Household Repairs Deep scratches, gouges. Fill with plastic wood. This must be stained to the color of the floor before you apply it. Better make several test batches first. After plastic hardens, sand smooth.

Burns. Scrape out charred wood with a sharp knife or razor blade. Work with the grain. Sand smooth. If hole is not deep, apply new stain and finish. If hole turns out to be too deep for this, fill it with plastic wood as above.

Splits. If board is loose, drill through it at an angle in several places along the break. Drive in 3" or 4" cement-coated finishing nails and countersink the heads. Fill the split and nail holes with plastic wood stained to color of floor. To replace a badly damaged section, see porch, wood.

Boards loose or raised. Drill small holes at an angle through the board near the edges. Drive in cement-coated finishing nails, countersink the heads and fill holes with plastic wood.

Parquet flooring loose or warped. If it is laid over a wood subfloor, nail down like strip flooring (see splits, above). If it is laid on concrete, better leave well enough alone. The only thing you can do, and it is not easy, is to insert a very thin chisel or putty knife into the cracks around the wood block and cut through the tongues connecting it with the adjacent blocks. Then lift out, clean out old mastic, and glue down with asphalt tile cement.




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Home > Household Repairs > F > Floor, Wood

November 20, 2008