Mysterious damp?

[KittenCatt]

My partner and I bought a property at the end of June and when we moved in, we noticed darkening around the edges of the laminate floor of the living room. It includes along the interior wall. The darkening of the wood is dry to the touch. We also haven’t noticed it getting worse over time.

The house shows no other signs of damp, but the previous owners did have a leak and had the downstairs gutted and re-done etc.

I have placed a couple of dehumidifiers in two of the corners for the meantime. But does anyone know what’s causing this? How we can prevent this happening for when we replace the floors?

I have attached images.

Thank you!

If the dark patches are dry and not increasing could it just be staining from the leak?

Looks to me like it just hasn't been painted very well

Yes, we had a full one done! The surveyor noticed the exterior wall bowing slightly, so we got a structural engineer to look at it.

He said to keep an eye on it for 12 months to see if it gets any worse. He told us because we’ve caught it early, they can fit rods into the wall to prevent it getting any worse etc. which will be low cost with minimal disruption.

@MagpiePi I really hope that’s the case. The sellers left us spare floorboards, so we could replace the edges.

I’m just worried about the darkening returning and having to replace the entire floor again!

@FlamingoFlamboyance Sorry, I’m not sure what you mean?

Is there a under floor vent outside?
We get this staining on our carpet and it's from the outside vent drawing in air up through the carpets. And it's from car exhaust fumes!

Yes, there is. But it doesn’t explain about that staining along the other edges of the room? The staining just affects our living room…

Can you get under the floor and check that the vent isn't obstructed in any way? All vents should be kept clear.

But if the other edges are affected, that's not the only problem, unless the underfloor is very wet generally, in which case you may need further investigations to isolate the cause and fix it- and possibly more ventilation..... it's hard to see that any leak from above would affect the edges of more than one wall, though....

Thank you. I think we’ll have to lift the floorboards to investigate 😓

Don't panic yet, it may well just be old staining if it feels dry now. But you do need to find out if there are any unresolved issues before you replace any, or the replaced stuff may go the same way.

@BlueMongoose Thank you. I’m not sure which trade would be best to contact about this? A carpenter?