darkened hardwood floors, plumbing through a slab.

[Micky]

I looked at a house for sale the other day, and most of the rooms had hardwood floors, but more than half of the floors were black, sort of striped, with wood color and maybe grain in adjacent stripes.

I think the finish was damaged by the padding or the backiing of whatever wall-to-wall carpet they had had.

Do you know anything about this, what padding would do this and what wouldn't?

A friend told me they took the carpet off of the floors in the house they bought, at least 30 years old, and the hardwood floors were nice underneath. What's the difference

----------- The house also had a washer and dryer installed in the pretty large room next to the kitchen. But in the basement was an earlier place for the machines. It's likely the owners got too old to go downstairs. Half of the house, the half with the kitchen and spare room, is built on a slab. I suppose to bring water to the washing machine they went up into the attic, but what would somone do if it was an apartment building with no access on the floor above and a slab below? Is there some way to go down through the slab from the kitchen, across and up into the other room? Seems impossible to me, other than by jacking up the house and cutting a groove in the slab.

[trader_4]

I've never heard of any carpet padding doing this and can't imagine how it could. Also, if padding did it, why would it be in stripes? If it was really striped, maybe someone did it intentionally.

Perhaps the room was added on with the intention of putting the washer there and the plumbing was done the normal way, before the concrete slab was poured.

[Frank]

I had a foam backing on one of mine that degraded and stuck to the vinyl floor beneath. I re-carpeted but had a heck of a time removing the degraded foam.

[dpb]

...

If, as another has said, the pattern is regular and striped it's likely it's "a feature", not a defect. Are they solid floors? If so, make bid contingent on refinishing if don't like; either discount enough to have them done or ask the owners to do it--all they can do is say no. :)

Who says they necessarily went from the kitchen? May have run a side branch from the house line underground. Or, as another also said, the plumbing may have been laid first with the arrangement in mind from the git-go, or perhaps this was an addition and not original to accommodate the change in lifestyle you suggest? You'd have to ask or have an inspection to know.

But, it's certainly possible to run plumbing a lot of places with some difficulty -- $$ solves most problems.

[Micky]

Sort of striped, but I should have said that they were raggedy stripes, constantly varying width with no pattern. Probably some non-black parts in the middle of the black stripes. But no black parts in the raggedy stripes with normal color, which I think coincided with the border between the ~2" wide boards.

These rooms were above the basement, but still maybe something seeped up between the boards to keep the area near the borders brown? That's hard to believe.

Either that or they went up through the attic.

Good to know. I'll try avoid foam.

[Micky]

No, it looks terrible. Raggedy, sort of striped.

It was an auction and it sold for 240K, even though it needs lots of remodeling. The home repair contractor who was there estimated it needed 100K of that. I talked to a friend whose house is closer to the center of action of this n'hood, and is about the same side (bigger basement, half of it finished, and smaller upstairs) and he said his house was valued at the same price, and it didnt' need remodeling. He should have been happy to think his house might be worth another 100K but he didn't seem to be. Maybe he's more concerned about property taxes than selling.

LOL

[bob haller]

water and espically urine will turn nice hardwood black, but theres a bleaching process to lighten it back up. i dont know much more than that. my mom bought a home, when i pulled the carpet up there was a large black mark.

the owners daughter said thats where she fell, and laid for 5 days, nearly died. thats why she sold the home

the black area didnt matter, mom wanted carpet.

after mom died i disclosed the mark at home sale time

[Micky]

Your mother has the right attitude.

Very good.

[Paintedcow]

That's what linoleum is for. Cover up the bad looking wood. Or carpetting, or some form of wood plank or parkay tiles.

I'd put the washer/dryer back in the basement, as long as there is one.

You dont need to jack up the house. But you would have to bust out some concrete. (A big and costly job, best left to the professionals). Better to relocate the washer....

You cant run the drain line thru the attic, unless you install some sort of pump.

[Micky]

Good point. My neighbor needed a basement toilet and it was an extra

1000 dollars, but it included a toilet too!

Maybe one could just drill a hole in the concrete, suck out some of the dirt, and let the wash water go into the hole.

[FrozenNorth]

That must be the most stupid idea I have ever read on usenet, and that is saying a lot.

[gregz]

I had dark spots from old foam. I used Oxiclean treatment.

Greg

[Micky]

Thank you. I was striving for that.

[trader_4]

Good point. IDK how that went for so long without someone pointing that out.

[Paintedcow]

*NOT*

The water would not soak in fast enough, and would flood the floor, and in no time the lint would prevent all draining.

[Micky]

That sounds about right.

>

[trader_4]

Reminds me of the time many years ago when I bought a new construction condo. The builder had installed a sump pump with a line that came out underground and ended in the dirt. It was headed in the direction of a swale and I think what likely happened is they just never continued it another 50 ft to it's logical destination, maybe because they were still grading, etc. So, being smarter than the average bear, I went looking for where it discharged, couldn't find it, tested it with some water, found out that the pipe just ended underground in the dirt. And right next to it was the pipe from the adjacent unit, that also ended in the dirt.

So, I report it to the condo association, since it's their issue and they were sending someone out to fix it. And then I got a hold of my neighbor, showed him the problem, told him that he should contact the association too to make sure they fix his at the same time. He looks in the hole in the ground and says "Isn't it supposed to be that way?" I don't think he believed me that there was anything wrong and IDK if his got fixed at the same time or not.