Cause of loss: a furnace failure in subzero cold cracked several of the home’s cast-iron radiators, leaking gray, oily sludge onto the hardwood floors. Scope: water damage restoration — hardwood refinishing and radiator repair across the main level of a 1920s home.
When the furnace quit during a deep freeze, the water sitting inside this 1920s home’s radiators had nowhere to go. Several of its nineteen radiators cracked, and as the house thawed they wept a gray, oily sludge that spread across the hardwood in the dining room, breakfast nook, and bedrooms. The loss began as a mechanical failure but ended up written into the floors of the whole main level — the kind of damage where the heat and the hardwood both have to be made right at once.
Rather than patch, the original hardwood was sanded back and refinished so each room reads as one continuous floor again, and every cracked radiator was rebuilt or replaced and repainted to suit its room. The house kept what made it worth keeping — dark trim, leaded-glass built-ins, the little green pendant over the nook — while the water damage restoration erased the stains the freeze left behind. On a vintage home, getting back to normal means restoring the character, not just the surface.
Before & After
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After
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