Repairing Boards In Prefinished Floor

How to repair scratched wood.

Repairing boards in prefinished floor. As suggested in the wood flooring 101 section of our website the type of wood flooring you have limits the range of possible repairs for your wood floor. Use a scrap piece of wood to protect the strip s surface while tapping it into place. In general water is an enemy to wood floors. With site finished floors when a piece of wood becomes damaged you can often repair it by sanding smooth the imperfection.

With older tongue and groove hardwood or even wide plank floors gaps inevitably develop between the boards mostly because the wood shrinks over time as it dries out and loses moisture content. To maintain wood floors vacuum or dry mop them about once a week. Another exacerbating condition is water damage. It can damage the finish leave rings or discoloration or at its worst cause flooring boards to cup warp buckle or grow mold.

These problems occur when the glue fails to bond to the subfloor during installation or when a single board is damaged by moisture or humidity. Repair hollow or raised spots in the floor using an engineered wood repair kit. Factory finished hardwood flooring boards may be more expensive than unfinished ones but the fact that they don t have to be sanded as part of. Repair hardwood floor water damage.

On a prefinished floor however the thick seal layer means that when a section of flooring becomes damaged the only way to repair it is to either sand the finish off of the entire floor or remove and replace the broken. Water damage to hardwood floors can be from minor to major. To use this kit first drill a hole into the center of the damaged board. How to deal with scratches on prefinished floors.

Nail the board with 2 inch long ring shank flooring nails and drive the heads just below the surface with a nail set. The type of wood flooring you have affects the repair options available. Matching the finish of the new strip to the existing flooring may be difficult but give it a shot before you refinish the entire floor. Solid hardwood flooring offers the broadest range of options as you can sand and scrape away up to 1 4 of an inch of the wood to remove cupping or surface mold and.

Done correctly a spot repair is all but unnoticeable provided you ve correctly matched the finish and if necessary the stain. The problem is magnified when the boards were not tightly laid in the first place. If you have a small single scratch that s only noticeable when you get close like a scratch caused by an excited pet and your floor has a relatively new finish try a diy home solution first mix equal parts apple cider vinegar and olive oil in a small cup and dab the mixture into the scratch.