I'm doing 3/4 inch solid hardwood floor installation and I have a
couple of questions. This is unfinished and the floor will obviously
need to be sanded and finished afterwards. The wood is oak.
First, there are a couple of places where there will be some small
gaps between some of the wood. They aren't big gaps, but I obviously
need some type of filler before sanding and finishing. What do I use
to fill these?
Second, my mom's house has hardwood flooring throughout her house
for the past 40+ years. Most of the pieces are shorter in length
compared to the wood that I'm installing. Most of her wood had pieces
shorter than a foot, while the wood I'm installing varies from under
a foot to over three feet. Why has that changed? Does her house have
good or poor quality oak flooring or do I have the good or poorer
quality flooring? Or is that just how it is done now?
TIA.
Kruse asks:
>I'm doing 3/4 inch solid hardwood floor installation and I have a
>couple of questions. This is unfinished and the floor will obviously
>need to be sanded and finished afterwards. The wood is oak.
>First, there are a couple of places where there will be some small
>gaps between some of the wood. They aren't big gaps, but I obviously
>need some type of filler before sanding and finishing. What do I use
>to fill these?
Nothing. Any filler you put in, besides colored caulk, will look terrible and
will eventually work its way out of the gap because of wood movement.
>Second, my mom's house has hardwood flooring throughout her house
>for the past 40+ years. Most of the pieces are shorter in length
>compared to the wood that I'm installing. Most of her wood had pieces
>shorter than a foot, while the wood I'm installing varies from under
>a foot to over three feet.
Sounds like a type sold, not a quality level. Most of the strip flooring I'm
used to seeing comes in much longer strips (solid wood: the laminates come in a
wide and sometimes screwy variety of lengths). Quality does not usually depend
on length, though it is possible to get good short cuts from a bad long board,
which is often done to keep from discarding the board.
Charlie Self
"It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from
man."
H. L. Mencken
[email protected] (Kruse) wrote in
news:[email protected]:
> I'm doing 3/4 inch solid hardwood floor installation and I have a
> couple of questions. This is unfinished and the floor will obviously
> need to be sanded and finished afterwards. The wood is oak.
> First, there are a couple of places where there will be some small
> gaps between some of the wood. They aren't big gaps, but I obviously
> need some type of filler before sanding and finishing. What do I use
> to fill these?
> Second, my mom's house has hardwood flooring throughout her house
> for the past 40+ years. Most of the pieces are shorter in length
> compared to the wood that I'm installing. Most of her wood had pieces
> shorter than a foot, while the wood I'm installing varies from under
> a foot to over three feet. Why has that changed? Does her house have
> good or poor quality oak flooring or do I have the good or poorer
> quality flooring? Or is that just how it is done now?
> TIA.
Depends on the width of the cracks. Typically a crack up to about a 1/16
can be filled with a floor filler and nobody will ever know. There are some
variables tho if you are staining. The very best filler for duability and
colr is wood flour cement or wood doe base mixed with fine sanding dust of
the same material you are filling.
For wider cracks you can simply rip a filler piece or sliver and glue it
in. It blends right in and won't be detectable by anybody but you. I
suppose the question is why leave a crack that large. Smaller cracks are
common and normal with milling errors. You don't need anything besides a
screwdriver to pull boards tight along the wall line either.
Your mothers floor was laid with 'shorts', pieces culled from the standard
lengths before the length standards were modified to allow shorts. Shorts
were considerable cheaper to buy, but more labor to install, usually white
and red mixed. Some would say not as attractive with the color variation
and excessive butts.
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Home Depot sells fillers for using on hardwood floors. They are right in the
hardwood floor section. It is a puddy in a tube and works really well in
hiding the gaps.
You could cut down of the gaps if you use the tool for holding the boards
tightly together when you get close to walls. I drill a block into the
subfloor and use the tool to pull the boards together so that the gap is
eleimated. The tool is quite expensive but worth it.
"Kruse" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I'm doing 3/4 inch solid hardwood floor installation and I have a
> couple of questions. This is unfinished and the floor will obviously
> need to be sanded and finished afterwards. The wood is oak.
> First, there are a couple of places where there will be some small
> gaps between some of the wood. They aren't big gaps, but I obviously
> need some type of filler before sanding and finishing. What do I use
> to fill these?
> Second, my mom's house has hardwood flooring throughout her house
> for the past 40+ years. Most of the pieces are shorter in length
> compared to the wood that I'm installing. Most of her wood had pieces
> shorter than a foot, while the wood I'm installing varies from under
> a foot to over three feet. Why has that changed? Does her house have
> good or poor quality oak flooring or do I have the good or poorer
> quality flooring? Or is that just how it is done now?
> TIA.
"Kruse" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I'm doing 3/4 inch solid hardwood floor installation and I have a
> couple of questions. This is unfinished and the floor will obviously
> need to be sanded and finished afterwards. The wood is oak.
> First, there are a couple of places where there will be some small
> gaps between some of the wood. They aren't big gaps, but I obviously
> need some type of filler before sanding and finishing. What do I use
> to fill these?
> Second, my mom's house has hardwood flooring throughout her house
> for the past 40+ years. Most of the pieces are shorter in length
> compared to the wood that I'm installing. Most of her wood had pieces
> shorter than a foot, while the wood I'm installing varies from under
> a foot to over three feet. Why has that changed? Does her house have
> good or poor quality oak flooring or do I have the good or poorer
> quality flooring? Or is that just how it is done now?
> TIA.
I don't know how large of a gap we're talking about, but when I put down a
3/4" hardwood floor I had a place with a small gap that I filled.
Personally, I thought the filler looked worse than the gap.
todd