INVISIBLE REPAIRS for a Hardwood Floor

The key to restoring flooring is finding boards that match and then installing them with care.

- By Scott Sidler

Other than refinishing hardwood floors, the most common repair I’m called to do is floor-board replacement. The typical reasons we replace boards are termite or water damage, pet stains that blacken the boards to a point sanding won't fix, and floor-plan changes that involve the removal of interior walls. My goal is to find replacement boards that match the existing floor and integrate them. It takes skill and patience, but the payoff is another 100 years or more of use without having to resort to covering up the floor with carpet, vinyl, or new wood.

The first thing I check is the species of the wood. Here in Florida we usually find flooring of heart pine, red oak, or white oak and, occasionally, Douglas fir. Online guides help identify wood grains, but experience really is the best teacher. When in doubt, I remove a couple of boards and bring them to the salvage yard for help in finding a match.

The second thing I look for is whether the joints of the floorboards are randomly spaced or set consistently at 16" or 24” on center. Consistently spaced joints may indicate that there’s no subfloor under the hardwood flooring. In my area of Florida, this is common to the oldest homes (1890s and earlier) and homes in working-class neighborhoods built from the 1900s to the 1940s.