Question: I live in the mountains and it’s quite dry here (25% at times) but the house is 4 yrs old and it just started making noises. I’m afraid its from water (shoes) or the wrong floor cleaner. I talked to a local floor installer and he said to drill a small hole in the board and inject glue that you can buy in a syringe………what do you think of that approach? Dennis Answer: Dear Dennis No, follow my instructions to the letter. I have done all these methods many times with good results. You should NEVER, NEVER, NEVER glue down any part of a nail down floor. The strips need to move seasonally, and the glue (if it even works) will create a dead spot in the floor, which will stop this natural movement. When the floor does gain some moisture during a long cooking session, or unusually damp weather, the boards might swell against this dead spot and buckle. I only use this injection method for glued down parquet and laminated wood floors. Think about all the dirt and dust under your floor, how is the glue going to sick, and dry in this space ? If he uses a water based glue it may further swell the wood as it dries. Your local guy may be misleading you, have him give some references of successful glue jobs. Be sure to read my article about hiring contractors in the Hardwood Authority section of this site. And please read my floor maintenance article in the Floored News section. You should be re-coating this floor every 2-4 years in this heavy use area. As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.

Question: I plan to install a hardwood 5/16″ laminate pre-finished floor over an existing 3/4″ plywood subfloor. I plan to screw the subfloor down. My problem is impact noise traveling from this kitchen floor to a bedroom below. I intend to install the flooring as a floating floor. Where can I obtain a soundproofing mat to put under the laminate flooring? I have found a 2mm sheeting in England but that is a problem in California. Is there a USA firm that makes a thin soundproofing mat? I can only afford about an eighth of an inch due to appliances. I would like to use two layers if possible. Tom Answer: Dear Tom You must make sure you are installing the type of engineered wood floor that can be done in a floated method. I’m not really fond of this method, as the PVA adhesive used to glue the panels fails after about a decade. And then your floor really will sound like a drum. It would be better to glue down a cork sheet floor first using Dri-Tac 6200 adhesive. Let this cure for a weekend then install the laminated wood floor by gluing it to the cork with the same adhesive. The other reason for gluing down the floor, is the fact that it is a water prone area. Kitchen spills will eventually find their way under the floating floor. This is where molds will form. Whereas the adhesive I speak of is waterproof, and the water cannot travel past the seam. That said, the Dri-Tac adhesive has proven to last at least 45 years and counting, and it is still tacky. It remains sticky all it’s life so if the floor moves out of place expanding during humid weather the glue will pull it back when conditions dry. This is the only glue I will use for all my glued down wood floors. You may find that a glued down floor is less noisy that the drum of the floating floors. In any case the foam pads they sell for the floating floor will degrade in about a decade. You can buy cork sheeting at just about any home improvement store, and the Dri-Tac 6200 is found there too. But you may have to search for this good glue. Try the web site at http://www.dritac.com. Oh, and don’t expect too much sound proofing with this little bit of pad. Real soundproofing has to be done from below, but this is another matter. You should also read the first part of my floor maintenance article in the Floored News section, to get an idea on how to re-coat this type of floor. Kitchens floors take a real beating and need lots of maintenance. As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.

Question: I have a soft spot in my new wood floor. It’s a real wood floor glued on cement slab. They are 3 inch planks. What should we do about it? John Answer: Dear John If you have SOLID wood strips glued directly to the concrete slab, this sadly, is the type of installation that will give continuous problems over the years. I made that really clear in my “Wood Floor on Concrete” article. If this is so, this is just about the worst method for installing hardwood floors on concrete, and is difficult and dangerous to repair. I’ll get to this later. What I am hoping is that you have a real wood laminated (also called engineered) hardwood floor. These are 3-5 plys of real hardwood, with the top ply being the finished and sometimes thick layer. These are the really great light duty floors (50 years of life) which you should find easy to repair. The soft spot was probably caused by a dip in the concrete subfloor, which the installer failed to fix before the wood floor installation. Go to www.dritac.com and find out who has their “Professional Wood Floor Repair Kit” in your area. If there is no dealer for DriTac where you live, you may need to convince DriTac to send you one by mail. Here’s what in it. The glue is a diluted version of the famous DriTac 6200, which stays tacky ALL it’s life (50 years and counting). This is really important in this sort of repair because for various reasons the wood might pop loose again if the wood expands (yes even laminated wood expands), and this glue will re-grab the wood when conditions normalize. You will drill two holes in either side of the repair area (drill bits provided) and inject the glue (syringe provided) into one hole until you fill it, or see it come up the other hole. The void will be filled up now. Cut the dowel (also provided) and fit in each hole and cut it off with a fine flush cutting hand saw (not provided but available at www.leevalley.com). Punch the dowel slightly below the surface, and fill with a colored latex wood filler. Clean up any excess filler and adhesive right away with a wet cloth and then a dry cloth. This glue works well with most old adhesives, and because the adhesive is thin it meets it own level in the dip (don’t put weight on the repair or walk on it for a day), the soft spot is gone forever. Now then, if you have a solid wood floor, you CANNOT use the DriTac easy solution. And I should say that gluing solid wood strip to concrete is a poor installation method indeed. But in this case you will need to remove some boards. This usually involves removing a series of boards that span across the dip. If the boards are short (short 1/2″ by 2 foot flat bottomed wood is used normally in this installation) you can simply split them in thirds and remove the middle section and the rest can be pried off the good glue. Clean all the adhesive off the concrete with a old chisel and Goof Off Adhesive remover. You will now have to fill the void or dip in the concrete with a non shrinking cement based mortar. There is a limit on the thickness of some of the floor leveling compounds so make sure you find a suitable one for the depth of this hole. Give the concrete patch a few days to dry. Follow my free article https://www.woodfloordoctor.com/hardwoodauthority/repairing/index.html for the list of removal tools. Installing new boards though is a bit tricky. Being random sizes the new wood (hopefully provided by the building contractor, the same stuff) means they will all have to be cut to size on at least one end. You will have to re-bevel all the cut ends to match your floor, and touch up these ends with some floor finish (water based usually looks best on prefinished). Follow the directions in the free article, about cutting, but no nailing here. Use a good urethane adhesive DriTac 7500 or Bostik’s Best and once all the pieces are cut to size (allowing for some bottom grooves to be removed on the last few pieces) “dry fit” the floor boards to make sure you can quickly and easily assemble them before the glue sets up. Read the glue can label to determine this “open time”. Be sure to follow the recommend trowel size, too thick a glue spread will never cure. The last few rows that had to have their bottom grooves removed will need to be held in place with a heavy object overnight. What ever you do don’t get even a speck of this urethane adhesive on the face of the board. Be sure to order a can of special urethane glue remover, to get this stuff off your hands or while wet, on the wood face. Good luck, a tough job, but do-able.

Question: I’m in the process of laying a mesquite floor in the first of 2 bedrooms. I’ve ripped out the 30 year old carpet and pad and am gluing (PL-400 construction adhesive) 3/8 inch thick tongue and groove strips of mesquite to the subfloor. The installation is going well, if slowly – it’s one of those spare time undertakings. What I’m noticing is that the floor isn’t going in perfectly smooth. Especially the butt joints at the ends of some sections are less than perfect mates. So I assume that some sanding will be necessary. I had thought to rent a random orbital floor sander, but your article makes me question it’s practicality. So (if I can locate one locally) I guess I’ll need to hire a professional to accomplish the sanding. I’d appreciate your thoughts on that. Second concern – there are some open spaces due to warped boards and other issues. I’ve seen a mesquite floor where the holes, etc., were filled with a black material and I really liked the end result. Any suggestions? Is this an epoxy? (My friends bought the house and don’t know who did the floors.) Then we come to finish. I’ve had several different finishes recommended to me and I guess I’d like to hear your thoughts. I do not want a high gloss finish! But I do want smooth. Tongue oil has been suggested, especially one with a polymer “filler”. Do you wax over tongue oil? Maintenance is a concern (a minor one, but a concern none the less.) Thanks for your time. I’m looking forward to hearing from you. Les Answer: Dear Les While I don’t agree with the method you are using, as longs as the glue is a urethane adhesive, and cures properly you will get the wood at least initially, to stick. The problems occur when there are changes in indoor humidity. Get a Wet-Dry bulb hydrometer to check this. When and if the indoor relative humidity changes by 20-30% the wood will shift and break off the glue. Don’t let this happen!!!! I can only recommend the Dri Tac 7500 urethane adhesive (www.basicadhesive.com) for this least favored method of solid wood installation. The wear layer on this very thin floor is only 1/8″ and you should HIRE a pro for this rather tricky sanding job. But do the finishing yourself, that’s the fun part anyway. You really should use a good oil modified polyurethane. Fill the floor with colored latex filler before you sand. Choose whatever color you want, you can mix in a black paint tint to the filler if you wish. I would prefer one that is the same tone as the finished wood. You need to have a moisture resistant finish, on this poorly fastened wood. You need to keep the moisture content of the wood stable and the oil finishes you have been told about have little ability to do this. You may use a satin finish OMP, which will look like a waxed floor. Wax in itself is not a finish, just a top dressing for a film finish like OMP or varnish. One doesn’t wax over an oil finish in any case, as this type of finish cures softly, and the solvents of the wax will remove it. You could wax over a polymerized oil finish (which is called a oil/varnish) but it would have to cure for a month, before you do so. And most polymerized oil finishes are just weak forms of varnish anyway, so you will no avoid the toxic fumes, and metallic driers, by using these. There is one exception to this and that is the Tried and True oil/ varnish, at www.triednandtruewoodfinish.com. But you may have to apply 6-7 coats of this finish to achieve a water repellant and durable floor finish. These are really furniture finishes, and will only stand up to gentle use on floors. All in all the mesquite is a nicely textured ring porous wood, very durable, with good moisture stability. Now read my floor maintenance article, which can be found in the search box at the top of this web page.

Question: Our floors are pre finished and installed in 2000. I have roughly 4 to 5 boards around the perimeter that are sliding. This is causing anywhere from .25 to .75 inch gaps that are becoming an eye sore. The gaps are at the ends of the boards, not the long side of the board. Is there a way to move the boards back into place and eliminate the gaps? I have extra pieces of flooring, I have considers cutting small pieces to put into the gaps. Any advice would be appreciated. thank you Brent Answer: Hi Brent, It sounds like your floors are sliding because they are secured to the ground. The solution to your problem is quite simple and only requires a few basic tools. I’ll assume your floor is tongue and groove pre-finished. What you’ll need to do is take the boards that have slipped and hammer them back into place. Use an ‘S’ hook – found at your local hardware store, make sure to get the biggest you can. Carefully hook one end on to the edge of the floor that is closest to the wall. You can tie a rope to the ‘S’ hook to get extra grip, pull the board parallel to the floor (don’t pull the board out of the floor! When you are satisfied with it’s placement cut off a block to the exact length of the missing (or shortened) board. You’ll also have to cut off the tongue on the replacement piece and in the hole you’re going to fill. Take some good strong wood glue and glue both the hole and the cut block. Insert carefully and tap down with a rag covered mallet (or VERY carefully with a hammer)

Question: Our flooring is a very old wide plank pine. It has shrunk considerably in several areas, leaving long wide gaps. There is no underfloor. This pine was laid right on top of the joists (old farm home)What would you recommend for filling in and/or repairing those wide gaps? Thanks, Kevin Answer: Dear Kevin I am afraid that if the floor was not installed by the methods as outlined in the Strip and Plank floor article in the Hardwood Authority section of this site, you will always have a shifting floor. And unless the floor is properly screwed and pegged any filler you choose to put between the gaps will soon crack out. This is mostly because of the nature of the old farm home. It is may have been kept closed up for long periods, so that the interior experiences wild humidity swings depending on the season. In fact a closed up house can have what they call green house effect, that in a dry climate will bake the wood to desert dryness. But in a wetter climate can make a sweat lodge effect. All when you are not there to do anything about it. I can if you wish, give you some recipes to fill the floors only if you are going to sand and refinish it. And a more detailed instructions on how to screw and peg the floor, so that it doesn’t move nearly as much. As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.

Question: Joseph, I need some assistance, I have Shaw prefinished/engineered wood flooring (Tolchester in Honey Oak- glue style) in my home and unknowingly used the wrong products to clean it. Now, my floors are sticky and all subsequent attempts to either strip (per advice by the contractor who installed the floor) or use a product such as Bruce Hardwood Floor Cleaner have been unsuccessful. My floor is now a mess with stains and a milky film. I called back to the contractor who now tells me that they gave that advice based on thinking I had a different type floor. The contractor said the only option is to replace the floor, she did say that I could try sanding but that it doesn’t normally work on prefinished floor. Given all that, what is your recommendation on saving my floor. Help, please, I just bought this new home, have only been here for 7 months, just want to explore all other options before replacing the flooring. Patricia Answer: Hi Patricia, It seems as if you’ve got yourself into a real mess (literally). There must have been a chemical reaction with the cleaner you used and your pre-finished floors. The pre-finished coating may have chemically melted and will forever be tacky to the touch. Therefor you may have to replace, but before you do that read our cleaning articles – you may find a solution there that can help. If it was a non pre-finished floor I would suggest just a sand and re-coat, but unfortunately with pre-finished floors you end up dealing with a lower quality wood just under the surface that was nice and polished. That is if you can sand through the tough finish and not gum up the sander.

Question: I have been researching various wood floor products and have finally decided to install solid oak flooring (red or white – tbd), 2 1/4″ strip, select grade. I would appreciate your opinion on: 1) what finish to use; I read your article on DuraSeal 1000, but it was a bit inconclusive. Did you ever try it? If so, do you still endorse it? Is there another product you endorse more strongly now? 2) what oak strip floor manufacturer to use and your opinion on a reasonable price to pay for it (fully installed w/o new baseboards); 3) any floor carpenters you recommend in the Dallas, Texas metroplex Here’s a bit of background on the planned installation: Location = Richardson, Texas (a Northern suburb of Dallas) Sub-Floor = house built on concrete slab; plan to sub-floor with plywood Rooms = (ALL DOWNSTAIRS/ON GRADE) formal dining, formal living, family room, hallway, and master bedroom (~1500 sq ft); all other downstairs rooms are tile except the office that was installed originally with hardwood Finally, I would appreciate it if you would give me feedback on the decision to use solid oak hardwood. Am I making a bad choice for a Texas installation? I like the stability of the engineered/laminated woods, but am not happy with the finishes (can’t get Lauzon in Texas) or the installation options (uncomfortable with floating and with glue-down). That’s why I decided to stick with the ‘tried-and-true’ solids. I love your website and have found it EXTREMELY informative! I just wish you lived much farther south of the border!! Thanks so much for your assistance. Lena Answer: Dear Lena Before you consider installing a solid wood floor on concrete be sure to buy and read my “Wood Floors on Concrete” article. There are many complex issues here that make such a nail down floor difficult to install on a concrete subfloor. Flatness of the slab, and moisture incursion are just two. There are lots of tests you have to put the slab through before you consider this. So I really feel like you are jumping ahead of yourself when your ask only about the floor finishes. But here are you answers. I was just about to try out the Dura Seal water based finish, on a new oak floor I installed for a client about 3 years ago. I did my research and found this product. But the client happened to be an art restorer, and refused to have such a finish applied on his floors. He said that water based finishes were still in their infancy, and that he had tried on his previous house to apply a well known water based finish to the baseboards. The baseboards would turn opaque white in humid weather, and never looked any good in any case, as the finish had a bluish white opaqueness to it. It was very subtle, but as a finish expert he could see the difference. Then I remembered one of own jobs, about 10 years earlier had turned whitish also. We could only tell this when the owner had someone else do a small hall next to my original job about 3 years after. They had used the same finish, and yet my finish was now lighter and older than his. At the time I had no explanation for this. It seems as this finish ages, it doesn’t yellow but whitens. And now I’ve seen finishes 7 years old that were so opaque white that I couldn’t tell what kind of wood it was. The chemistry of this effect is still under dispute, and I will be speaking to some industrial chemists about this very soon. But apparently the makers of water base finishes have not sorted this out yet, and admit that their finishes last only about 10 years. That’s not very good, as the oil poly finish I’m sitting over right now is 22 years old, and very sound, and looks great. So, that’s why I haven’t written further about these water base finish, and I will not recommend them unless you want a very fast drying but short lived finish. I will be writing an extensive article on this matter sometime this year, but for now I suggest 3 coats of the oil modified poly finish as described in my poly w/o bubbles article. Use the Fabulon Brand Satin Poly, that’s what I use for all three coats, no sealers. Use a locally made unfinished strip floor that is acclimatized to your region. That’s a whole lot better that importing some expensive wood from Canada. Find out where your local hardwood floor companies buy their wood, these places are glad to sell to the general public. Stay away from those floor boutique showrooms. Quarter sawn white oak is just about the prettiest, most moisture stable and durable hardwood floor I know of. I’m sitting over one right now that’s about 100 years old. Sorry about this, but I never recommend tradesmen. Read and follow the free article on How to Hire a Flooring Contractor in the “How To” section. I don’t even recommend trades in my own city of Toronto. Once you understand how to install a wood floor on concrete, find out who out there will do the job correctly. Not cheaply or rapidly, but right the first time. Choose the wood your know will be stable in your environment. Choose then the finish and application method, and find out who will specify all this in their contracts. Compare only apples to apples. For instance the best tried and true method for installing wood on concrete is to glue (with urethane glue or DriTac adhesive) a 3/4″ block or herringbone patterned parquet to the concrete. I’ve seen these floors in many century houses, and they are still going strong. But read my Wood on Concrete article and you’ll see the best right down to the worst choices. Oh, and if you give me your final choice of wood and installation method, I will give you a ball park price. As any hardwood floor job can run from $6.50 for the simplest parquet, to $15 for a strip floor with the two layer of 1/2″ plywood subfloor. On up to 15-20 buck per square foot for the fancy herringbone and block patterned floors. As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.

Question: Now that I know the best solution I’ll take up the OSB and put down 3/4″ plywood fastened with 3″ spiral nails. Thank you for your prompt response. Based on what I’ve read from others who put hardwood on any thickness OSB or had a new house with hardwood floors over OSB, you are just asking for trouble. One person (on this site or another one) moved into a custom built house with hardwood floors placed over OSB. A few months later (not even years) the floor was squeaking. One last question, I discovered that there are different grades of plywood. Should I go with BC or is CDX okay? Answer: Dear Avi As far as the plywood, BC grade Douglas Fir would be best, but I’m sure that a good brand of spruce CDX would be just fine, that’s what I just used for a floor repair in my own house just last week. Oh, and be sure to use a good urethane construction adhesive on all the joists as you are applying the new plywood. And put in the nails every 8″. The hardwood will need to be nailed also with the special flooring cleats, read my new article on this available in the search box at the top of this web page.

Question: Hi, Our archtect has just recommended using a flooring made from “bamboo”. Do you by any chance have any information at all about it? Thank you for you help… ~Amy Answer: Dear Amy I’m not too fond of this stuff myself, it is not wood, it is a grass, and is generally sold a prefinished laminated material. The bamboo is very hard in itself but due to the thin wear layer, it may be a short lived floors like most laminated wood floors (about 20-40 years at best). I don’t personally like the busy looking nodes in this material. Be sure you pick a brand that has a good track record and be sure to see a job that is more than 5 years old, of the same type you are choosing now. If the architect cannot show you an older floor in great shape, don’t touch this stuff. New products may take years to perfect manufacturing techniques, in the mean time you have to buy their mistakes. I prefer sand on site finished wood floors, with proven longevity and great classic beauty, but I am totally biased, sorry.