Sealing Gaps In Wood Flooring

Filling large gaps with natural fiber rope is a traditional method commonly used on wide plank floorboards in very old homes.

Sealing gaps in wood flooring.

Whether your floors are newly installed or you ve had hardwood floors for years you can use humidifiers to reduce the likelihood of gaps. Using a dust and resin filling. 3 if desired tint rope with wood stain to match floor. Be sure to use natural rope such as jute or cotton because synthetic rope won t accept a stain.

Inserting a colour match acrylic filler. The first thing you need to do before filling gaps with silicon in old wood floors is to get them as clean as possible. Hardwood takes on and loses moisture as the temperatures and the humidity rises and falls. Cut the strips and apply wood glue to both sides.

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. First fill the gap with a small amount of wood glue then rub sawdust into the gap. Put wood filler onto your putty knife and then push the filler into the gap. Pieces of wood one popular method of filling larger gaps requires using strips of the same hardwood your floor is made from.

Wood putty has more of the consistency of damp clay and while it will harden some it does not fully dry. Make sure the room is humid to avoid the risk of your wood strip being pushed out the next time your floorboards swell. 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. 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.

The key here is to make sure the sawdust is from the wood project you are currently working on so the color. 2 vacuum floor clean of all dust and debris. Wood filler is a wetter more fluid product than wood putty. Here s an outline of how to do each.

Using caulk or silicon is often the fastest way to restore some semblance of normal to your gorgeous hardwood floors. 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. 1 scrape debris from between flooring planks with putty knife or painter s tool. Apply enough filler so that the filled in gap is flush with the top of the wood floor.

Expansion and contractions causes hardwood floor gaps. It may take years for gaps to show up in your hardwood floors. In this video this old house contractor tom silva explains how to fill gaps in a wide plank wood floor.