Professional Tool Reviews for Pros
If you’ve ever lived in an old house—a really old house—then you know the problem of termites. They can wreak havoc on old wood floors. If you have access to replacement wood (in our case, heart pine boards taken from the attic), you can get those floors looking good as new in virtually no time flat. Knowing how to repair and/or replace wood flooring in an old house can really save you some money. Learn this skill and you can increase your home’s value while helping it look fantastic in the process.
We recommend having the following tools handy for this job. It doesn’t take a ton to replace wood flooring, but you will end up making lots of cuts. You also need to fasten the new pieces using a pneumatic or cordless nailer.
Before we can show you how to replace your wood flooring you need to get rid of the problem areas. We recommend picking an out-of-the-way area to start. Once you get the hang of things, you can move back into those high-traffic areas towards the center of your living room.
The first step in repairing wood flooring is to size up the area to be repaired. You want to remove as much of the damaged wood as possible. Wood putty doesn’t look good, so don’t try and save a piece that’s 80% good unless you absolutely don’t have enough replacement material.
We also like to get a birds-eye view of the work to be done. This especially helps you prioritize when you have multiple locations that need replacing. Once you map out the best way to allocate your replacement wood for the repair, you can get started on your first area.
Starting with a circular saw, make two rip cuts down the middle of the first board. You want to rip two lines because you want to remove the wood by pulling it horizontally away from the adjacent boards. You don’t want to lift upward as that would damage the tongue of the pieces you intend to leave in place. We prefer using a circular saw we can connect to a shop vac, thereby minimizing dust.
After you’ve ripped a couple of channels into the wood, you can then use a small flat bar or pry bar to remove the channel.
Once the channel is removed you can coax the remaining wood out and clean the area of the wood flooring you intend to repair.
Keep in mind that if you don’t need to remove an entire board when you repair wood flooring. You can use an oscillating multi-tool to cut a perpendicular line across the wood to form a break point. Make sure you make the cut right over the center of a floor joist. That gives you somewhere to nail the new board:
You don’t want to break any tongues off adjacent boards. Should you run into difficulty removing part of a board, make a wedge-shaped notch cut near the end using your oscillating multi-tool. This lets you swing the wood back on itself safely without breaking off the tongue of the adjacent piece of the wood flooring you’re not repairing.
After the difficulty of removing wood, adding in the new piece seems like child’s play. You do want to measure and cut very carefully to minimize the number of gaps between the pieces of wood. We cut the wood outside, using a cordless circular saw and then brought it in for final installation. You could also use a miter saw.
Finish the wood flooring installation by using a finish nailer to fasten the boards directly to the joists. Our 1920’s home had no underlayment so we had to pick our fastening points carefully. Two pops per joist are sufficient, and you’ll want to angle the nails. This holds especially true at the ends to ensure the new wood stays secure. The final steps will serve to fill in the gaps and small nail holes.
Finishing the wood involves a few steps. First, you need to use a belt sander to get the wood flush with the adjoining pieces. Remember to use a tool you can connect to a shop vac to again pick up the majority of dust during this step:
After you’ve sanded the wood flush, use an orbital sander to provide the secondary level of sanding. This lets you achieve a smooth surface suitable for your clear coat finish.
The last step involves adding wood filler (or wood putty to fill in the gaps and give you a smooth, filled surface, suitable to stain or clear coat. You want to use a strong wood filler that allows for a natural blend with the finished wood. Plan on sanding the wood once again after applying the putty to get everything nice and smooth and eliminate any extra filler from the surface.
After you apply the final coat of finish you should barely notice where you repaired and replaced the wood.
It’s a lot of work learning how to repair and replace wood flooring. We feel the end result always makes up for the work. When you determine that a floor is salvageable and only in need of spot repair, it’s a whole lot more efficient and practical to replace small areas than to re-lay an entire floor. We hope this helped you know a little more about how to repair wood floors. At the very least, we hope it inspires you to take on your own wood flooring project.
When he's not remodeling part of his house or playing with the latest power tool, Clint enjoys life as a husband, father, and avid reader. He has a degree in recording engineering and has been involved in multimedia and/or online publishing in one form or another since 1992.
Clint’s career has covered nearly the entire realm of audio and video production. After graduating at the top of his class with an Associates Degree in Recording Engineering, he began working for the famed Soundelux studios in 1994, one of the largest post-production companies specializing in audio for feature films & television. Working on a myriad of feature films, Clint honed his skills as a dialogue editor, foley editor, and sound designer. Years later, he moved into the expanding area of video editing, where he served as the company’s senior AVID video editor for three years.
Working for such clients as Universal Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Paramount Home Entertainment, NASA, Universal Studios, Planet Hollywood, SEGA, NASCAR, and others, Clint dealt extensively with client management as well as film & video editing, color correction, and digital video & MPEG compression. He also carries several THX certifications (Technician I and II, THX Video), and is ISF Level II Certified.
After founding the CD Media, Inc. publishing company in 1996, he went on to help start or grow several successful online publications, including Audioholics (as Editor-in-Chief for 12 years), Audiogurus, and AV Gadgets. In 2008, Clint founded Pro Tool Reviews followed by the landscape and outdoor power equipment-focused OPE Reviews in 2017. He also heads up the Pro Tool Innovation Awards, an annual awards program honoring innovative tools and accessories across the trades.
Crediting his excellent staff for the success of what is now the largest power tool review publication in the industry, Clint DeBoer hopes to see continued growth for the company as it rapidly expands its reach. Pro Tool Reviews critically reviews hundreds of hand tools, power tools, and accessories each year to help inform users about the best and newest products in the industry. Reaching everyone from the construction industry professional and tradesman to the serious DIYer, Pro Tool Reviews helps tool consumers shop better, work smarter, and stay aware of what tools and products can help put them at the top of their game.
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Professional Tool Reviews for Pros