Patching Hardwood Floor

[Wayne Cannon]

Your advice is appreciated.

I have two large areas where I need to stitch/knit new 3/4" solid hardwood flooring into the existing floor -- one is a 12' x 3' area that experience water damage from a bad French door installation, and the other is to continue hardwoods down a hallway that used to be part carpet and part hardwood. Finish-matching is not an issue, as I'll sand and re-finish the entire floor when done.

On-line postings suggest several approaches after removing the old boards. All but the spline approach involve removing the bottom edge below the groove on the new piece(s) of T&G flooring adjacent to existing boards so they can be dropped in place from above.


surface nail and putty the newly inserted pieces [doesn't look so nice]
epoxy the half-groove of the newly inserted piece(s) to the tongue of the (old) adjacent board [sounds good, but it's the minority opinion in my reading so far. Since the tongue of the new board isn't nailed, it leaves a, hopefully short, double width of boards un-nailed.]
bond the new piece(s) to the sub-floor with construction adhesive [I'm concerned about fixing the new piece(s) in the expansion-contraction scene of the overall floor, and omitting the building paper under the new sections]
routing groove-to-groove mating edges and using a spline [probably only works for the new section where I have access to the ends of the boards, and I don't see how it avoids either surface-nailing or gluing]

Any suggestions or recommendations?

[Matt Ocel]

Wayne -
If you can post a picture it may help with a solution.

But a face nail and a little yellow glue will work. Usually.

[Peter Quinn]

Do you have access from below? If so you can drive screws up through the sub floor into the new hardwood pieces.

[Richard Wolf]

I always cut off the tongue and use construction adhesive. There may be fewer pieces that need this treatment than you think, some pieces can be slid into their locations.
Not to offend anyone, but most flooring installers are very poor craftsmen and any thing you do will look as good as most flooring guy could do.
Like I said, if you are one of the few good ones, don't take offense. Most of the time, I have to fix the floor before I can install my railings on them.

Richard

[Wayne Cannon]

That's reassuring. I've found that to be true in many endeavors. However, I would go broke trying to make a living doing it MY way! :)

I'm no flooring guy. I'm recently retired with the time, now, to do it myself. I just want to do a good job that I won't regret someday later.

[Jim Nardi]

If you drill and face nail by hand you'll have to look awfully close to see where it's nailed. Set them a 1/4" down. Your only securing one board no need to go crazy and nail every foot. A cheap slot cutter on your router does a good job or making a place to put a spline.

[Pat Germain]

Not to offend anyone, but most flooring installers are very poor craftsmen and any thing you do will look as good as most flooring guy could do.
Richard

You know, Richard, I've recently come to the same conclusion. I just installed about 400 sq feet of flooring at my house. I was a bit concerned about some mistakes I might have made; a few joints a little too close together, a few lighter colored boards together. Yet, when I look at many professionaly installed floors, I think mine looks better.

I'm sure there are a lot of very good flooring installers out there. Likely most people don't hire them because they are expensive. Also, I think it's likely the big box stores don't use the the best installers.

Also, Wayne, don't rule out completely ripping out a section and reinstalling it. This might turn out to be faster, easier and better looking in the end. You can lay many, many of rows of flooring in no time at all with a pneumatic flooring stapler. You can also spend many hours trying to get a patch installed and looking good. Obviously, there are variables involved which you would know and I would not. Good luck.

[Keith Marben]

I used to do wood flooring and I would have to disagree on the poor craftsmanship remark. I think that people often make mistakes because the equipment is actually tough to use well. Like the 220v 300lb drum sander, or a 1hp edger sander. If you think its easy, sand a maple floor and stain it DARK and dont have any sanding marks, or lap marks from the stain, or finish.

On the other hand, If you want some advice from someone who has done hundreds of patches. Here is what would be recomended, for best looks and the most seasonally stable floor.

1. in the existing floor, mark some lines randomly, and use the joints from the shorter pieces to create a random, staggered patch. Use a plunge router to cross cut the joints you need. and remove the boards to create your random line.

Then starting from the side (wall) with the groove from the old boards closest to the wall, gently hammer a new board in, Important to keep relatively the same nailing schedule as the old floor, dont use glues or tons of extra fasteners if you dont have to. (wood floors need to move with the seasons.) you can use a few top nails for the boards that need it, but since your preserving the tounge and groove on both the old and new, its not a huge deal.

Do each row like normal. Watch for variations in widths from the new to the old floor as they will build up as the rows progress, sometimes you have to cut some rows a little skinnier to equalize the offsets.

Just make sure your chalk lines are straight and perfectly lined up with the old floor. floors go together 10 times easier when the first few rows are perfect, especially when you get to the closing wall.

putty the crap out of the transition before and again during the sanding process. All this will create a nice seam that is almost impossible to pick out even to a trained eye and will allow the floor to expand and contract.

Easy peasy.

[Wayne Cannon]

From what I read, there used to be lots of first-rate hardwood floor mechanics. When people started turning to the new sheet good and carpet products in the 60's and 70's, the number dwindled significantly. Now, with the resurgence in popularity of hardwood floors in the last decade, there are a lot of relatively new people installing hardwoods with less experience to meet the increased demand.

[Wayne Cannon]

Keith,

Thanks for your suggestions. If I understand, it sounds a lot better than what I was envisioning. I may contact you again for clarification when I get into it. I also think I'll rip out more than I had originally anticipated in order to make the process of knitting in the patch (about 3' x 12') and the new section of flooring more manageable.

After reading all of the self-help stuff, I'm coming to the conclusion that using my own flooring job to get sanding experience is just asking for a mediocre job (until I've done it a few more times). I hear that 8" 120v sanders (most rentals) are hard to keep from bouncing and chattering, and that it is easy to make an almost irrecoverable gouge with a 12" 240v sander.

Since I'm not staining the oak, ripples will probably be less noticeable, but I think I'll stick to laying the wood and knitting the sections together nicely, and let a pro do the sanding.