Parquet floors: do-it-yourself parquet repair and restoration

Recommendation points

• Looping – when it is needed and how it is done
• Manual scraping – mechanical and electrical
• Scraping with parquet-scrapers and parquet-grinders
• Replacement of parquet lamellas
• Replacing multiple damaged dies
• Global replacement of parquet after flooding
• Sealing gaps between lamellas
• How to fix a creak
• Finishing

Parquet floors are very beautiful, but over time they can fade, chips and cracks appear on the surface, some planks can crack and fall out, floors begin to creak or even deform. Some of these problems can be corrected by hand and restored to the appearance of the parquet..

If the appearance of the floors has deteriorated, you can restore it using various techniques. Damage to the parquet flooring can be easily repaired – for example, scratches and small dents are well masked with retouching pencils, which are produced in all colors and shades for parquet boards and laminates. Just rub over the scratch with a pencil and blend it until the damage visually disappears.

More serious damage requiring repair or replacement of dies (lamellas), we will describe below.

Looping – when it is needed and how it is done

Parquet scraping is performed manually or using a scraping machine.

Manual scraping – mechanical and electrical

If abrasions and other surface damage are concentrated locally, for example, under the legs of a chair at a table or under a battery, and they are not too deep, the surface leveling can be done manually using sandpaper – with a larger and then a fine grain. In this case, you need to perform circular movements with your hand, loosening the pressure at the boundaries of the site. When the surface is leveled, wipe it with a damp cloth, allow it to dry completely and apply the varnish in two layers. Before that, if you need to darken the wood, you need to treat it with wood stain..

If a significant floor area has lost its appearance, you need to cycle the entire surface. Before the advent of power tools, such work was done manually, and if you want to save on renting a tool and electricity, it can still be done manually – using a metal cycle.

The scraper for parquet works is a scraper with a handle-holder and can have different widths (always wider than a single parquet lamella). Leveling the surface with a mechanical tool is a long and laborious process. To speed up the process, you can use a handheld electric bike.

The first step is to check the floors – remove any nails and screws you find – they will ruin the tool and could cause injury. It is recommended to moisten the floor a little before scrubbing, this will facilitate the process. The work must be performed, starting from the corner farthest in relation to the entrance, trying to ensure that the pressure on the tool is the same, and the direction of movement of the tool is along the grain of the wood. The corners are easiest to process with a grinder. After finishing the work, you need to putty the cracks where required, and walk over the entire surface with fine-grained sandpaper fixed to a wooden block, sanding the floor. Sanding is carried out only on dry parquet. At the end, wipe the floor with a damp cloth, removing dust and after drying, walk twice with varnish.

If it is possible to use a hand-held power tool, then a tape machine will be required for scraping, and a rotary-orbital machine for grinding. This will speed up the process much, but you need to make sure that the pressure remains the same all the time, do not hold the machine for a long time in one place and turn it on only when the tool is in your hands. After scraping, puttying and sanding, the final varnishing is performed in the same way as with the mechanical method..

Scraping with parquet-scrapers and parquet-grinders

If time and nerves are dear to you, it is better to carry out scraping of large surfaces using rented machines. They work quickly and cleanly, as they usually have a bag for collecting sawdust. However, wood particles still get into the air, so you need to work in a respirator.

In one pass, the varnish and a thin layer of wood are removed

Experts recommend first walking around the perimeter, especially in inconvenient places where you have to work manually, and then machine the entire surface with a machine. If necessary, the tacking process can be repeated twice, especially if the damage is deep and there is a visible difference in the level of abrasion between the floor areas. In case of significant wear of individual lamellas, they must be replaced before scraping..

Replacement of parquet lamellas

Replacing the dies may be necessary if some of them are worn out, cracked, loosened or fell out, as well as when the floor is swollen after flooding.

Replacing multiple damaged dies

Suppose you need to replace a die that was burned by a New Year’s firecracker or a dropped cigarette. The floor is dry, single damage. Work in this case is performed in the following sequence:

1. Use a chisel and a hammer to break and remove the damaged lamella.

2. Apply a parquet board of the same thickness and width as those already laid to the area to be repaired and draw a line of the future cut with a pencil.

3. Saw off the measured piece of the die. Clean the installation site from sawdust. Apply glue to both the floor and the block. Reinsert the die. Apply 2 layers of varnish with a brush.

If several lamellas need to be replaced, the procedure remains the same..

When replacing a significant number of dies, experts recommend bringing them into the room in advance and keeping them there for some time so that the humidity of the old and new areas is approximately the same. This will help avoid squeak and “parquet wave” in the future..

If the coverage area is swollen, you need to remove all the dies to the edge of the room, clean them and the floor from the glue and reinstall them. Since the “wave” came from the volumetric expansion of the wood, the extreme dies will need to be cut a little.

The same is done with panel board parquet..

Global replacement of parquet after flooding

Parquet swells from water, the floor deforms. And if you put off solving the problem for a long time, mold or fungus may form under the coating, the fight against which is exhausting and not always victorious. Therefore, it is necessary to remove the parquet as soon as possible and thoroughly dry (not in the sun!) The lamellas and the base. All residues from the glue while still wet must be removed, remove the damaged substrate.

Mold

How do you know if both the floor and the tiles are dry enough? Cover with plastic wrap overnight. If in the morning you see even the slightest fogging on the inside of the film, you need to wait a little longer. After final drying, the parquet is actually re-laid using dried lamellas. If mold and mildew have already settled in the wood of the covering, you cannot lay the dies back, you will have to buy new material.

Sealing gaps between lamellas

The problem, opposite to flooding, can arise when undried lamellas were laid and after a while ugly gaps appeared between the dies. If the thickness of the gaps does not require a complete restocking of the floor, the gaps can be closed with various mixture-based fillers:

• oil (long-drying, durable);
• acrylic (elastic, waterproof);
• polymer (for rooms with special sanitary requirements);
• solvent-based (fast drying).

You can prepare the mixture yourself, using one of the folk recipes. The simplest homemade putty is a mixture of PVA glue with dusty sawdust. The disadvantage of this simple recipe is the shrinkage of the putty after drying. For parquet made from aspen, pine and oak, you can prepare a putty based on animal 10% glue. The remaining ingredients are added to the fat heated with constant stirring over low heat.

Per 100 g of fat:

• drying oil – 500 g;
• turpentine – 125 g;
• liquid drier (to speed up drying) – 25 g;
• powder chalk and liquid soap – add until sour cream consistency is obtained.

The resulting putty must be used while it is still warm. If necessary, the composition can be heated during operation. In addition to these, there are home putties based on carpentry or wallpaper glue. But it’s easier to use ready-made formulations..

Puttying itself is a simple process. The finished mixture is sequentially applied to the floor areas and distributed in circular movements over the surface, filling all cracks, chips and crevices. The excess is removed with a spatula. After drying, the coating is sanded and varnished..

How to fix a creak

When parquet floor creaks underfoot, it can be terribly annoying. A squeak can result from drying out after many years of faithful service or be the result of poorly fixed lamellas or a base laid on a concrete floor under the dies.

Experts identify three ways to eliminate squeak:

• filling voids with adhesive, wax with solvent, cement laitance;
• driving in pins;
• screwing in the screws.

The latter is considered the most reliable and applicable in any situation, while the first two are highly specialized, and it is better not to use them without work experience. So let’s look at the third method in more detail:

1. Stepping on individual dies, we determine the source of the squeak.
2. If only one floorboard creaks, drill it and screw in a screw so that its head disappears into the wood.
3. If several dies creak next to each other, you need to find the right place for the screw. To do this, prepare a timber with a length slightly less than the height of the walls, and having installed it vertically, unlock the floor and ceiling, knocking a wooden wedge over the timber.
4. Walk around the room. If there is no squeak next to the timber, the place is correct. If there is, move the bar to another die. Having found the right place, screw the screw into it.
5. If a creak is heard from different corners of the room, the procedure will have to be repeated in all problem areas..

How to screw in the screw correctly:

1. Drill a hole about 5 cm deep for the screw.
2. Insert a dowel or make a chop from a bottle cork.
3. Tighten the screw.

If the parquet is laid on bituminous mastic, then you can warm up the surface in the squeak zone with a construction hairdryer and press down the dies with something heavy. If the creak occurs due to drying out and increasing cracks, then the problem can be locally eliminated by driving wedge-shaped strips into the slots.

Finishing

When all defects are eliminated and the surface is sanded, it is time to open the parquet with varnish. If the wood color needs to be slightly shaded, it is recommended to apply a primer varnish as the first coat. However, you should know that the primer and finishing layers must match each other, because there are many types of varnish on sale now:

• acid curing – fast drying, wear resistant, contains formaldehyde;
• alkyd – medium speed of drying, contains white spirit;
• water-soluble – more expensive, harmless;
• polyurethane – wear-resistant, sensitive to moisture.

Varnishes can be glossy, matte, tinted – choose to your taste, but take care of respiratory protection when working.

Before applying varnish, the floors must be cleaned of dust with an industrial vacuum cleaner or wet cleaning followed by long drying. Only after that you can start finishing work. The room should be warm: 12-25 ° С.

You can apply varnish with a wide brush or roller, in the direction from window to door, carefully so as not to miss anything and get a layer of the same thickness over the entire surface. After the first layer is dry, it is advisable to sand the floor with a machine or fine-grained sandpaper. Clean the surface from dust.

The second coat of varnish, if using a roller, apply perpendicular to your movements when applying the first coat. In this case, the roller should slightly grip the surface already coated with varnish. Leave to dry completely.

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