How to Repair Gaps in a Hardwood Floor?

RAY: My sister-in-law is a realtor and she deals with a lot of construction people.

TOM: OK.

RAY: A few years ago, we wanted to change our hardwood floor in our home, which was about 10 years old and it was a light wood. We wanted to go to a dark wood and we picked out a Brazilian hardwood or something like that and it was about $150 a box.

And they delivered the wood to the home and well, my sister-in-law set us up with a contractor who wanted her to sell a house for him. And he was so happy if she would sell the house for him that she would get us an installer to install the hardwood floor for a crazy $1.75 a square foot. But he wasn’t really slapping them together very tightly and this was in the spring, in April or May, and he wasn’t really hitting the boards in very tightly. He was just giving them a little tap, little tap here.

And I asked about that and he said, “Well, you have to have room for expansion.” Well, I don’t think that was correct. And although we have gaps in the summer, we really have gaps in the winter. Is there any way to repair this without having to tear up the entire floor?

TOM: Well, hmm, not really. I mean look, if sometimes in a really old floor you get gaps in it, we would tell you to put jute in the space between the gaps. It looks like a burlap kind of cord is what it looks like. And you can put that in between the joints of the floor and then you can actually finish over top on it and it kind of – it helps to hide those gaps a bit. You can’t really fill them.

RAY: Right.

TOM: But to close them completely, you would have to take the floor apart and essentially reinstall it. Was this all nailed together or was this an engineered floor?

RAY: It was all nailed together and it – we ended up having like three extra boxes. As I said, $150 a box.

TOM: Yeah.

RAY: And they refused to take it back because it was a one-time order or something like that.

TOM: Yeah. You know what? Unless it’s noisy or coming up or something like that, I don’t think it’s a terrible problem to have those extra gaps. Maybe a bit of a cleaning issue but you could really chalk it up to charm. And frankly, Ray, you’re better off with the hardwood floor than without it, even though you’re not 100-percent satisfied with the way it’s come out.

RAY: Right. Thanks. We got a great deal but it’s – unfortunately, a couple years down the line, it’s not such a great deal.

TOM: Yeah, sometimes it works out that way. Ray, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.