Accidents happen quickly: a bottle of wine falls or a glass breaks and causes splinters on your hardwood flooring. Don’t panic, you won’t necessarily have to tear up your flooring. Depending on the extent and severity of the impact on your hardwood floor, here are our solutions.
Repairing defects on a hardwood floor
To repair small defects on your hardwood flooring such as holes, cracks, or even bent nails, it’s not always necessary to replace your entire floor. In fact, you can fill holes and cracks in a hardwood floor simply with wood filler. As for nails, you can remove bent nails and eliminate protruding nails by hammering them into the floor using a hammer.
How to repair cracks and holes?
To fill cracks and holes in your hardwood flooring, equip yourself with wood filler and a spatula or a putty knife. The wood filler is applied directly using one of these tools into the holes and cracks in the flooring. Here are our tips for each situation:
– If the crack or hole is less than 1 cm, fill it with wood filler
– If the crack or hole is more than 1 cm, fill it with string or wood shavings, then apply wood filler
– To properly fill the crack or hole, use a spatula wider than the size of the gap
– Always apply the wood filler using a spatula
– Completely fill the hole or crack to be filled, then smooth the surface to the same level as the flooring
– Then let the wood filler harden
– If you notice a difference in level, you can lightly sand the area where the wood filler was applied with fine-grit sandpaper once it’s dry.
Replacing hardwood floorboards
If one or more boards of the hardwood flooring have been significantly damaged, meaning they have received shocks that have caused major visual impacts, you will need to replace some or all of the floorboards. This replacement of floorboards is different depending on the type of flooring and may require the intervention of experienced flooring professionals to truly renovate your floor.
Replacing a solid hardwood floorboard
Replacing one or more solid hardwood floorboards requires cutting and removing the central part of the damaged board. Then, the board must be sawn perpendicularly, flush with the joists, to be able to remove the edges of the board.
The second part is the installation of the new board. It involves attaching cleats to the inner faces of the joists, then planing the edges of the new board. Finally, the replacement is completed by installing the new board by screwing it in, before proceeding to sand the almost repaired board.
Replacing an engineered hardwood floorboard
Replacing an engineered hardwood floorboard is somewhat different from replacing one or more solid hardwood boards. To begin, you must remove the finish layer of the damaged board, pierce it with a wood tool around the entire perimeter of the board, being careful to stay 5 millimeters from the edge. The second part consists of removing the inner part of the previously pierced board, removing the edges of the board, then removing any splinters. Finally, the new board can then be glued and sanded to match the entire surface of the engineered hardwood floor.
