Sealing Gaps In Wood Flooring

It may take years for gaps to show up in your hardwood floors.

Sealing gaps in wood flooring. If that doesn t resolve your problem or if your gaps reappear there are three main methods of filling gaps in wood flooring which are. 1 scrape debris from between flooring planks with putty knife or painter s tool. Hardwood takes on and loses moisture as the temperatures and the humidity rises and falls. The first thing you need to do before filling gaps with silicon in old wood floors is to get them as clean as possible.

Put wood filler onto your putty knife and then push the filler into the gap. Be sure to use natural rope such as jute or cotton because synthetic rope won t accept a stain. Using caulk or silicon is often the fastest way to restore some semblance of normal to your gorgeous hardwood floors. Apply enough filler so that the filled in gap is flush with the top of the wood floor.

Filling large gaps with natural fiber rope is a traditional method commonly used on wide plank floorboards in very old homes. As the humidity rises and falls it s common for gaps to form and appear in hardwood floors. Pieces of wood one popular method of filling larger gaps requires using strips of the same hardwood your floor is made from. This means taking a vacuum to the floor and using the attachments to get all of the dirt out from between the boards.

In this video this old house contractor tom silva explains how to fill gaps in a wide plank wood floor. Expansion and contractions causes hardwood floor gaps. Cut the strips and apply wood glue to both sides. 2 vacuum floor clean of all dust and debris.

Make sure the room is humid to avoid the risk of your wood strip being pushed out the next time your floorboards swell. Here s an outline of how to do each. Whether your floors are newly installed or you ve had hardwood floors for years you can use humidifiers to reduce the likelihood of gaps. 3 if desired tint rope with wood stain to match floor.

Wood putty has more of the consistency of damp clay and while it will harden some it does not fully dry. First fill the gap with a small amount of wood glue then rub sawdust into the gap. Then move the putty knife across the gap as if you were painting it with a paintbrush to spread the filler evenly in the gap. Using a dust and resin filling.

The key here is to make sure the sawdust is from the wood project you are currently working on so the color. Filling gaps in prefinished wood floors you want to fill holes cracks and splits but not refinish the floor wood putty is a better choice than wood filler. While the rope doesn t look like wood you can stain it to blend with the floorboards and the filled gaps will be much less noticeable than the dark empty gaps.