Question: We have small gaps between a few planks. This is a result of houseplant plastic trays that have leaked water. All plants that once lived in our living and dining rooms have met an untimely death. There is no stain, just a few small gaps that I feel could be filled with some type of wood filler and stained to match the test of the floor. Am I correct or way off base here? Thank you, Keely Answer: Dear Keely If the gaps are very small, less that 1/8″, I would just leave them alone. All wood floors will develop gaps in time, and this just adds to their character. But if it really bothers you can fill them with a colored latex putty. Try the products at www.leevalley.com (prod. # 80K86.10). Be sure to choose a color only just a tad darker than the wood floor. You can mix these colors if you wish. But be sure to wipe off the excess right away with a wet cloth, then a dry one, else it will leave a dry dull smear on the wood. You could also use a non drying colored wax beaumontage, and wipe this off with odorless mineral spirits. Again at Lee Valley prod. # 53Z01.41. The latex putty is easier and safer to use, but it will dry hard. You can use an artists brush to apply some floor finish to the filler after it has dried overnight. But if the boards are loose, or move seasonally this filler will crack and fall out. The non drying colored putty cannot be finished with a polyurethane, but will remain flexible for years.

Question: I had #2 oak flooring installed last fall over 800 feet of my house. I am troubled by gaps (wide enough to stand credit card up in) that have developed in multiple instances between two boards. It is random throughout the 3 rooms rather than in an area. The installer and wholesaler came out and after looking blamed me the owner stating that keeping my heat at 64 degrees was the major cause and that to fill the cracks would be trouble as the fill would bulge out when it got warmer. The wood was onsite almost three weeks prior to installation and I feel they are shining me on. Prior floors I have had and those of my friends haven’t exhibited the number of or scope or the gaps I am faced with. I live in the Seattle area which is high humidity in the winter. How can I differentiate between bad workmanship and natural processes? Answer: Dear Jim I’m familiar with the weather in Seattle. I have a sister in Port Townsend, and I’ve lived on the the West coast the first half of my life. The outdoor winter weather has little to do with the way your floors behave, unless they were incorrectly installed. And temperature affects wood almost not at all. Wood being a hygroscopic material, will gather moisture from surrounding air and material until it reaches an Equilibrium Moisture content. Now that all said, if you have a crawl space under this floor and your subfloor is less than 1″ thick of plywood, you can get moisture incursion from under the floor. If the crawl space is damp this can happen winter or summer. But during the winter when you heat the top of the floor these slightly expanded floor boards will shrink back into place leaving gaps. Most folks leave the indoor air far too dry for wood floor to behave well in the winter. Next time you go to a museum, you will see their hygrometers pegged at 50% all year round. So the ideal in a home (in any climate) is to have the indoor relative humidity range from 40-60%. Avoid the swings of 30% or more. The installers did what they were supposed to. Except they did not inform you of these facts. And hey, you paid them right, why am I doing their job ? The EMC of the wood that was brought in was probably between 9-12% (I’m guessing this, check a local wood shop). Your area has a specific range of EMC that indoor wood has to have before it is installed as flooring an other solid wood products. If you were to complain against this company you would have to prove that the EMC of the wood was too high. But then the effects of which you speak would have happened the very first winter heating season. When you allow this EMC to go up during the summer or late fall when you wish not to heat. The finished wood slowly rises in it’s MC and settles once it reaches that new equilibrium. Then in the late fall you throw the heat on one day a bake the floor to desert dryness. Now you can imagine what’s going ot happen. If this floor has not warped by now you are lucky, and you must have a heated basement or crawl space or very thick subfloor. And as long as the floor was nailed down, and not stapled, the wood and nails can handle this movement, and by spring the floor will begin to swell up and most of the cracks will disappear, but not all. Never fill a floor until the Spring, and use a colored latex filler that matches the floor finish. Best not to fill at all. I’ll explain later about the filler if you wish. Oh, by second grade you mean I hope select and better grade, not the knarly Common #1 or #2. These lower grades do cause their won problems. As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.

Question: Our hardwood floor is about 4 years old (oak),it is a sand in place type. There has developed, or at least became obvious, small openings between a few of the boards. How can these be repaired. I seem to get a lot of different answers. The spaces are about a 16 of an inch wide and vard in length from 2 to 4 inches. Your help would be appreciated. Thank you. Walt Murphy Answer: Dear Walt These are not considered by the industry to a defect in the floor , but a normal seasonal change in the floor. And you will hear that in the Spring the gaps will go away on their own. And while this may be partly true, sometimes too thin subfloor can contribute to the gaping or worse yet the use of OSB as a subfloor. Floors that are stapled have a shifting problem also. The best thing to do is to wait until spring and do some minor cosmetic filling with a colored latex filler. My favorite is the Le Pages brand at http://www.LePageproducts.com/ProductCatalog/detail.asp?catid=25x=56& plid=305x=687. But be sure to wipe off all the excess right away with a wet cloth and then a dry one. Else the filler will dry as a messy film on the surface of the wood finish. But wait. Have you been doing your part in stabilizing the environment this solid wood is in ? You should maintain an indoor humidity level of about 40-60%. And I mean all year round. So, if this was a particularly hot and humid summer in your area, you may have been tempted to throw the doors and windows open, rather than waste energy using the air conditioner. Even floors finished on site are susceptible to these high humid conditions, and will swell up quite a bit. The boards will push against each other, and move into the expansion gaps at the long edges. You will not notice this. The indoor humidity can easily reach 80% for weeks if not months. But at some point in the Fall we turn the heat on and bake these floors to desert dryness. An un-humidified house can easily reach a 25% level in the middle of winter. These extremes on solid wood will cause the wood to reach an equilibrium moisture content of as high as 14% in the summer and as little as 5% in the dead of winter. And this movement will easily cause the gaps you speak of and worse. So the answer in the long term is to keep the RANGE of humidity as small as possible. Not more than 20% if you can. Humidify in the winter and air condition or at least dehumidify the basement in the summer. And have the floor re-coated every 5-10 years depending on use. Be sure to read the first part of the cleaning article in the Floored News section of this site. The judicious use of the right cleaning products can help also. If you found this information helpful, please explore the Wood Floor Doctor.com by visiting the rest of our website. As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.-

Question: We bought a new house that has hardwood flooring in the foyer and kitchen. We are in the house 4 months and noticed wide gaps between the planks. Some I can even put a dime, nickel and quarter down the gaps. Is this normal? Is this an installation problem or refinishing problem? Denise Answer: Dear Denise Here we go again the amazing winter shrinking floors. This is especially a problem with prefinished floors, and if the floor was stapled down on OSB as the subfloor, there will be all kinds of shifting. In your case there may be a corresponding seam in the subfloor and some minor settling of the foundation can also cause this shift. It’s not so alarming just something to keep track of. But wait. Have you been doing your part in stabilizing the environment this solid wood is in ? You should maintain an indoor humidity level of about 40-60%. And I mean all year round. So, if this was a particularly hot and humid summer in your area, you may have been tempted to throw the doors and windows open, rather than waste energy using the air conditioner. Prefinished floor are not finished on site, so they are susceptible to these high humid conditions, and will swell up quite a bit. The boards will push against each other, and move into the expansion gaps at the long edges. You will not notice this. The indoor humidity can easily reach 80% for weeks if not months. But at some point in the Fall we turn the heat on and bake these floors to desert dryness. An un-humidified house can easily reach a 25% level in the middle of winter. These extremes on solid wood will cause the wood to reach an equilibrium moisture content of as high as 14% in the summer and as little as 5% in the dead of winter. And this movement will easily cause the gaps you speak of and worse. The immediate goal is for you to bring your indoor humidity up to at least 35-40% right now. If you are uncertain of your indoor humidity get a wet-dry bulb thermometer at http://www.e-sci.com/genSci/9/1044/1099/9955.html. This is the proper instrument to measure indoor humidity. The cheap metal ones are not at all accurate, and may mislead you. You can use a furnace powered humidifier, or the portable ones. And in the summer be sure to de-humidify your basement, constantly. and when the indoor humidity level reach past 60 % use the air conditioner. Do all this if you expect your solid wood floors to stay tight. The gaps that you have now are probably permanent. Don’t put any filler into prefinished floors, it never looks good. In any case wait until spring before you do any filling, and do it sparingly. Don’t even think about repairs until the spring, the floors amy have corrected themselves by then, if you have been diligent in raising your indoor humidity. If you have to do repairs you will have to find a board a bit wider that yours, and of the same species. It will have to be ripped to fit. In the mean time read my article about wood floor repairs in the Hardwood Authority section. This sort of thing almost never happens to my site finished floors, the wood is so well sealed that the humidity changes affects it very little. A thick plywood subfloor helps also, and floor nails must be used, never staples. I bet you were never informed of any of this when you bought this floor. And I always re-nail my subfloors with 3″ nails before I start. As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.

Question: We have small gaps between a few planks. This is a result of house plant plastic trays that have leaked water. All plants that once lived in our living and dining rooms have met an untimely death. There is no stain, just a few small gaps that I feel could be filled with some type of wood filler and stained to match the test of the floor. Am I correct or way off base here? Thank you, Mrs. Keely Simpson Answer: Dear Mrs. Keely Simpson If the gaps are very small, less that 1/8″, I would just leave them alone. All wood floors will develop gaps in time, and this just adds to their character. But if it really bothers you you can fill them with a colored latex putty. Try the products at www.leevalley.com (prod. # 80K86.10). Be sure to choose a color only just a tad darker than the wood floor. You can mix these colors if you wish. But be sure to wipe off the excess right away with a wet cloth, then a dry one, else it will leave a dry dull smear on the wood. You could also use a non drying colored wax beaumontage, and wipe this off with odorless mineral spirits. Again at Lee Valley prod. # 53Z01.41. The latex putty is easier and safer to use, but it will dry hard. You can use an artists brush to apply some floor finish to the filler after it has dried overnight. But if the boards are loose, or move seasonally this filler will crack and fall out. The non drying colored putty cannot be finished with a polyurethane, but will remain flexible for years. Take your choice or leave it alone. If you found this information helpful, please explore the Wood Floor Doctor.com by visiting the rest of our website. As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.-

Question: After i have stripped my wooden floor boards what should i use to fill in between the gaps? Or should i fill in the gaps before i strip the boards? Answer: Dear Rebecca You can fill the gaps before AND during the sanding of the floor. I only presume that stripping to you means sanding to the bare wood.While it’s always best to fill gaps before you coarse sand a floor, you don’t always get them all. Before you do the medium grade sandpaper, fill all the spots you missed, with small amounts of filler. Just don’t goop it on this time as the medium paper will get clogged and become ineffective if it encounters too much filler. Don’t fill anymore after medium sanding, as the fine sandpaper clogs to easily. My favorite filler for small gaps and holes is the Le Pages brand at http://www.LePageproducts.com/ProductCatalog/detail.asp?catid=25x=56& plid=305x=687. This is a colored latex filler of good quality, and can be uses for gaps up to 3/16″ and holes up to 1/4″. Choose a color that is a tad darker that your finished floor. As the floor darkens with age it will look better. You can mix the colors. Filler is no substitute for wood, so in loose gaps it won’t stay in long. And it you have gaps 1/4″ and wider you will need another method, tell me if this is so. Loose and squeaky boards can be re-nailed, tell me if you need to know this also. Now once you have applied all but the last coat of finish on, you can still do a bit a spot filling with these tubes of filler. But you have to be sure to wipe all the excess off right away, or else it will dry as a smear on the finish. Wait 4 hours for it to dry before you coat for the last time. If you found this information helpful, please explore the Wood Floor Doctor.com by visiting the rest of our website. As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.

Question: I am a woodworker who has the desire and I believe ability to make my own wood floor. I also have several nice trees )oak, maple and Hickory that will come down on my land. I would like to turn these into wood flooring. The problem is I know little about the production of flooring. When I look at commercial flooring it looks very engineered. Maybe more then I could do in my shop. Do you know of any books or articles on production of flooring. Finding books on self installation and or care isn’t a problem. Finding information on making a wood flooring is. Thanks in advance. Andy Answer: Dear Andy With a little skill and some fancy wood working machinery, I’m sure you’d be able to mill your own T&G flooring out of your favorite trees. The very best book I have yet to read on the first part of this task (cutting and drying the wood) is told in detail by the various article collected by the Fine Woodworking Magazine folks at Taunton Press. The book is call “Fine Woodworking on Wood and How to Dry It”. 1986 by Taunton Press ISBN 0-918804-54-X. It had it last printing in 1998 so even though you may not find it new, the used book stores (on line possibly) may have it. You can also talk to the fine folks at Taunton Press at http://www.taunton.com. I just went through Taunton’s archives and couldn’t find anything published before 1988. And as you can see the book only contains article printed on or before 1986. This particular collection of articles contains all in the info on cutting the wood into planks on a chin saw milling machine, on up to more sophisticated band sawing. It talks about wood identification, problem wood, and finally a big section (12 articles) on how to dry wood properly. It’s well worth the trouble looking for this book. Sorry, but I cannot photo copy any of the pages for you. I could only synopsize the articles. Now once you have your wood cut and dried and thickness planed, I want to refer you to the simple method of T&G ing the wood by using a router table, and the router bits sold by Lee Valley Tools. This link will bring you to their 4 in one router bit that will do a primitive but effective T&G configuration on your lovely wood strips. http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.asp?SID=&ccurrency=1&page=30222&category=1,46168,46176 But to tell you the truth real wood flooring is milled to tolerances of about 5/1000 ‘s of and inch. So now I will end you a JPG file of how the pros mill the wood. This cutter configuration was only one of 3-4 choices and you can see that the tolerances have to be tight in some cases, and very loose in others. I’m just about to see some quarter sawn white oak custom milled for a client of mine. I get some input in the cutter design on this job, but will be meeting the timber miller from PA and the drying and sorting importer this month. They will decide who in the Toronto area to do the final floor milling of this gorgeous wood. So I should be able to see just how it’s done sometime this summer. This will be part of a photo essay, and article that will be complete sometime this late fall or winter. But I will keep you posted as far a any little snippets of info I get that will help you out. In the mean time here is the JPG of the T&G configuration

Question: I installed a hardwood floor in my home about a year ago. It is installed directly on the house’s slab foundation. There are two places where the floor is appearing to separate (each is about 1 ft in diameter). Is there anything that I can do to reinforce the flooring? Thanks!! Answer: Dear Mathew You will need to tell me the exact method of installation of the hardwood, and any plywood or screeds on the slab. Did you do this yourself or did a contractor do this, and if the later did you see the job being done, so that you can confirm the method? There are about 10 methods. And I need to know what the hardwood floor material it is (generically-laminated, solid wood strip, parquet or what) so I can advise you on repair methods. This is way too early for a floor to be experiencing problems. And by appearing to separate, what exactly do you mean? Is the floor coming loose off the subfloor (a spongy feel as you walk on it), or are the strips themselves getting gaps? If it is gapping just how large are the gaps, and when did they start to appear?

Question: I installed the hardwood floor myself with the help of someone who has done this before. I agree that it is too soon to be seeing this kind of problem. The flooring is stripped planks with several layers. I forget the manufacturer, but I could look in the attic at the box (spares in case something like this would happen). The flooring is glued directly to the slab foundation. The floor is coming loose from the subfloor and causing a spongy feel as you walk across it. If you hop on the spot, the floor makes a popping noise as it seems that the floor is tacking to the glue and then releasing. Also there are two places where the planks are separating from one another. That starting about a month after installation and are at doorways. I honestly feel that the spongy area is caused from water that was not cleaned immediately, but am not sure. Thanks, Matthew Answer: Dear Mathew It’s an engineered or laminated wood floor that you have. You should have used a good adhesive like Dri-Tac 6200 which remains permanently tacky ALL its life. But you can use their Professional Wood Floor Repair Kit at http://www.dritac.com. Just follow directions that come with it. Please read my floor maintenance article in the How To’s section, for better cleaning advice. But I’m sure it was the poor quality glue you may have used that is partly responsible for this problem. Manufacturers of laminated wood floor have been supplying an easy to use but poorly performing glue lately, so I always stick to my Dri-Tac. Some major hardwood firms have their warranties based on these poor adhesives, it a shame and a sham.

Question: We have an old floor furnace vent in our wood flooring, we have put in a forced air furnace and need to replace the metal vent, about 2 1/2 ft. square ?Any ideas? The flooring is old oak tongue and groove. Kathleen Answer: Dear Kathleen Why don’t you hire a good carpenter to inlay a hand made wooden grate into this somewhat non-standard square. This could be installed flush with the floor and sanded and finished to match the old floor finish. It’s not an easy job so be sure you hire the right carpenter. I’ve had it done for me with great results. You might also try a cabinet making shop, just be sure they know you have to walk on it, it has to easily support the heaviest member of your household, or visitors. I just found a grate vent supplier who may have your size at http://www.period-homes.com/brochure/grtvent.htm. Just keep surfing you’ll find something on the web I’m sure. As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.