How To Repair Plank Floors In The Country

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

How to repair plank floors in the country

During operation, the boards of plank floors can dry out, deform, rot. Therefore, in all these cases, repairs are necessary. And the durability of the floor depends on how it is executed …

Sealing cracks, cracks …

If there are cracks between the floorboards, gaps up to 5 millimeters wide, then they can be repaired without disassembling the floor. To do this, clean the cracks and cracks from the old putty. Then take a twine or thin rope (not nylon), put it in a jar of wood glue or in a 15% solution of drying oil. And when it is completely saturated, then tamp the rope into the slot with a chisel, screwdriver, spatula. Let it dry for at least a day.

Prepare a thick putty or putty. For this purpose, you can use the following compositions:

A) 1 part sawdust and 1 part oil putty (by volume)

B) 5 parts sawdust, 5 parts cement (any brand), 2 parts wood glue and 14-15 parts water

When the cord (rope) embedded in the gap is dry, fill the gap well. And then carefully clean the floor: first with a large, then with a fine sandpaper, screwing it onto a wooden block. Then paint the floor.

Bitumen is also suitable for sealing cracks and cracks. The resin must be heated to a liquid state and poured into the cracks. If there is a void under the gap, then you need to caulk the gap with any material. Cut off beads from above to be flush with the floor. After the bitumen has hardened, paint over with paint. It will dissolve, that is, it will kind of compact the bitumen. After that, paint again.

Picture 1

It is convenient to paint over cracks and crevices using a stencil. It is cut from cardboard or thick paper. The putty is applied according to a stencil and fills only cracks, without staining the rest of the floor.

Pulling the floor together

If the gaps are more than 5 millimeters, then the floor must be rallied. To do this, you first need to remove the skirting boards, after which, with a crowbar or an ax, raise each board by 3-5 cm and with the blows of the butt of an ax or a large hammer set it in place so that the heads of the nails protrude outward. And pull them out with pliers or a nail puller. Having thus freed 3-4 boards from the nails, we rally (squeeze) them with the help of wedges. That is, we drive wedges between the extreme free boards and the nailed ones. After rallying, the boards are tightly nailed to the logs-crossbars. The heads of nails must be sunk by 2-3 millimeters.

In a warped (deformed) board, nails are driven into the raised part at an angle so as to align it. If, after rallying, a free space is formed in the floor, then the missing board or part of the board should be inserted into it, always made of dry material. After rallying the floor, irregularities in the joints are smoothed out. The same operation is performed when the floors are warped due to uneven drying or wear, or when old floors are prepared for painting.

Figure 2.

1 - floor boards;

2 - cement mortar or bitumen;

3 - lags-crossbars;

4 - soil

Before stripping, carefully examine the floor, deepen the heads of all nails and carefully cut off the protruding knots. Planks are planed along, across, obliquely. Skirting boards are nailed to the walls, not to the floorboards. The skirting boards attached to the walls create a frame around the entire perimeter, preventing warping and swelling of the floor. The skirting boards are nailed directly to the wooden walls with nails a meter apart. In stone walls, holes are punched with a bolt or drilled with a depth of 10-12 cm, into which wooden or plastic plugs are inserted. And skirting boards are already nailed to them.

Replacing boards

If one end of the floorboard has rotted or broken off, it is not at all necessary to remove and replace the entire board. You just need to chop off with a chisel or saw off the spoiled end. In order to saw off, you need to take a hand vise, clamp a piece of a hacksaw blade in them for metal and saw off the end of the board. If it is impossible to start the cut from the edge, drill a narrow slot anywhere on the board so that you can insert the end of a piece of the hacksaw blade into it and cut in the desired direction. A new piece must be nailed to at least two cross-beams.

When replacing a damaged board in grooved floors, cut off the ridge (ledge) in the adjacent board and, slightly lifting this board, lay a new one instead of the damaged one.

If the floor creaks

Between the floorboards that squeak, at an angle of 45o, drill a hole with a diameter of 6-8 mm and drive a wooden plug into it with a diameter slightly larger than the diameter of the hole (Fig. 1). Pre-grease the cork with wood glue or BF glue. And cut off the protruding tip with a knife, chisel or planer. And putty and clean this place.

You can get rid of the squeak in another way. Drill a through hole with a diameter of 18-20 mm in the floor and fill it with cement mortar or heated bitumen so that, spreading under the floorboard, they quickly solidify in the form of an overflow and become the support of the floorboard (Fig. 2). The hole can be filled with a wooden cork, sanded and painted over. But remember that this method works when you have a double floor, or the floor is very close to the ground.

In order for the floor to last long, the underground must always be well ventilated … Be sure to leave ventilation windows. In summer they should always be open to dry the floor. But it is necessary to place them at such a height that surface water does not flow underground through them. And so that rats and mice do not penetrate through the windows into the underground, close them up with a fine metal mesh.

A properly repaired floor will be very reliable and will last for many years …