Old Wood Floors With Gaps
Wood fillers are also not meant for use with large gaps.
Old wood floors with gaps. Over time however the putty hardens chips and flakes. How to fix old hardwood floors with gaps and cupping. Drag the tube along the length of the affected area releasing pressure. 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.
Water logged wood will first swell then shrink as it dries out. Before you begin filling gaps in old wood floors with caulk make sure you have properly inserted the tube into a standard caulk gun. The problem is magnified when the boards were not tightly laid in the first place. This leaves your floor looking even worse and requiring you to dig out the old putty and replace it.
Why you should avoid putty fillers. Wood expands and contracts with seasonal differences in humidity and the older a floor gets the greater the chance that these movements will. Set the angled tip of the tube into the gap and pull the trigger. General contractor tom silva shares ingenious tip for plugging floorboard gaps.
Putty fillers were once a mainstay of hardwood floor repair. See below for a shopping list and tools subscribe to this old house.