Replace Or Repair With Wood Flooring?

Wood flooring is growing in popularity among homeowners who love the aesthetic it brings and the fact that they can change the look of their room by replacing a rug rather than having the disruption and cost of replacing a whole carpet.

But, of course, wood floors can get damaged and homeowners will often need to decide whether they opt for an entirely new wood floor or attempt to repair the damage.

A recent article for Real Homes offered some advice on how to repair damaged or worn wooden floors. As an expert you’ll know that you need the right flooring tools in the UK to do a proper job – you might even get some calls from people who’ve attempted to fix their own flooring only to make a mess of it.

The news provider advises people to begin by identifying the type of wood flooring they have in their homes, whether that’s tongue and groove boards, square-edged boards or parquet.

Sign that they might need to call in professionals rather than tackling the issue themselves are things like cracked, split or damaged boards, damp and rot, gaps between the floorboards and a beetle infestation that’s noticeable due to small holes and a fine powdery dust.

In older homes where people are keen to keep the appearance of the original flooring, you may be asked to repair damaged floorboards rather than replacing them. Whether that’s possible will depend on how they’ve been damaged.

However, you can do things like strengthening a weakened board by attaching a length of a new board to the underside or repair broken ends and corners using wood of the same species and with a matching grain pattern.

Another issue with older wooden floors can be that they’re pretty draughty. The gaps between the floorboards can be the equivalent of leaving a small window open, the news provider suggested so this might be something homeowners want to tackle.

There are a number of ways to deal with this, such as fitting thin slivers of wood into the gaps and glueing them in place. Just make sure it matches the original floorboards. Use the same technique around skirting boards, the website suggested.

If you get called to someone’s home and feel that the work to repair an existing floor is too much and not worth the effort, you can recommend that they replace the floorboards instead. Using reclaimed timber can allow you to replicate the look of the original floor if this is a concern.

One flooring option you could start getting more requests for is parquet. A post for Livingetc suggested that this is growing in popularity, with more people keen to display parquet floors if they have them or to introduce this kind of intricate detail to their interiors.

Given the intricacy of some parquet designs, it’s certainly better for homeowners to come to flooring professionals for assistance when revamping their home in this way, otherwise, they could find that they don’t get the desired effect. Just one piece out of place will ruin the appearance of a parquet floor.