WoodFlooringGuy.com

We put in hardwood flooring 7 years ago, 460 sq. feet. Not too long after, I felt the floor was not standing up. I called the company [makers of the wood], and they did send someone in. He said they would only replace a few boards. We didn’t bother– we we’re unable to at the time.

My home was built in 1972 and I have a hardwood floor with narrow strips. I refinished the floor 10 years ago. Most of the floor has held-up well, but you see the cracks between the boards. Is it possible to use a heavy gloss finish like Marine finish #13 so the floor would appear solid? Or would the cracks reappear later?

I had 6 inch knotted pine installed on a sub-floor in my new home. Is there any excuse for wood filler to be used to fill gaps in my floors up to 1/8 wide, other than faulty installation, or boards that were not plained before installation? I am being told it is because of moisture and expansion and contraction. My problem is, if they used filler at installation to cover these gaps, then the boards were never seated in the first place. Am I wrong? I am also being told that gaps the width of a nickel are normal. Is this rule of thumb true on brand new floor installations as well?

I have parquet floors that I installed 4 years ago. The floor is scratched in some places, so I am going to sand the floor. My question is: is there anything that I can use to fill the spaces / gaps in the tiles?

What is a “wet fill”? I have 1/8″+ gaps between some of my boards. I’ve heard people talk about making a slurry or “wet fill” out of sawdust from the edger and polyurethane, or some kind of recipe like that, to fill the gaps with. Any idea what I’m talking about?

I purchased a home a year ago that had laminate flooring in the living room. Everything was fine, until 1/8 inch gaps appeared suddenly at the ends of about 10 planks near the center of the floor. The gaps didn’t form along the grooved, long side of the plank, but rather at the ends of the planks. What would cause this and how can it be corrected?

I have a hard maple wood floor that’s 80 years old. The boards are 1 1/2″ wide and have shrunk from 1/32″ to 1/4″ inch. Is their a way to fill the cracks? Will it look natural when finished?

I have a tongue and groove, relatively inexpensive, hardwood floor in my kitchen. A 3/4″ gap has appeared between ends of two of the pieces. How can I address this?

I installed a K****** laminate floor. There is a pretty nasty seam in the middle of the floor where the tongue and groove have pulled apart. The reason is that a slight dip in the cement floor that we considered insignificant during installation took a toll on that junction with all the traffic through the room. Is there a way to fix that seam without ripping up the entire floor?

I just installed engineered Brazilian cherry throughout my 11-yr old house (5-1/4″ wide, 3/8″ thick). We are going thru our first Texan winter (close to freezing) and the floor is popping like chestnuts in an open fire. I got down on my knees and found hairline cracks developing on my floors. Did I just lose my floors?

I did bring in a professional hardwood floor sander/refinisher to finish the floor. It was only after the sanding and two coats of oil-based urethane were applied that I noticed and became concerned about the gaps between hardwood strips. I obviously had not checked closely before the refinishing began, so my mistake. I can only guess that being in this part of the province during the heating season, the humidity level was so low that the hardwood shrank appreciably.

I just had engineered wood floor installed (glue down method), and there is a gap between the threshold of the front door and the wood planks in the house. The planks (yes, they’ve been floated) are not level with the brass/metal threshold of the front door, as there is a slight grade difference between the two surfaces. What is the best way to resolve?

I am in New Orleans helping to rebuild this great city. I am encountering a lot of gaps in the floors I’m refinishing. I have been experimenting with the whiting, corn starch, linseed oil mix putty- home-made style. It works great, but the application is very difficult. I want to try and find out about ways to apply the mixture loose, and spread it over the whole floor. Can you help?

Is it possible to fill ¼” or less cracks in hardwood floor before sanding and finishing? For anyone who has carpet, linoleum, tile on their hardwood floors and are looking to remove it this is what we did. First we had to take off the very old 20+ year carpet and it’s pad which was falling apart. We first used a ice scraper. We also found a roofing shovel with ridged edges worked well for tough spots. After carpet was removed, we found old linoleum backing under that. So we scrapped some more. Finally went to the local Menards (Hardware center) and asked for some tile/glue remover in the carpet/tile department. We got a gallon which you mix with water, put on a small area at a time, leave on for hour or two, and it worked like a miracle. The linoleum backing and glue scraped right off. After you scrap it off, you use clean water and a rag to rub off any extra glue that is left. You are left with a beautifully clean hardwood floor that is ready to finish. Hope this helps some of you.

I installed pre-finished floors in my kitchen, family room, and entry way about a year and a half ago. They were installed over plywood which was over concrete. There was a moisture barrier put down as well. I have been noticing cracks slowly forming on the wood boards, especially now as we are transitioning from winter into spring. It seems like the cracks start somewhere within the board and somehow get to the surface and bubble up the finish. The cracks go with the grain. In all your answers, you say that the cracks are due to lack of moisture. Could the cracks also be due to too much moisture? I bought a hygrometer and put it on the floor and the humidity in those rooms run between 55% and 65%. I think in your answers, you said the relative humidity in the air should be between 30% and 45%. I’m just not sure if I should add more moisture in the air or take out moisture.

I recently installed laminate flooring throughout my home. Upon completion of the project I realized that I had some gaps around my door frames. After some further investigation I realized that I should have used an undercut saw to take off the bottoms of the door frames so the floor could go underneath. It was too late however as the floor is already down. The gaps range anywhere from less than an inch to around 1.5″ I cut small pieces from my off-cut sections of flooring and glued them into the gaps. Now there are noticeable (to me) seams at all the points where I glued in the “patches”. Any suggestion on what to fill in the seams with to make them less noticeable? I tried some laminate floor crack filler/repair that I bought at a local home improvement store but it doesn’t match the floor very well.

I have floors that are not in bad shape but could use some refilling and a new coat of poly applied. Is it okay to lightly sand the floor, use a putty to refill cracks, and then reapply poly?

Q: We have about 1″ cracks between the boards of our 1850 pine floors, we would like to fill them, but we do not want to sand/refinish the floors (as they had been a few years back). Any suggestions?

Two years ago we had our 30+ year old oak living room floor refinished. The results were excellent! We had the same guys install a new site finished oak floor in another room this year. The new wood was allowed to sit in the room for about 3 weeks this fall to adjust to the temperature and humidity characteristics of the house. A product that they referred to as liquid oak was used during finishing. I understand completely ( from the old floor refinishing ) that during the cooler months, separations will appear between planks and subsequently close with warmer conditions. My concern is that some of the separations in the new floor have a very jagged appearance. Both the finisher and I agree that this resulted from the liquid oak separating alternately on each side of the boards as the wood contracted. In a small ” test ” area, he used a putty type product intended to fill such openings. Would you advise applying this ” putty ” along all of the openings? Do you have any suggestions? Am I better off to see this through for a year of expansion and contraction?

I had prefinished oak flooring laid in my new home three months ago. There are several boards with cracks forming in them. One was so bad they had to replace it. Can you tell me why this is happening? Do I have a poor quality floor or was the installation not done properly? They had tested the humidity and said it was okay.