Browse Forums Flooring & Floor Covering 1 May 10, 2009 11:07 pm We have just pulled up the smelly old carpets in our 1920s bungalow to find the floorboards in beautiful condition but separated by huge gaps (several millimetres in places). Is it going to be possible to polish them? What are our options for filling the gaps? Tam Update: Keys in hand! Pulling up carpets and searching the colour charts for our dream wall colour. Re: Beautiful old floorboards with BIG gaps. Options? 2May 11, 2009 5:28 pm Hi there I dont know if there is a solution.Two years ago we purchased a property(built 1951/52) with all carpet and we wanted polished floorboards.We ripped up the carpet and found the floorboards in an ok condition and just got them polished as is(we didn't really notice the gapping).Now looking at them most of them are butted up with no gapping but some have gaps of 2 to 3mm in places, and this hasn't worried us.The house was approx. 12 square and had an extension put on to make it to make 22 square in total.On the extension we had polished floorboards as well, although the wood turned out a bit lighter then the original house boards. Overall we are pleased how both 'lots' of floorboards turned out, and they look great!! This is'nt really helping you , but I just thought I will tell you of our experience. Simon Re: Beautiful old floorboards with BIG gaps. Options? 3May 11, 2009 5:41 pm I dont really have an answer for you either Tammi I'm sorry. But we are currently in a rental property that has nice polished floor boards with huge gaps, some up to 7-8mm. It's annoying having to vacuum animal fur and dirt and other crap that gets stuck in the gaps. I'd like to hear how other people have handled the issue too. Re: Beautiful old floorboards with BIG gaps. Options? 4May 11, 2009 6:46 pm Hi tammi (again) I just remembered we did inquire about the gaps at the time, but the fellow doing the floors said if he did fill them, then overtime , because of the movement in floorboards , the filler would eventually work its way out so it wasn't worth it.Sorry I didn't think of that before.Hope this helps. Simon Re: Beautiful old floorboards with BIG gaps. Options? 5May 11, 2009 7:10 pm As pointed out above, you can use gap filler to fill the gaps but eventually it falls away, at least in part, as the filler dries out and the wood moves and expands/contracts. Better quality fillers may last longer (I used a marine sikkaflex product once in the hope that it would) but who knows. The other thing I saw described, but never did, was to cut rather thin lengths of hardwood and or mdf from sheets of the same thickness as your floor boards and to plane them down to fit the gap, and gently (rather than brutally) insert them prior to sanding. That way you get a beautiful and much flatter/colour consistent surface that rests on the joists and cannot fall through. But oh my god how time consuming.......... Re: Beautiful old floorboards with BIG gaps. Options? 6May 12, 2009 1:43 pm We had about 110 m2 of baltic pine floorboards in our 1926 house sanded, stained and polyurethaned about 2 years ago. The boards typically had a 1-2 mm gap between them. We were advised that you can putty up the gaps, but it takes a lot of time to do, so more cost. And in time there's a risk that the putty will dry out and crack and fall out, which can look worse than the gaps. A friend did have their house puttyed and yep, the putty is cracking up into small peices about 1-2 cm length, but none of it is popping out of the gaps yet. So we didn't putty ours. There was no issue sanding over this size gap. Because we had the boards stained fairly dark, the joints also got stained, so they aren't that visible. They do collect a bit of dirt etc, but nothing the vacum doesn't suck out, so its a not a big issue. When the floors were freshly polished, the lip of the gaps was a little bit sharp under barefeet, but this soon wore off and now its all good. Cheers, Paul of course there are legal avenues. You've already mentioned it. Sue them. I find it odd that lawyers wouldnt be willing to take on the case, given CCT evidence and… 1 23758 Brass fly wire, you will need to cut it, shape it and jam it into brick slots 1 7450 Building Standards; Getting It Right! Hi, sorry if this is the wrong place - Iām new to the property/building journey (trying to buy my first home) so not sure where/who to go with these sorts of… 0 19134 |