Hardwood Floor Pros, Need Help With Floor Checking

[gahrajmahal]

Hi all, I need some advice about the correct way to repair oak hardwood that is splitting and creating splinter hazard areas. The floor is a 15 year old Bruce prefinished Oak floor that friends, family and myself installed many years ago. The area in question is in a high traffic area leading to the kitchen. It will snag stocking feet and I am afraid my soon to be crawling grandson's hands and knees. Here are some photos.

Still looks good with exception of these areas.

The camera is having a hard time focusing, but you can see the problem spots are long and pointy. My first thought is to mask along either side of the cracks forcing epoxy / glue / or polyurethane with a squeegie and letting it dry prior to sanding it. If I just sand it it will still raise up over time and I will have the same problem later on.

I am sure the floor moves around quite a bit over the seasons with the winters being dry and the hot humid summers here in Ohio making it expand. I just want to repair the bad areas and not refinish the whole floor as it really is in excellent shape.

What product and procedure do you recommend? First hand experience and a photo or two would be greatly appreciated!

 

[gahrajmahal]

I'm back with the rest of the story. I had 187 views to the post but no replies, so I guess now I get to be the expert since I solved my own problem!
I had a brief conversation with my friend Mr. Google. He introduced me to his friend Mr. Mike Ferraro CGP (certified green professional) who had a post on the Let's Talk Building message board found here...
http://www.letstalkbuilding.com/articles/36/how-to-repair-a-crack-in-wood-flooring

According to Mr. Ferraro I needed to find some Scotch Weld DP-100 epoxy. Upon further communications with Mr. Google I discovered Scotch products appear to be professional only, not carried online and quite $pendy. So, I decided to go to the local Rockler wood working store. They ought to know about wood epoxies. Turns out the salesman I ended up with knew where they were located but had no experience using any of their epoxies. I chose Quick Cure 5 min epoxy for $22.99 but I had a 20% off coupon which subtracted $4.60 from the price which I promptly spent buying more stuff I didn't need.

A week or so later I gathered up all my stuff to get the repair done.

I tried prying up the crack and was able to separate it a bit. This will help to force the epoxy into the crack.

I masked along side the cracks so I wouldn't have to sand too much epoxy off the board. Since I had no experience with this I didn't know how difficult it would be to sand.

The epoxy was pretty cold as I left it in the garage so I warmed it up by putting it in some hot water.

The stuff was not thin! It was thicker than molassas, so I just eyeballed the amount and combined part A and part B in equal amounts.

I stirred it until combined. I wasn't sure how fast it would set up so I asked my wife to tell me what time it was.

I pried up the edge and smeared it in the best I could with the tongue depressor.

Using the putty knife I forced it into the crack along its whole length. Now to let it dry. What time is it now??

5 minutes went by...
10 minutes..................
30 minutes later it was sufficiently dry to peal the tape back. I pulled it at a 90 degree angle to help cut the epoxy.

Where the epoxy was thicker it was stronger and the tape could not pull it up.

Time to get out the razor knife and cut the bigger blobs off.

There, the rest I will get off by using a scraper like Mr. Ferraro did in his post.

Was still a little gummy and the scraper was pulling more than scraping. I decided to take a little break.

3 hours later I get out the ultrasonic sander, but hand sanding would have worked equally well. 10 minutes later the area was sanded down and smooth. I did a bit more cleanup in the crack with the razor knife (this floor has beveled edges between the boards).

Vacuum up the dust.

The repaired pointy parts.

In Mr. Ferraro's post he talks of staining the board to match the rest of the floor. How do you know if you need to stain?? Here is my trick. Wet a rag and wipe down the board. If it matched the surrounding boards, no need to stain. Since I only have the edge where the factory polyurethane was removed I am glad no staining was necessary.

I masked off a larger area and sanded all the length I intended to polyurethane.

I used regular oil based polyurethane thinking it might be a little tougher than the water based stuff, but I had both.

A suggestion, after-the-fact....
Anytime you use polyurethane on raw wood, you will raise the grain. This requires you let it dry and sand off all the little raised nubs from the grain. They make a product for this called "clear sanding sealer". I had some, duh!

Can you see the little raised nubs? No, hard to photograph, but you can feel them.

Looks good no?

Only you and I know where the repairs were done. No more splinters!
Thank you Mr. Google and Mr. Ferraro for your excellent tutorial. I couldn't have done it without you!

 

[madosta]

Awesome write up! Sorry nobody could help you, but thanks for contributing this information. I'm in the process of installing a hickory floor in my office and still learning about moisture in this cold winter north of you.

 

[slickgt1]

Wow sorry dude. I didn't see your post earlier. I would have use regular wood glue, built a little frame to press up against the ceiling, glued that sucker up, place frame (like a dead man) shim as necessary to get lots of pressure on said crack.

Not for nothing though, your fix looks great. Nice job.

 

[gahrajmahal]

Hi Madosta, here's what we did. We took up our 30 year old carpet and pad and looked at the patchwork plywood floor. It was relatively flat despite having areas where less than whole sheets were used. We screwed it down about every 8 to 10 inches with drywall screws to eliminate squeeks prior to laying the hardwood. It is over our garage and more than one flooring expert told us to avoid the hardwood since it would be icy cold. The garage ceiling was insulated with fiberglass batts and drywalled, taped and stomped. Several trunks of the forced air furnace are run in the garage finished the same, fiberglass batts, drywall etc. At the time I was working as an engineer and one of my suppliers had a foil lined plastic meant for use on ceilings of metal buildings and their claim to fame was it would reflect the unseen ultraviolet rays keeping the heat in and in the summer keeping the cool in. So, that is what we used under the hardwood. It was a regular heavy duty visqueen plastic product, foil faced both sides and perforated for vapor passage. At the time I thought what the heck. Well, the floor stays very comfortable despite being over a 50ish degree garage in the winter when the doors are closed. I just installed it as the manufacturer recommended using a nail gun and leaving 1/4 to 3/8 inch around the base mouldings. We also did something unique as we installed a ceramic tile border around the outside wall on two sides. We filled the gap between the tile on cement backer board and hardwood with cement tile grout. It has never expanded and cracked the grout, which I thought it very may well do.

Slickgt1, thanks for the reply, better late than never! But we have cathedral ceilings in there. I'd need a 20 ft long pole! If the cracks were more severe, like all the way through I would have used Mr. Ferrero's countersink some screws process. I think the epoxy idea is speed in drying. I have another wood / floor project I used wood glue on and was impressed with the strength I achieved. Check back in a few weeks when I post that project up. It's a cool solution to a common problem. I think you all will like it.

 

[chamoisfive]

Thank you Mr. Google and Mr. Ferraro for your excellent tutorial. I couldn't have done it without you!

No, Thank you Garajmahal.
Only just found this post & now I can repair a similar problem to my oak floor. Thanks a million for your excellent write-up. Great photo's, proves it did happen!!

Like your tile border around the floor perimeter but I am intrigued about the lack of hand rail where your pottted plants are above the stair well

 

[jake00]

Sorry, just saw this post now,

I would have r and r'd the boards (speaking as a pro installer). But your repair looks great.

 

[decimmy]

Yes, In addition to including comfort and beauty to a room, hardwood floors surfaces are also a great way to increase the value of your house. There are many different styles of hardwood floors surfaces to choose from, such as household and unique varieties, bamboo bedding and cork. You can buy pre finished hardwood floors surfaces that are already marked and finished with a covering that is more powerful than most site-applied completes.

 

[shocksandstrutz]

Looks like you did a great job, cant even tell you did anything

 

[gahrajmahal]

Thanks all for the kind words. Jake00, please feel free to add a step-by-step with a few photos to the post on a complete board replacement. I have done that in the past, but this board was not far gone enough for me to mess with it.
Chamoisfive, the lack of a railing was on purpose. But now that I have a young grandson I have to do something. I can no longer get that style cast iron insert, so I am contemplating a planter box for the space.