Can anyone point me to information on applying a wood filler (sawdust/ poly) grout to old wood floors. I’m planning on sanding and refinishing some 110 yr old maple floors and there are quite a few 1/4″ – 1/2″ gaps. If applied some pre mixed wood filler in a few areas where repairs were made but the stuff starts setting up very quickly and is not very workable after about 30 seconds.
Is there a product available that would be as easy (haha) as grouting tile?
I dont know if it even makes sense to try this… the floors are in pretty rough shape. By the time I rent a sander and buy the materials and add in my migrant labor, I may be better off just tearing it up and replacing with new.
Joe
Replies
joemilw
How wide are the boards?
I ask because you may need gaps like that to accomidate the shrinking and swelling of wide plank boards.. filling those gaps with anything will cause the boards to buckle up creating a really big mess.
Second question, are these boards sub flooring? another words are these boards on top of other boards which sit on the joists or are these boards directly installed over joists?
You can get a lot of wrong answers without full information.
The final question is what are you trying to achieve. In other words you may be doing something foolish and not realize it.. 110 year old maple boards could be extremely prized as they are to the right person..
Sanding them would decrease their value as would many repairs. On the other hand they could be nothing special and you are on the right track..
Believe it or not dealing with older wood is very much an art form. Some things will increase it's value while other things could totally destroy any real value the wood has. Knowledge is power.
Frenchy-
Thanks for the look, in response to your questions:
The boards are 2 1/4 and to be honest, some of the gaps approach 1/2". They are not consistent...i.e. some of the boards are tight and gaps exist at the joints of others. There is subfloor;6" x 3/4" T&G.
My main concern is that there is years of dirt& grime that has built-up in the gaps. My little one will be crawling around soon and I dont want herl getting hurt/ splintered. Also, the wood is completely dried out as evidenced by the boards spliting in s few areas. Honestly, I dont know if it's even worth the hassel to restore the floors and my family and I will definitely not be in the house forever. Its just too small.
I would love to keep it as it adds to the charachter of the house and I took some of it up from the closets for patching/ repairing. However, my place has been mutillated over the years and I have slowly added back some charachter. Ultimately, whatever I do has to add resale value. I dont have a problem with putting in sweat equity... Ive already lost my shirt on that end. After the last project (completed last month) I'll have to pick my battles because with a 3 week old in the house, not a whole hell of a lot is going to get done (by me).
Joemilw
You're right there is no value in that wood and from the sounds of your problem I think anything you do would be a disaster in waiting.. So forget filling gaps that big successully.
Next, what sort of equipment do you have to work with and how much time are you willing to spend instead of money?
If you want you can just buy some wood flooring and nail it down. It won't take all that much time. Flooring starts out at about a buck a sq.ft. and if we're speaking about say 25 x 20 room that's $500.00 dollars..
For something less than that but a whole lot of sweat equity you can make your own custom flooring which will look noteably nicer that the buck a sq.ft. stuff does.
This might be more work than the floor is worth, but its a thought......
Using a router, a straight-edge guide, and a plunge-cutting 45-degree chamfer bit, you can make the gouges very uniform is size and shape. It would then be reasonably easy to cut pieces of wood to fit pre-shaped gouges. They would need to have a triangular cross-section (two 45's and a 90).
Once put in place (glued), the floor could be sanded and refinished.
Politics is the antithesis of problem solving.
probably more work than I am willing to undertake. I actually did something similar in the areas that I patched. A 10 X 4 ft area took me 2 days and a separate 8 X2 ft area took about the same.
I removed a couple walls and the boards on either side did not line up, so in addition to the gaps, I had intersecting and offset boards to finger into eachother.... not gonna do that again.
The more I think about it, I should probably just rip it up and start new. I can always stockpile the maple that is in good shape. The problem is the cost. 1000 sq ft of wood floors can add up in a hurry.
Then again, If I could fill some of the gaps and sand, staining a nice dark ebony would hide some of the imperfections.
Decisions decisions.
Edited 12/3/2007 4:22 pm by joemilw
I have heard of using sisal rope to fill the gaps. It comes in various small sized, and is fairly cheap. It stains and glues well. Also it has give so it wont crack out. It may be obvious, maybe not so much.
We did our attic, where the sub-floor is the finished floor. It is yellow-pine, but not T-and-G.
Anyway, I don't know that any of the cracks are as wide as 1/2" but 1/4" we surely have. We just did the sawdust plus poly as grout, and it is holding up reasonably well. You could always try it, and if it doesn't work, not much lost other than your time.
Anyway, get a clean 5 gallon bucket. Keep the sawdust from sanding in another clean bucket. Put a couple of inches of sawdust in the clean bucket and add oil based polyurethane to it, just enough to wet it. Mix thoroughly. You can squeeze it on the floor, or use a grout float. Repeat as needed.
I think it is best to use the same finish as you want for the floor, but you can probably get away with other finishes on top if you want.
The rope idea is something that has been used for a while. That is your only real option, anything else will not allow the wood to move and either the wood will buckle or the filler will crack up fall out. Clean out your gaps then put in the rope and stain to match the flooring color.
I don't think you could make yourself happy. I can't imagine a half inch crack being filled successfully. Even eigth inch cracks are not pretty after being filled and going though a season of shrinkage and expansion. Why? Because in the summer the wood expands and squeezes the stuff thinner. Then in the winter it shrinks and cracks some again. When this happens some will stick to one side and some to the other side. Some will separate from both sides and begin getting sucked out with the vacuum.
If that would be a foot or so wide section I could see it might be worth a repair but if it's scattered all over the area I'd call it hopeless.
What about carpet?
Or, if only wood makes you happy, the three eigths inch thick engineered stuff that Menards sells right there in Milw [is that where you are Joe?] for $1.50 after rebate. Lay that on top of your floor crossways and you would cover lots of sins and be pretty happy about it and it would only raise your floor 3/8". If you can't stand the raise in height then you have to remove the old floor. IMHO it's not worth relaying and resanding and refinishing unless you're a gluton for punishment. Without the old floor in there you can go for whatever thickness is necessary to match your other floors with the engineered flooring. That stuff is prefinished and if you start right even an amateur wouldn't have any more problems with it. LOL Mesic