Question: We have just purchased a home and were told the initial owner of the house had gotten fed up of hearing the floors squeak so he apparently decided to nail them down and placed low pile carpet over them. We move in June and want to take up the carpet we’re a little afraid however of what we are going to find. He may have only put one or two nails here or there – or- he may have gone crazy with the hammer – who knows? So, if the damage is limited we’d like to repair it ourselves – how do we go about doing it? Thanks for the help. Answer: Dear Donna If you find that he used large headed standard nails, instead of finishing nails, don’t try to set these nails below the surface of the wood, it will crack the hardwood. So instead go to www.leevalley.com and check out the restorer’s cat’s paw. I use the 12″ model to remove the most stubborn nails from the surface of the wood with minimal damage. You just hammer the paw under the and gently pry up and out. All that said, once you have removed all the nails, you may find that some of the boards are damaged beyond repair, go to the repair article I wrote available in the search box at the top of this web page. You should be able to do minor repairs yourself. And the holes the nails left should be filled with a colored latex filler, that will match the final color of the wood (if you intend to refinish it). If you don’t want to refinish the wood now you can still use this filler, but you must be sure to wipe off all of the excess before it dries. If the floor squeaks, there is a cure for this, but this is another question for another time. Oh, and if re-sanding of the floor sounds too daunting you can try chemically stripping it instead. But you should also read the second part of the floor maintenance article, to see if you can save the old floor finish.

Question: I have just pulled up carpet to find hardwood floors underneath. I would like to keep them, but I need to fix them up a bit. There is dried spackle or something stuck to it. I don’t know if I should try to sand it off, or if there is something I can put on it to dissolve it. How should I do this? Heather Answer: Dear Heather You can usually remove old plaster off floors, by applying warm water to it. Then once it has softened use a blunt putty knife to push it off. You could also wet a white clean rag, and apply this to the plaster and then apply a hot clothes iron, this my work better on really suborn plaster. If it’s latex paint try a product called Goof-Off at http://www.goof-off.com. You might also want to use a pH neutral cleaner on all the floors. Be sure to read the second half of my cleaning article in the Floored News section of this site. It will give you lots of ideas on how to identity and fix up the finish on these old floors. You could spot sand the areas, but know your finish, so you can do effective touch-ups. If you find after reading the article that you have a fairly sound finish, and you intend to re-coat the floor, you can try some TSP with the warm water to help dissolve the old plaster spots. But if you are going to re-sand don’t bother with the plaster at all, it will come off with the first pass of the sander. Oh, by the way if you re-sand all the floors be sure to hire a pro to do at least the sanding, but consider doing the floor finish yourself. Save some money and become a floor finish expert. As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.

Question: Greetings Floor Doctor! My mother has moved out of her old home and it will be demolished. The hardwood floors are so nice though and we’d like to put them in another home. Her old home is not on a concrete slab, so I have no idea what’s under her hardwoods nor how they were installed or if they are tongue & grove, etc. (They don’t creak at all.) The home is at least 40+ years old. Since the house will be demolished I certainly don’t have to be neat with my removal system! 🙂 Please help! Then, (if I may ask another question please) what process will I use to adhere them to a home with a concrete slab (all carpet & vinyl tiles have been removed. Must you nail a plywood floor to the slab to nail the salvaged floor to? I’m clueless. We certainly don’t mind the man hours, and figure if it doesn’t work, we’re only out minimal dollars. Oh, by the way, I just had pine planking put into my place (upstairs onto plywood sub-flooring) and watched the men install that. Not too hard, just time consuming. Well, any help you offer will be greatly appreciated! Thanks so much in advance! Answer: Dear Denise You remove an old floor the opposite way it went in. Start at the far end of the room where the last few boards were laid. These will have their tongues pointing toward the wall. The last 2-3 rows will be face nailed. You will only have to crack one board in the last row to remove it. Then use a cat’s paw restorer at http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.asp?SID=&ccurrency=1&page=32014&category=1,43456,43399. This tool will gently remove the boards without damaging them. Try to scoot the thin edge of the catspaw under where the floor is nailed, and pry just a little at a time. Once you work backwards into the room and get some working space you can use a larger tool: http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.asp?SID=&ccurrency=1&page=32015&category=1,43456,43399. The renovator bar will ease up the most stubborn boards. I know you will want to use a hammer and screw driver for this instead. But it is a pleasure to work with good tools and you will be saving valuable wood in the process. Oh, and once you have the board removed half the nails will still be in the boards, these you can remove by gripping the nail just where it comes out the Back of the board, with a nail puller: http://www.leevalley.com/hardware/page.asp?SID=&ccurrency=1&page=32024&category=3,41306,41331 Pull the nail through the BACK of the board. This works better than hammering it back the way it came in because even though it will make a hole in the tongue, it won’t damage the face of the board. While you’re at Lee Valley there is one more tool called a nail spinner which is invaluable for installing the last few rows where the power nailer cannot reach: http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.asp?SID=&ccurrency=1&page=32273&category=1,180,42334 Oh, and as to your other question of how to install this wood to a concrete subfloor, we have an article on this very subject, which can be found at the top of the web page in the search box. This article details the 3-4 different methods of fastening this type of floor to concrete. It will be a difficult job in any case, but there is enough info in the article to help you through it, if you have some carpentry experience.

Question: Months ago, my boyfriend decided to dye his hair black and walk around my hardwood floors in the process. Needless to say, I have clusters of black drops on my floors now and not the money to have them removed. What do you suggest I do ? I went to a hardware store, and they suggested I try a number of solvents until I found one that might work. I’ve only used paint thinner and clorox, the latter working on only one spot–and only slightly. I hope this is enough information to go on. I have no idea about this stuff. Alexis Answer: Dear Alexis The first thing you should do is to remove any wax finish from the area that got splattered. Just the fact that the dye went right into the wood is a clue to me that there isn’t much finish on this floor. First take some of that paint thinner solvent you bought and use either fine steel wool, or those FLAT nylon dish scrubbing pads (the white ones are non abrasive), and vigorously scrub the area involved. While the solvent is still wet remove it with a clean paper towel or rag. Let it dry for a while or speed it up a bit with a hair drier set on low. This would have only removed the wax and dirt from the finish. Apply a drop of water to that area, and see if it soaks in or turns the spot darker. If it does, it means you have virtually no finish on your floor (or as I say, an “unsound finish”). But if it beads up and stays there for several minutes, it means you have a sound finish, and the dye has colored only the finish. Oh, and I might add at this point if the finish is unsound you could try a stronger solvent like Lacquer Thinner to remove the spots. And even the Xylenol in the product called Goof-Off Regular might work at this point, they are both cheap and worth a try. So, if the floor finish is unsound, you should be able to remove the dark dye stains from the wood with a chlorine type bleach, but not the kind you were using. Better to use swimming pool bleach, called Shock Treatment (dry calcium or sodium hypochlorite). Mix the crystals with hot water, until solution is saturated. Apply to the spot and it should work right away, but try twice if needed and wait overnight. Neutralize the bleached area with vinegar, so it doesn t ooze chlorine droplets after the wood is finished. Wash it all off with lots of distilled water and let the wood again dry overnight, before refinishing, if it did work. Sometimes even this bleach will take too much color out of the wood, and you will need to replace some of the wood s tone with a light wood stain, before you replace the finish. And as far as applying this bleach, you can either swab in on a large area encompassing all the dots in that region. Or (more difficult) apply it only with a small brush to the individual dots. Seeing how you will have to touch up with a wood stain anyway, the shotgun approach I think is better. The wood will have turned rough overnight, so gently sand it with fine steel wool, and add a splash a paint thinner to see what the final color of the wood when finished is. Like I said above use a light colored wood stain (Minwax has small containers and a variety of colors) to blend in the slightly whitened wood. Use a small brush for this, and if you have gone too dark, you can remove most of the wood stain with steel wool and paint thinner, let it dry and start again. If all this sounds daunting, believe me IT IS, and even pros can goof up on jobs like this, so go easy on yourself (and your boyfriend if he’s helping, and covering all costs, and taking you out for a really really nice dinner and show). Once you have the stain re-matching a bit, let it dry 24 hours or more. Now either apply a thin coat of paste wax on the area, or some orange shellac (check for too much of a color change with shellac) and then some paste wax. The shellac (if coated on the de-waxed area) will dry in almost any conditions, and once steel wooled will provide a better surface for the past wax to shine. Don’t expect this to look perfect, but better than before. If you were lucky enough to have found a sound finish, when doing that water test (remember the water drop test ?) you should be able to remove most of the stain by sanding lightly down through the layers of floor finish. Use 120 grit garnet sandpaper, and sand until the dots fade and disappear. Then determine what your floor finish is and re-touch the area, and consider re-coating the row of boards involved. You might ask, how do I determine what my floor finish is ? Well there is a section on this subject in my free floor cleaning article, the second part (worth a read might help you save your old finish). But to save you time I will paste it in right here. Do all these tests on the de-waxed area. You can use various solvents to determine just what generic type of finish it is. The first solvent to try on the finish is alcohol. Use rubbing alcohol that you find at the drug store. Apply a few drops of this in a inconspicuous spot and observe. If, in a few minutes, it starts softening the finish and makes it sticky, the finish is shellac. This is the least durable of all the film type finishes so that may be why you are having problems washing the floor. A lot of people start waxing these shellac finishes and in order for this test to work you will have had to remove the wax with mineral spirits or paint thinner first. The next step is to apply a few drops of lacquer thinner on a different area and watch this. If the finish is a lacquer or a water based finish, the lacquer thinner will start to soften it. Unless the floor has a pale look to it and has been resanded in the last 15 years, it’s unlikely that it is a water based finish. To prove if it is a water based finish apply a few drops of toluene or xylene and if the finish softens it’s a water based coating, and not a lacquer finish. If you find that none of these solvents affect the finish, you then have some sort of reactive finish, polyurethane varnish being the most common used on wood floors for the past 30 years. There are other reactive finishes but for the sake of maintenance and recoating it really doesn’t matter. So, if you had a sound finish, and now you know what it is, go buy some and apply a small amount to that area to see if it blends in. If the new floor finish is too light, again go back to the bare wood (paint thinner while finish is wet) and use a wood stain first, and then the floor finish, and Bob’s your Uncle, you’ve done it !

Question: Beth Hi, we have just ripped up some hideous carpet to find wood floors under it–BUT, they are in desperate need of work but I don’t know what, how, etc. It looks like there is rubber backing stuck on it in places and a grayish looking coating of something, and probably a little carpet glue. Is there anything I can do (please don’t say put the hideous carpet back) to clean up the floor? Thank you for your help. Answer: Dear Beth You may be able to remove the glue with odorless mineral spirits, or lacquer thinner if that fails. And lastly a product called Goof-Off at http://www.goof-off.com. Use a clean white rag at first, then a non abrasive white scrub pad. For really big gobs you may have to use a dull putty knife to push off the softened glue. In the worst case you can chemically strip the glue off the floor, and be sure to read about this process in the Floored News section. This will remove all the floor finish from that area, so this may be part of stripping the whole floor. You should really read my floor maintenance article, also in the Floored News section of this site. It will show you how to identify old finishes and possible fix them up without having to re-sand the whole floor. As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.

Question: How do I remove glue from hardwoods that had ceramic tile over the hardwoods? How do I remove carpet matting or padding that is stuck to the hardwoods? And last but not least, how do I remove linoleum that stuck to the hardwood floor after removing the linoleum? Besides scraping is there any solvents or products to use that will not harm the floor? Answer: Dear Daniel Try warm water and a pH neutral cleaner with a paint scraper first, this is the safest, and may dissolve some adhesives. I discuss these cleaners in the maintenance article in the ‘How To’s’ section of this site. If that fails (and it probably will) you can then try odorless mineral spirits, and if that fails lacquer thinner. And lastly Goof-Off (www.goof-off.com, they make some adhesive removers also). Squirt the solvent under the glue and try pushing it off with a good quality putty knife. In some cases a heat gun and the putty knife may also work, there are lots of different glues out there. Oh, and the heat gun is best for the linoleum, just heat and lift with a long handled putty knife so you don’t burn yourself. If all that proves ineffective try a safe paint stripper (Citristrip at www.cirtistrip.com). Also read my article on this great stuff in the ‘Product Reviews’ section of this web site. But as a last resort you can use some of the more dangerous methyline chloride strippers, just leave the house as the stripper does its work.

Question: I recently installed an unfinished natural oak floor. After the floor was finished with 3 coats we put the expandable foam around my new windows. Sure enough, some of the foam got on my new floor. This stuff comes off vinyl fairly slick after it dries, but not the hardwood. Any ideas as to what I can use to remove this eyesore? Joe Answer: Dear Joe It may be a little risky to be scrubbing the finish (you didn’t say what it was) until it has cured. Oil modified poly takes a month to cure, and most water based finishes take two weeks. But if you must do it right away, test these methods in a corner somewhere. First try a white non abrasive nylon scrub pad and a pH neutral cleaner for these spots. Read about these cleaners in the How To�s section of this web site. If that fails try odorless mineral spirits, with a white cloth, and then the pad, then naphtha, then lacquer thinner, and lastly xylene in a product called Goof-Off at http://www.goof-off.com. Again with each try the cloth first and then the pad. If all these solvents have no effect you will be forced to sand it off and then touch up the finish. That may be the least toxic way to go anyway, instead of handling all those solvents.

Question: Mary Sue I am really afraid I ruined our hardwood floor. My dog urinated on it one evening and I didn’t find it til the next evening. I poured water on it supposedly to dilute it, then used the “Murphy’s oil soap” cleaner. I rinsed it really well, but it remains not really sticky, but not smooth and slippery like the rest of the floor. Anything I can do now? Can’t afford to get it refinished. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Answer: Dear Mary Sue If by now, there is not a dark urine stain on the wood, you may be lucky, and this golden liquid didn’t get into the wood itself. So, clean the floor with a pH neutral cleaner as suggested in the Floored News section (the floor maintenance article-be sure to read it), and see if that takes the stickiness out. If that doesn’t remove the stickiness try some odorless mineral spirits and a white non abrasive nylon scrub pad. Then see if it dries out on it’s own in a few days. Email again if these remedies don’t work, and describe the floor finish you have. Tell me if you’ve waxed this floor, or is it a prefinished wood floor, with a factory conversion finish on it. As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.

Question: Jennifer I have hard wood floors that have a few dents and gouges in them. I have heard that you can use an iron and a towel to try to “steam up” the gouge. Is this true? What other tips can you give me for trying to reduce the visibility of these flaws? Also, I have several medium depth, long in length, scratches that I need to repair. Hope you can help! Thanks! Answer: Dear Jennifer You could try puffing it out with steam. Use a pin to poke small holes in the bottom of the hole through the finish. Wet a corner of a clean white rag. Press it to the dent, and apply the tip of a hot clothes iron. It should swell the dent back up to the surface in most cases. But you will may have to remove the finish first if that first method doesn’t work. You can do this by sanding the dented area, or applying a chemical stripper to expose the bare wood. Then apply a wet corner of a white clean rag to the spot, just as you apply the hot tip of a clothes iron. Use distilled water so you don’t cause a mineral stain if your water has iron in it. This should puff the wood back to the surface. You should let this dry overnight, and then fine sand and attempt a touch up. You can also try drops of rubbing alcohol and the tip of a hot new clean soldering iron. Rubbing alcohol contains enough water to puff out the dent (on bare wood) without damaging the finish next to it too much. But if this doesn’t quite do try a colored latex wood filler. I like the Le Pages brand at http://www.LePageproducts.com/ProductCatalog/detail.asp?catid=25&subid=56& plid=305&PID=687. Be sure to use a color just a tad darker than the floor, and maybe mix two colors together. You may have to make deeper holes in the bottom of the dent for this stuff to key in. Fill to the top, but be sure to wipe off any excess from the surrounding wood, else a nasty smear will dry there. Use a wet cloth for this, then a dry cloth to make sure it’s all gone. It may take several fills, and drying overnight, to bring it up to the surface. But now you have to touch up the finish, and most likely re-coat the entire floor. You will need to know your floor finish. If you don’t read the second half of the wood floor maintenance article in the Floored News section of this site. Most floor finishes, and especially poly will not blend in well, and you will have to re-coat the whole floor, and even then it will not perfect. I know, because I have to do such repairs for insurance companies, and even I have a hard time making the repair invisible. But it can be done. Sand well between all coats, and allow each coat to dry 1-2 days. I’m talking about the touch-up coats. Once the area is filled in with at least 2-3 coats of finish, let this cure for about a week, and sand level, with 120 grit sandpaper, then re-coat the whole floor, or just that board involved. As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.

Question: Is there a way to get black mold stains out of a hardwood floor. I bought a house that had hardwood under the rugs, and somehow water penetrated the wood throughout the surface, and through scratches and now there is mold in the wood. Can you help me? Tony Answer: Dear Tony The stains may be a combination of water stain and a sort of dye made by the mold. There are three different kinds of wood bleach and they each act on different stains. For all these bleaches you will need to remove all the finish from the wood surface, either by sanding or chemical stripping. If you sand this will give you a chance to see how deep the stain is. If you are really lucky you can sand most or all of the stain out. Use 80 grit sandpaper, and finish with 100-120 grit. The first is oxalic acid, in liquid or crystal form. This will remove most water and rust stains. Apply a strong solution and wait several hours or overnight if needed. Wash off wood surface with lots of water, with a bit of baking soda to neutralize the acid. A lot of deck brighteners have oxalic acid in them. The next to try is a chlorine bleach. This will remove most dye stains, caused by juice, blood or coffee spills. The weakest form of this bleach is regular household bleach. It’s worth a try ,but it may be ineffective. Better to use swimming pool bleach (dry calcium hypochlorite), and mix with hot water, until solution is saturated. Apply to the spot and it should work right away, but try twice if needed and wait overnight. Wash off with lots of distilled water and let the wood dry overnight, before refinishing if it did work. And lastly for organic stains, like urine and feces, your only hope is to use hydrogen peroxide, in a very strong and dangerous concentration. Klean-Srtip is readily available in North America, and comes with good instructions. Visit their web site at www.kleanstrip.com for info on how to use this stuff. Click on the product button, them the wood bleach link. This will generally turn the dark spots to a off white color, which you will have to blend in with a light colored wood stain to match the color of your finished wood floor. With all these bleaches, they are water based, so they will raise the grain and make the wood rough. Be sure to let the wood dry overnight. And be careful when you sand it smooth not to sand out the bleached effect. Final sand with little pressure with 120 grit sandpaper. Or you can repair the spot. Read the wood floor repair article available in the search box at the top of this web page.