Gap Filling

Floors Doctor is your wood floor gap filling expert and offers a professional and thorough service that includes dust-free gap filling to give your floors an attractive new look. Your home’s interior and exterior are not the only things the weather may ruin. Gaps frequently grow and show up in hardwood floors as the humidity levels change. The wood contracts and expands, which results in gaps. Hardwood absorbs and releases moisture in response to changes in temperature and humidity. Be on the lookout for heat sources like wood vents, fireplaces, or pellet stoves. Homes significantly dry out in the winter months when heat is required.

The risk that gaps will appear in your hardwood floors can be decreased by utilising humidifiers, regardless of whether your floors were just placed or have been there for a while. It may take years for gaps to appear in your hardwood floors. Both room humidifiers and furnace humidifiers can assist reduce the possibility of gaps developing in your hardwood floors in the future. Check out our blog post about humidifiers for your house.

Manufacturers will revoke warranties if dwellings are not kept at a relative humidity of 40–45%. Maintaining the dwellings at this level is crucial. All warranties will be void if it is not maintained.

However, it’s crucial that you address the issue as soon as you notice that your hardwood floor is starting to gap in some places. Depending on the size of the gap, the soundness of the floor, and the number of gaps present, you will have to decide how to fix the floor. As opposed to floors that are just starting to develop gaps, flooring with too many gaps, gaps that are incredibly wide, or floors that are moving (creaking or having loose boards) may need considerable repair. When estimating the size of a floor gap, it’s important to evaluate whether the gap is typical, meaning it might close when the weather changes. A specialist can view a gap that closes when the wood expands in conditions of high humidity as normal. To be sure, it’s always a good idea to consult a competent carpenter or woodworker.

With a little putty and effort, homeowners can close many minor gaps.

There are several techniques to fill in floor gaps, but the most involved is to totally replace a floor if there are too many for it to be fixed without losing its aesthetic appeal. Typically, you may “plug” the gaps with rope, wood putty, or wood filler, and then sand and stain the entire thing to match the floor. The latter, an older technique for filling gaps, not only fixes floor gaps but also reduces the amount of air that enters the room through the floor.

If done correctly, using fillers, such as putty, powdered filler that is blended to create putty or paste form, or even caulking, can remove gaps from your hardwood floors. When gaps are small and the floor is free of them, fillers work best. One thing to keep in mind when using fillers to close gaps in the floor is that the filler can actually be driven out when the floor expands to take in more humidity when the humidity changes and the floor contracts and expands.