ASAP! Hope for water damaged oak floor?
2 layers of vinyl have been torn off the kitchen floor (house ca 1928; vinyl appears to have been applied in 1960’s).
Beautiful narrow oak planks are under there, and we’ve been sanding off the old vinyl glue. Mmy plan was to refinish the oak.
Unfortunately, now that we can see under the adhesive, all around the sink and out into exposed area of floor the oak has turned black; apparently old water damage. Leaks must have been trapped under the vinyl for long periods of time and have discolored the wood permanently. the wood is quite hard and has no rot, the only damage appears to be the discoloration.
Am trying to upload a photo of the area for you to see it…
A friend has been sanding the area with 20 grit for quite a long time with no success whatsoever, no hint that if we just keep going we’ll hit lighter wood.
So- in your experience, is the wood black all the way through? or is there reason to keep plugging away with the sander, or maybe a planer? Or is there some treatment that can remove the “stain”?
FYI- I had wanted to get he floor finished by the end of the month (just a few days from now) as the new cabinets are due to be installed then.
Thanks!
Replies
You didn't say what width the oak strips are. I think your best bet would be to carefully replace and weave in the new patch. Then refinish the floor.
I doubt you will hit lighter wood if you keep sanding your suspicions about the leak are probably correct and the area stayed wet for a long time. You could keep sanding, but at some point you may end up with a low spot, or never hit lighter wood.
Webby
I mentioned they were "narrow". I had thought that usually implies roughly 2" wide, which these appear to be.I'm afraid you are probably right- darn! It's so irritating that the bad spot is in an area that will be seen while there's lots of good wood that will be covered by floor cabinets.
I've considered trying to rip out some of the good stuff to replace it with, but jeez louise, what a pain with tongue-and-groove.
I know depending on age that strip flooring goes down to as narrow as 1 inch. Not real common around here. Usually common narrow strip flooring is 2 1/4 inch wide.
I have not ever tried a chemical bleach maybe others will have more experience.
It is possible to remove some of the flooring from under the cabinets where it will not be 'appreciated' but it is a little tedious and you would need to cut a line in teh floor slightly behind where the new cabinets would sit, cut out a board roughly which you would waste and get to the toungue side of the remmaining boards and carefully pry out. What you salvaged you would then use to patch with but you would have to carefully remove the damaged boards then insert your patch pieces and you would have to either glue them in or face nail leaving you with holes to fill. Also remember that the new cabinets would sit lower so you would need to replace the wood you took out with ply.
HECKA OF A LOT OF WORK. Especially if you have never done it. If you go this route you can google repairing a hardwood floor and get more info.
If you could find some new oak the same width to make a patch then all you would have to do would be to remove the damaged boards. Webby
Actually, I have already done it on the same floor in an area to cover where a wall had been removed to enlarge the kitchen by combing it with a breakfast nook. It was even more fun, because we had to do a "peninsula" of tongue and groove that was expose on 3 sides.
for that, I used some old strips I salvaged from the house I just moved out of. It was torn down for expansion so I was able to salvage windows, trim, etc. I wish I'd had the time to take more of the flooring but the wrecking ball was waiting.
Ooo yeah, that is to bad sounds like it would have been ideal.Webby
Haven't done it myself but have you tried wood bleach to see if the stain will lighten up enough to be tolerable.
Test on a hidden area, 'cause the bleach itself may produce unwanted results.
Is this an easily fond product? any brand names you want to suggest? thanks-
Specifically Oxalic Acid. There are several types of "wood bleach".You should be able to find it at paint stores and hardware stores. There are several different types of wood bleach. The 2 part stuff removes all color from wood.The Oxalic acid is better for trying to remove iron stains and tamin stains. Try a mild solution at first. A strong solution can also remove the wood color. So you might have to end up bleaching the whole floor and staining it. .
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
Oxalic Acid based wood bleaches should be fairly easy to find at the local hardwares.
No particular brands come to mind , it's been quite a while since I've fiddled with it.
It would be neat, however, if you give it a try and let us know the results in this particular scenario.
Be sure to consider needed drying times vs. your scheduled cabinet install.
"Google" up wood bleach.... should get you started with some good info.
not that it seems to be necessary, but here's a pic of the bad area:
Try plain ol' Clorox bleach full strength and let it completely dry. I've done this to remove black rings from a shelf and they dissapeared completely. Of course, try a test spot first.~ Ted W ~
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I think it's hopeless..the nails and tannic acid caused that when it was wet..its through and through. I'd PLAN on cutting it up.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
They kill Prophets, for Profits.
yeah, that's what i was afraid of. still, i figure i could try any stain remover suggestions today, then replace planks tomorrow if nothing else panned out, and do the water-based poly the next few days. Have applied 100% chlorox bleach and will give it a few more hours at least.
Chlorox bleach will not do much for what you have and the resultant color is not natural.Oxalic acid can result in a nice natural color. I bought an antique oak table that had been painted. I had it stripped commercially and got back a paint-free table turned gray by the caustic stripper they used. Oxalic acid restored it close enough to natural color that it looks very nice.Worth a try at least.BruceT
Clorox does vety little for black stains on Oak. Try a wood brightener product (it contains Oxalic acid).
Some good advice from the "gang", one other thing to consider is the moisture content of the wood after you play with the bleach, or if you replace with new wood. It has to match the moisture content within one or two percent of the remaining floor. It will take some time for all this to adjust. You will end up with different width joint separations, during seasonal changes, in the repaired area, than the rest of the floor. The end of March is so close, you have some important decisions to make, and lots of work before the cabinets arrive. I wish you good luck, whichever way you end up doing the floor.
Virginbuild
Did you test the vinyl adhesive for asbestos? > $75 and well worth it before considering sanding.
In the damaged area it appears that you have sanded (nearly?) to the tongues so you would want to replace this wood, not refinish it.
Jeff
Thanks all for your advice. Considering the moisture difference is something that I hadn't thought of. And, the damage isn't sanded down nearly that far although it may look that way. The bad wood is same thickness as good, just has wide gaps. But one thing to consider is that I'm okay with a floor that has some character and history; if I had wanted a perfect floor, I would have bought new. So the fact that some areas are laid perpendicular to most of the floor, and the odd old scars here and there, and the presence of lots of nails with different sized heads lends "charm", IMO.
Doubtless, future owners of this house will disagree with me, LOL, but I'm not selling any time soon and they can replace it with anything they want. who knows, some may even find it as charming as I do.
PS- I didn't do actual testing, but I asked my contractor about it and he said it didn't have asbestos. I know, I should have done the testing anyway but I decided to blindly trust him.
Stain the entire floor black.... Then poly. It's in style now in high end homes.... Not my taste, but just throwing it out there...
I like that look, but my kitchen gets little natural light and I want the lightest floor possible to amplify what I do get thru the windows. Otherwise, that would be the best solution!
If you bleach the wood you want to sand it first, because the bleach won't go very deep. Once I bleached some pet stains in oak so the stains were almost gone, using oxalic acid. The guy with the sander (who told me bleach wouldn't work) decided to "sand out the rest of the stain." He ended up sanding off the bleached wood and exposing more stain.
But I agree with the others that it looks like it needs to be replaced.
Billy
Edited 3/30/2009 12:16 am ET by Billy
Well, I've done a few with oxalic acid and didn't have any unsurmountable problems. You wouldn't want to try to just do an area without bleaching the whole thing because it does remove all the color including the natural color of the wood. I would strongly recommend that you do that whole room. Sand it to 80 grit, open the windows and bleach it. And, because it fuzzes up the surface, to go over it with a 120 grit screen on a buffer lightly after the bleach is dry, because the bleach doesn't penetrate very deep, if color shows through you have to bleach again those areas that showed some color through. You'll learn the ropes in no time and find it easier to do than to explain. You say you want a light floor? Now's the time to stain it light [They used to call it pickle here.] Simple to do too Just wipe on the stain and before it dries wipe it all off. You won't get it all off anyway. Do 3' strips so you can keep up with it and use a little care about overlapping and you should end up with a really beautiful floor.Thanks for listening ---MesicPS The bleach will already make an oak floor rather blond, but the pickle stain really makes it nice.
It's toast. You can't sand it enough to a) get rid of the stain and b) still have enough floor left. (DAMHIKT!) You can try, but bleach won't work. (DAMHIKT, either. LOL!)
Looks like a patch is in your future but, depending on how big the room is, it may be easier to just relay the whole floor. (I hate patching and it'll be pretty tough to make the new wood match the old.)
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
Again, I'm not looking for a perfect floor so a patch is okay with me as far as how it will look, just a bummer about the time and work. I'm using original floor for multiple reasons. Mostly: 1) want to be "green" about it and not use natural resources if not really necessary, and 2) I truly prefer it to be a little funky and have some character and show the "ghosts" of it's history. I just don't want it to be TOO funky!FYI all- the plain household bleach did work, but as has been said about the oxalic acid, the resulting color is pale grey, devoid of any warm tones. I did sand first. But I agree that for numerous reasons, patching just makes more sense. will post pix of my test bleach area later. right now i'm off to try to pull out good wood from spaces it won't show.Re pickling- I'd do that if it was still the 1980's. A pretty nice look, but I'm kind of over it (although as with the dark stain idea, it would help disguise the flaws). I prefer the look of the natural wood as sanded; clean and simple and classic.
Edited 3/30/2009 9:26 am ET by msm-s