How do you repair a damaged wooden floor?

by Lavanya Aircon Aircon Servicing Singapore

Hardwood flooring is one of the best and most sustainable options available in market when it comes to flooring. It looks premium to have wood flooring in the house, rather than tiles, Bamboo, Laminate, and vinyl, etc. But hardwood flooring is the direct opposite of its name. In fact, it requires more care from house owners than other types of floorings. In most cases, hardwood flooring needs more servicing to run for the long term.

No doubt homeowners do everything that they can do to protect wooden flooring from damage. But kids and pets are always there who put a stain, dent, gouge on it while playing, sometimes completely damage upper surface.

1. Common Reasons for wooden floor Damage

a) Normal Wear and Tear: This is the most common reason for wooden floor damage. No matter how much you try to protect it, normal wear and tear always happens. The actual finish that protects the floor from being scratched, begin to wear off due to pets and shoes. As soon as this finish wears off, signs, such as scratches, dings, and dents start to occur.

b) Peeling Finish: Over time, the finish of the wooden floor starts getting fade. The actual shine of the floor lost due to traffic movement in the house as well as sun rays, coming through your glass doors every day.

c) Cracks from Nails: The Nail used in flooring to adjust boards tightly used to get cracked from surrounding because of high force. When it happens, gaps between floor boards start occurring.

d) Scratches: Scratches are also common damage that happens to wooden flooring. Falling of spiked tools, movement with heels on, shifting of furniture and appliance without the pad beneath them are responsible for scratches on the hardwood.

e) Water Damage: Wooden flooring gets the most damage due to water and moisture. Unfortunately, the house owner takes it granted when a water spill on the floor. Things becomes serious when the lower surface of the board gets moisture for too long and starts rotting.

2. Ways to repair wooden floor damage

Wooden flooring can be repaired easily if the damage is minor. However, if the damage has scattered on a wide area of a floor, then these repairs cannot be done easily by households. Minor dents, scratches, and small rots can be repaired with some easy DIY tricks.

When damage is small: If the damage on the floor restricted to one or two boards only. Then it can be repaired easily by the replacement of the board. With the help of some tools and little expertise, the repair can be performed.

3. Scratches on wooden flooring

(i) Minor scratches can be fixed simply with the use of stain pen and tissue paper. (ii)Those scratches which are large and deep in nature may need to fill with melted wax. (iii) Very deep cuts on the wooden floor should be repaired with Wood filler, restricted to the affected area only. Read our detailed guide on filling the wooden floor scratches.

4. Step to repair a damaged wooden board on the floor

Identifying the damage: Checking the wooden floor to see the extent of damage is necessary to know if the repair should be done by you or a professional. Sometimes the damage that shows on the above surface looks too small but when you start the repair, you get to know its real range.
Gathering the tools: If you have identified the place and size of the damage, the next thing is to gather all the required tools at one place just to be focused when doing the repair. This is important because if you begin the repair and between process, you don’t find a tool that is extremely necessary to do the repair, you will be in problem. You will require tools such as Saw, Nails, Plier, Chisel, Flathead screwdriver, Measurement tape, replacement wood, Vacuum cleaner, and wood glue.
Starting the repair: Start the repair by marking the damaged area with a marker on the board. Don’t over-mark it, else you will be in big trouble of repairing more than needed. Mark only places, where damage can be seen.

Take the electric saw and start cutting the piece that is marked.
Take the piece out with the help of a chisel and flathead screwdriver.
Clean the area with a vacuum cleaner and don’t leave any wood peel over there.
Place the replacement wood of same size and shape
The detailed explanation of process is at this blog, Repair or polish the wooden floor

Perfection needed: The above-described process should be done with perfection. If you failed to do so, there will be a gap occurred to adjacent boards. This will make your flooring look ugly and weird. For a simple mistake, your whole surface may lose its beauty.
Finishing is necessary: If you have done all the steps as described, the last step is to do the finishing of wood with the same color, applied on the remaining flooring.

6. When damage is extreme

In case, there are major dents, and deep scratches all over the wooden flooring, it is not recommended to do the repair manually. For the large repairs of wooden floor, big machines are used. These kind of repairs can be done by professionals only, and we should leave their work for themselves. Wooden flooring is costly. Only experts with high skills can reduce your cost of repair as well as bring its original charm back. Always take the help of professionals in case of major damages of wooden floor.

7. Conclusion

Like every product, wooden flooring also has some pros and cons. Wooden flooring tends to damage more than other floorings due to carelessness. But it’s one of the best options if you want to make a long term investment on floorings. You will not need to replace it for almost 8-10 years, unlike other floorings.