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How To Repair Rotted Hardwood Floors

Skilful communication on how to repair hardwood floor water harm, repairing a hardwood floor finish, fixing wood floor scratches, hardwood floor gouge repair, and more

Even the all-time woods floors are subject to damage. Hardwood flooring, past its name, sounds like information technology should be really hard. Merely, compared to other materials like tile, rock, and laminate, information technology is relatively soft and decumbent to damage such every bit scratches, gouges, and discoloration.

Unfortunately, surface scratches and gouges are the inevitable consequence of daily wear and tear.

Below we show y'all how to repair minor scratches and gouges. If your floor has many scratches or gouges, information technology's probably fourth dimension for floor refinishing.

The cost of refinishing a hardwood floor will depend upon the condition of your floor, the blazon of woods floor, and the number of square anxiety to be refinished.

Refinishing a woods floor is a big job that involves moving piece of furniture, bringing in a drum sander or other flooring sanders, protecting the rest of your house from dust, dealing with odors from polyurethane or other finishing products, and more than.

Man sanding a worn-out hardwood floor.
Refinishing a wood floor is a messy, challenging job that'southward usually best left in the easily of a professional. Don Vandervort, HomeTips © 1997 to 2022 | HomeTips

Considering information technology's easy to ruin an expensive wood flooring, refinishing a hardwood floor is often best left in the hands of flooring contractors.

You tin't easily preclude issues acquired by expansion and contraction. Wood, as a naturally gristly and porous material, expands and contracts with changes in temperature and humidity. Every bit information technology does so, boards can split up or warp and nails can loosen.

With expansion and contraction—and movement in general—hardwood floors can develop squeaks. For methods of fixing squeaks, see How to Set up Floor Squeaks.

The natural settling of a house tin besides cause separations between the joists and the subfloor. If your floor is sagging or uneven, there could be a serious structural problem causing it. If this is this example with your home, consult a contractor. If the problem is minor, there are some things you can do to prepare a bouncing or sagging floor.

To maintain wood floors, vacuum or dry-mop them well-nigh once a calendar week.

Repair Hardwood Floor Water Damage

In general, h2o is an enemy to wood floors. It can damage the cease, go out rings or discoloration or—at its worst—cause floor boards to cup, warp, buckle, or grow mold.

Water damage to hardwood floors can be from small-scale to major. It can be caused past a potted plant that leaks onto the floor, from a outburst appliance supply hose, or from major flooding.

Methods for dealing with hardwood floor water damage depend upon the severity of the harm.

Astringent water damage. If several hardwood flooring boards have warped because of excessive h2o harm, they'll probably need to be removed and replaced. In many cases, y'all can supercede only the damaged areas. In order to exercise this, you'll need to be able to identify and buy identical replacements. Of form, this isn't always possible.

This video shows how a professional person flooring contractor removed and replaced severely water damaged hardwood flooring:

Removing a water stain. If someone has left a water-marker ring from a hot java cup or cold glass on the flooring, you lot might be able to excerpt the stain.

Fold a white textile or rag in half and lay it over the stain. And then fix an fe to medium rut and utilize it to iron back and forth over the stain area. Do this gradually, checking frequently to see whether the stain is disappearing and to brand sure you don't cause further damage.

Larger stains on wood floors are typically water marks, caused past spills or over-watering house plants. The surface area must be sanded, sometimes bleached, and then refinished to match the rest of the floor, which is the trickiest office.

It's a practiced idea to hire a floor contractor for dealing with a big stain, specially if the stain is in a highly visible area.

If you practice determine to take on this project yourself, this is how the process goes:

i Sand the area with a vibrating sander, showtime with 100-dust sandpaper and then with 150-dust.

Man's hands sanding a wooden surface with an orbital sander.
Sand the expanse with a vibrating sander. ©CandyBox Images / Shutterstock.com

two Vacuum the area with a shop vacuum.

3 Wipe the surface area with mineral spirits for an oil-based stain and water for a latex stain.

four For a dark stain, utilise bleach or oxalic acrid according to label directions to lighten the stain, and so lightly sand in line with wood grain, using 150-grit sandpaper.

v Mix up a stain to match the existing floor color. This process unremarkably requires testing possibilities on a slice of wood that's the same species equally your flooring.

If yous can't find replacement pieces, cutting them from a closet or some other camouflaged part of your existing floor and then supplant that cutout with newer floor.

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Discover a Woods Flooring Repair Pro Most Y'all

Repair Hardwood Floor Scratches

Modest scratches in forest floors oft tin be buffed away using steel wool or hand-sanding with progressively finer sandpaper grits.

When sanding minor scratches, restrict your sanding to the scratched area, feathering only slightly into the surrounding surface. Always sand or buff only in line with the wood grain.

A heavily scratched wooden herringbone floor.
Extensive scratches in wood floor generally calls for a sanding and refinishing. © Ryzhov Sergey | Dreamstime.com

Polyurethane finishes are difficult to sand. Endeavor using a scouring pad dipped in mineral spirits or utilise a sanding screen.

expert tip

Don't ever wax a wood floor that has been coated with a polyurethane end—this volition make it incommunicable to re-coat in the future without having to sand the flooring offset.

If paste wax volition attach to the finish, you tin can use it to hide scratches, and the wax is available in clear, honey tone, or brown to friction match most any woods floor. Forest-repair wax sticks may help to fill deeper scratches and dents.

Fix Hardwood Gouges and Dents

You can sometimes raise pocket-sized dents past placing a few drops of water on them and allowing the forest to swell back to its original shape. Applying balmy heat with an atomic number 26 on a thick cloth or a heat gun helps this procedure along.

For deep gouges or dents, you tin apply a forest flooring filler and wood stain to repair the damaged area. Before applying the filler, tape off the damaged surface area so you don't accidentally employ filler where it doesn't belong.

Mix equal parts of the epoxy-based filler and utilise to the gouge with a putty knife. Allow to dry. And then sand and end.

The following video by Russ Richards shows exactly how to practise this. Note how he mixed two different finishes to attain the right colour. You can purchase the forest floor filler he uses, Elmer's Damaged Woods, on Amazon.

Supplant Damaged Wood Flooring

Badly damaged or rotted sections of flooring must be removed and replaced with new pieces. This involves cut out or prying upwardly a section of the terminate floor, gluing or nailing replacements to the subflooring, filling cracks to match, sanding the surface, and refinishing.

If you're not experienced with this blazon of work, you'll find the most difficult part is getting the new pieces to match the old. This job is usually best left to a wood-flooring professional. Staining and finishing to become the repair to lucifer your existing floor may require more piece of work and fourth dimension than the repair itself. In fact, you may ultimately accept to sand and refinish the entire floor to hide the repair.

if possible, buy replacement flooring that matches the size and color of your existing flooring. If you lot can't observe an verbal friction match and you just need ane or two small replacement pieces, consider removing those pieces from an inconspicuous identify on your existing floor (such as a closet). Then y'all can repair that surface area with new fabric that doesn't match as well.

In some cases, it'southward easiest to remove and supersede a full-length board. Then once again, if a damaged board is long, it'southward generally best to replace merely a portion of it. If more than than one board must be replaced, stagger the terminate joints.

Cut Out the Damaged Board

The first step is to cut out the damaged portion. To prevent splintering when you lot cut the board, marking the cutting line with a foursquare and a utility knife.

The all-time tool for cut out a section of wood flooring is an aquiver multi-tool, as shown in this photo. For more than about this tool, meet the HomeTips Oscillating Multi-Tool Buying Guide.

An oscillating multi-tool, plunge cutting a wooden floor for a heating vent.
An oscillating multi-tool is the best tool for making a controlled, very directly plunge cut in wood flooring. Here information technology is shown making a cutting-out for a heating vent. Dremel

If you don't have this type of tool, make the cut with a hammer and a sharp chisel. Hold the chisel with the bevel facing the surface area to be removed.

Man's hands hammering a chisel, cutting out part of a wooden floor.
Utilise a sharp chisel to cut out the damaged section, with the chisel's bevel facing toward the impairment.

To remove the forest between two cuts, bore two rows of iii⁄8-inch holes, spaced  four to 6 inches apart, and across the centre of the damaged plank. Don't impairment adjacent flooring. Then, using a hammer and chisel, split out the wood between the holes and pry out the pieces.

Man's hand, chiseling an end cut of a damaged wooden floor.
Apply a chisel to split out the damaged surface area betwixt the end cuts.

Installing the Replacement

Cut each replacement board to exact length. If necessary, cut off the lower shoulder of the groove so you lot can fit the board into place. You lot can chisel this shoulder off or, if you lot have a tabular array saw, rip it with the saw.

When y'all tap the replacement into place with a hammer, protect it with a scrap of wood or flooring.

Drill pilot holes, and then finishing nails to fasten the replacement lath and the ends of the existing flooring to the subfloor.

Man's hands nailing a replacement wooden floor board.
Drill pilot holes, nail with finishing nails, and set nail heads below the surface.

Gear up the fastener heads below the surface, using a nailset. Then fill up with matching forest putty.

Depending upon the extent of refinishing that you'll be doing, you may desire to use a power sander or a hand sander to bring the patch fifty-fifty with the level of the surrounding floor, but be conscientious not to sand too much!

Photography copyright

Laminate Floor Replacement

If your flooring is a laminate woods flooring, as opposed to solid hardwood flooring, you may be able to replace damaged pieces. This video shows how one homeowner replaced a couple of warped laminate wood floor boards in his kitchen:

Notice a Pre-Screened Local Wood Flooring Repair Pro

Tools for Sanding Floors

You can rent these 3 critical tools for sanding a woods floor: drum sander, random-orbital sander, and edge sander.

sanding a wood floor advice

Sanding a wood floor is non something to take lightly. Though an experienced do-it-yourselfer can ofttimes handle this task, remember twice if you lot're a newbie at home repairs.

sanding a wood floor
Think twice before sanding floors yourself unless you lot're experienced at this job. It tin exist hard and prone to costly mistakes. ©Don Vandervort, HomeTips

Sanding a wood flooring is a difficult chore that has potential for disaster. A poor job tin can result in permanently wavy bumps or visible scratches on what otherwise could be a cute wood floor. Our general advice is to hire a professional person floor refinisher unless you're accomplished at this work.

Unless yous're doing a couple of small repairs or working in a tiny area, you're going to demand professional tools for sanding a wood flooring. Iii main types of floor sanders are available, equally discussed below. To practice a complete job, you lot'll need all iii. To buy these, yous would pay thousands of dollars; fortunately, you can rent them from a tool rental supply or major habitation improvement middle.

You volition also demand a heavy-duty vacuum for keeping the dust down—virtually of these sanders are designed to exist connected to dust-control vacuums. Talk with the rental desk most a vacuum that can be continued to the sanders.

Also buy plenty sandpaper for your task. The amount and grits you will need depend upon the size of the floors and the nature of the finishes you'll be removing. (Enquire the dealer for recommendations.) When using any floor sander, yous volition be working from rough sandpaper that removes a lot of cloth (20-grit) to progressively less abrasive sandpaper: 60-, eighty-, and 120-grit to eliminate scratches and produce a fine finish.

Other supplies you'll need include masking tape and plastic sheeting for protecting areas from sanding dust. You can buy or rent the necessary safety equipment: a respirator, hearing protection, goggles, and work gloves.

Pulsate Sander Dreamstime

Drum Floor Sanders

A drum sander is used for the first stage of a flooring-sanding job. Y'all stand to operate this very heavy upright motorcar. It rolls an viii- or 12-inch-broad sandpaper chugalug beyond a series of drum rollers so that the sandpaper moves in a straight line. On unsanded new wood floor, a drum sander may be operated on a diagonal to the wood grain at start to flatten the irregular surface. But for refinishing and finer sanding, it should be operated but in line with the management of the forest grain to avoid leaving scratches, skips, or churr marks. To rent a drum sander, expect to pay from $50 to $75 a day.

Random-Orbital Sander Dreamstime

Random-Orbital Sanders

A random-orbital sander is used to remove scratch patterns created past drum or rotary sanders, in preparation for the final finish. In addition, it is used in minor areas and tight spaces where a pulsate sander would be hard to maneuver and on herringbone, parquet, and ornamental floors. This sander is also used with fine-grit sandpaper for "screen and recoat" jobs, where minimal sanding is required.

At the orbital sander's base, sandpaper is fitted to a flat pad that moves in infinitesimal back-and-forth and oval vibrating motions. Considering of these tiny movements, this type of sander is much less prone to scratch the forest than sanders that motion the sandpaper in i direction.

You can become types with a rounded base or a rectangular base. Floor models can exist rented for near $30 to $50 per twenty-four hours. For very small work, y'all tin can purchase palm-sized models for from $50 to $100.

Edge Sander Dreamstime

Edge Sanders

An edge sander, or "edger," is a smaller sander that you lot typically operate from a kneeling position. The edger is designed to work right up to base moldings and walls and become into tight spots where a pulsate sander can't go. It includes a grit purse and has an orbital motion, like the random-orbital sander above correct. Yous can buy an orbital sander for around $200 or rent 1 for almost $xxx per day.

Featured Resource: Find a Pre-Screened Local Woods Flooring Repair Pro

Source: https://www.hometips.com/repair-fix/hard-wood-floors.html#:~:text=For%20deep%20gouges%20or%20dents,Allow%20to%20dry.

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