" wrote in message

... I had been leaning toward installing laminate flooring in our kitchen, but
a
recent incident tells me that this might not be a good choice: Our water
heater resides in a closet that is part of the kitchen and during the
middle
of the night, a leak sprung up that flooded the kitchen. How well would
laminate flooring recover from being flooded (or hardwood for that
matter)?
With the water heater basically in the same room and our washer is also in
the kitchen, would it be more prudent to choose a different floor
covering?

Thanks.

Vinyl would withstand minor flooding as well as the subfloor prep and
adhesive. Hardwoods would dlikely not fare so well. Tile is close to
vinyl - enough standing water to affect the subfloor may damage tile mounted
to it.

Perhaps an alternate consideration might be a liner for the closet
containing the water heater? If you feared a leak there, a structure
similar to the base of a walk-in shower might be an answer at a fraction of
the price. Ideally it would have a drain and connect to the grey water
system. Even without a drain, it might buy you time in the event of a slow
leak so that water is contained and you have time to deal with it.
Improvise with a wash tub or visit the local recycling store.

They have those at the local home center and they are called pans that
go under water heaters. They have an outlet that you can then plumb
to a safe discharge location. Any WH where leakage could cause
damage should have one and an alarm as well.

Of course, that just eliminates one problem, though a major one, from
a wood floor in a kitchen. There is still the dishwasher, sink, frig
water line, etc that can leak. But usually those are less serious
than a WH.