We installed new tongue and groove engineered 5/8" hardwood flooring in our kitchen this spring. I was hesitant because I didn't know how the wood would hold up in a kitchen, but we were going for a rustic look. The flooring guy at Home Depot said the hardwood would hold up just as well or better than the laminate options and we liked the look alot more. As far as I know, we did everything right. We replaced almost all of the plywood subfloor and even some of the floor boards. We bought a hardwood floor nailer and air compressor and nailed them hard and tight against each other. We also left 1/2" gap around the perimeter.

I know that hardwood expands and contracts, but that's not what this is. We had a hard time eliminating the gaps during installation because the tongue and groove didn't want to fit together very well. We spent a lot of time getting each piece to fit well. We have gone through spring, summer and now into fall and the gaps still remain. I would say it wasn't even a month after installing that we started noticing the gaps getting wider. Now you can see where dirt falls through the cracks.

My questions are can this be fixed and how - and how do you clean the floor without moisture damage to the floor and subfloor? Even though it was prefinished should we go over it with some kind of sealer? Even then I don't think the gaps would be sealed. We are completely depressed because we spent a lot of time getting it perfect. To add insult to injury, anything and everything seems to dent the floor. Of course, when we moved the fridge back it left huge gouges in the wood, even with furniture sliders and cardboard. It did not penetrate the finish but the gouges are deep. Is there any way to repair these? I think it would look too obvious to use wood filler. Should I try to find some kind of poly that would fill the gouges and still somewhat match the finish? I did hear that moisture, a towel and a hot iron might raise up the wood fibers, but it didn't seem to work on the sample piece I tried. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Also, the planks are solid wood with a cherry walnut type pre-finish.

Thanks,
Kim

Generally real wood floors get glued together not just nailed. The glue is what keeps the water out and fills in the gaps. To fix it if this step wasn't done I guess you would have to pull the whole floor up and redo it. Hopefully someone else will give you an answer you want to hear but I can't think one.

Oh and never trust the employees at the hardware store they have no idea.

Sorry about your situation Kim. I think that your wood was not 100% acclimated to your home when it was installed. Engineered wood is usually pretty good but it could have been far more moist than the house. Well its down now and lets try to make the best of it. First off don't believe everything the guys at HD tell you. They probably never put down a floor in their lives and only had minimal training in sales. My laminate is warranted for 50 years, what did HD offer for your warranty? The cracks can be filler with a floor filler just like they do when installing unfished solid wood floor. A very, very light sanding to level the filler and scuff the factory finish and then coat with two coats of good floor polyurethane. I would try the wet towel and hot iron several times before the new finish is applied if you want to improve that dent. After each attempt seal a 1' x1' araea with Saran wrap and duct tape to seal in some of that moisture and the repeat the next day.

Michael, who told you wood floors are glued and nailed?

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Originally Posted by ballengerb1

Micheal, who told you wood floors are glued and nailed??

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Who knows that's why I speak generally unless I'm certain on things. I always thought that glue was required for real wood floors. I've only ever personally done laminate flooring and tile. One of the reasons I mentioned that I hoped someone would have a better answer for her.

Wow, you guys are quick!

Ok, let's see. I'm going to go try to find the manufacturer's instructions, but I'm pretty sure they said to nail them down. I'll also attach a picture shortly so you can see what material it is. We did make sure to acclimate the wood. The boxes were down in our basement (with dehumidifier) for a month or two, but we brought them up and sat them in the living room next to the kitchen for at least a week.

As far as refinishing them or sanding them down we might have a little problem. While it is solid wood, it is "distressed". The floors are smooth and the finish is solid, but there are small ridges that run horizontally with the length of the wood. We would have to sand down quite a bit to get them smooth, and then we wouldn't have the distressed finish anymore. I'm afraid any kind of product I try will vary so much from the finish that was applied by the manufacturer. Of course, the gouges are smack dab in the middle of the kitchen, so filling them would look pretty obvious.

I'm going to take some pictures and get them uploaded. All I have right now are pictures of the installation. I'll add those and try to get some good pics of the damage.

Thanks everyone!

Some laminates are glued, some snap together and 1 in 100 get nailed. Soild harwood and engineered hard wood are nailed through the tongue and groove into the floor. No glue but a colored filler is wiped into the cracks.

Kim, just read your last post and I think that basment caused your problem. Dehumidifer or not its very likely more humid in the basement than the living area. This doesn't help with your cure but it explains what happened.

Okay, here are a few pictures. The darker ones without the flash are closest to the actual color. Anyway, I found the instructions and they say this product can be glued down or nailed down. But it doesn't say anything about both. They also say to allow 24-72 hours for product to acclimate. There is a limited 25 year wear-through warranty (which does not apply to scratching), and a lifetime warranty against manufacturing defects. Of course, they say that "scratches, gouges or indentations are not factory defects".

I suppose the basement could be part of the problem. I would actually have to check with my husband on how long the floor sat where. It was in the garage first, then we brought it into the basement, and then upstairs. It might not have been in the basement for very long, and I know it was upstairs for much longer than recommended. In any case, it's a total bummer!

Do you think I should fill all the gaps with wood filler and cover the whole floor in poly? What happens when the wood needs to expand again?

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Originally Posted by ballengerb1

Kim, just read your last post and I think that basment caused your problem. Dehumidifer or not its very likely more humid in the basement than the living area. this doesn't help with your cure but it explains what happened.

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Added to the fact that installation was done in the spring which tends to be very humid...

I think your assumption is correct here.

Great job with the pics, that scatch is a heart breaker and I doubt that it will ever go away 100%. Another thought would be to vac the dirt out of the cracks and trowel a hard wax into the cracks. It will keep out the dirt but over time will need maintenance. I'd go with a hard rubber towel and filler. Instead of sanding you can wipe down the filler with a terry rag dipped in spirts that will not harm the factory finish. You know the drill, test in an inconspicuous area first. If you are satisfied with the looks you can skip the poly. Fillers come in colors so find one that blends in.

So will the wax allow for movement? Clearly I don't know much when it comes to hardwood.

We did install in the spring, but in Minnesota it's still pretty darn cold in March and April. I was trying to remember exactly when they were installed. It must have been pretty early because I remember my uncle coming to do our electrical after the floor was done and we were in the middle of a snow storm!

I'm guessing the gaps are here to stay, but I can try wax if you think that's my best bet.

Thanks again!

These look like 2 different floors. First the water and iron trick want work quite wasting time, the whole point of the finish on those floors is to prevent moisture for doing that. This method will only work on soft woods best such as pine... and pine, and it does work on some other like popular and oak but not as good,
The moisture must get to the grain to work which means it must get through the finish first,

Secondly, solid wood floors are always nailed or stapled not glued, they must move, however laminate floors can be glued or snap down,
Engineered floors can be glued or stapled, they have little movement in the boards
Ballangerb1 mentioned the floors need to acclumate to the house, this is correct and very important for these to set in your house for a few days before you lay them,

As for the pics above: the laminate floor has just been installed wrong, though it would be time consuming this can be fixed, you need to pull up all the floor that is affected, the bad thing about laminate is if there is a bad piece in the middle floor you'll have to pull all the floor up to this piece and replace it, same as the floor in the pic that isn't snaped together all the way. Take a few pieces and work on how they snap together, also cheaper laminate floors do not go together as well as the more expensive one do.
As for the 5/8 prefinished floor... that just sucks to be honest, all you can do here is take a skil saw and cut down the middle and you a chisel to remove the rest of it, once all the pieces that are bad are out reistall the new ones, you'll have to rip off the tongue on the last ones you install, and you'll also have to face nail the floor into place, fill these holes with prestained wood filler from minwax. They have many colors to match up with, and that color you have is one of them.
That is unfortunate that your floor dented like that, I'm going to guess the wheels on the frig didn't roll like they should.

Good luck hope any of this helps or cleared up any questions

Thanks for all the info!

Yes, all the pictures are of the same floor - it's all hardwood tongue and groove, not laminate. The pics look so different because I took some with flash and some without. We also let the flooring acclimate, but as someone mentioned earlier, having it in the basement must have screwed it up, even if it was in the living room for a week or more.

We kind of assumed that if we wanted to replace any of the wood we would just have to cut through in the middle and try to do it the way you described. It's something we might try down the road, but we need to finish everything else first. We would just pull it up and start from the gouges, but it seemed like a smart idea at the time to install the flooring before the cabinets were in. Who knew? This floor has just been bad luck for us all around. We were so careful through the whole process to put towels under everything we set on the floor, including the step stool. Wouldn't you know the very last thing we had to do was move the fridge. We had a thick piece of cardboard under it, plus large furniture sliders under the wheels because it didn't seem like they were going to roll without digging in.

By the way, what do you think of the wax idea ballengerb1 mentioned? It seems like it might be worth a shot.

Thanks for your help!

If you kept any of the extra flooring, you could use a router and chisel to cut out the affected (scratched) planks. Having done furniture touch-up professionally, I really doubt that you'll be able to get satisfactory removal of the depressions with steam. Since your floor was pre-finished, any leftover pieces should match.

Thanks! We do have extra flooring, but were hoping to use it in the entry. I'm trying to convince my hubby that it's probably not such a good idea considering how the kitchen turned out! We probably will end up cutting out the bad pieces and replacing them, we just weren't sure exactly if it would work well losing the tongue and groove. I guess it can't get much worse than it already is!

Thanks again!

Wow! I do not work at 'hd' -- I am just a regular 'dg' (domestic goddess). HOWEVER, I HAVE put down my share of flooring. The wood I see in the picture is engineered (yes, it's 'solid' wood, but that's a 'bunch-o-wood' glued together! Yes, it's al wood -- and solid (if you don't count the minute air left between all the pieces! My past experience (which includes, putting in new, fixing old, and now installing laminiate upstairs in this house) has been that engineered wood is glued "down." the best glued result we ever got was when we glued it straight to some 1976 vinyl flooring that would have taken weeks to get up. It acted as a great water barrier from the slab -- next, we put some in right before they made the glue 'non-toxic.' that did pretty good, but not as good as the kitchen. Then when they made the glue 'better for us,' the floor always had pops and creeks where it came up (you had to drill a hole and shoot more glue down in the pop). This is the case UNLESS you have a wood floor made to specifically float -- then you nail! With solid-one-piece wood (like it came right from the tree!) -- again, check to see if you should glue it "down" or nail it to each other. The house I'm in now, the previous owner had a dishwasher leak and had it replaced (with a $5,000 insurance payment) with a almost matching (almost) bunch of scraps left from other jobs (he kept most of it, neighbors to talk). It was cheap, and had splintery places in the middle of the room, with not one piece being over a foot long! This is the dead giveaway. He saved all the end pieces of other jobs and used them here for a cheap, quick fix. They had already moved out and we didn't notice until it started denting, coming up, gapping, you name it! It is crap. Is that wood solid 'pieces?' if it is, it will dent, and if water gets through those cracks, it will "ripple." you can fill the spaces wood putty and stain it to match. With the gouges, you will have to play with them. I will think about this. You can always take out the effected boards, cut the 'tongue' off one and replace (ugh). We are adding to our wood floors (thanks to new dog), but I swear we are going to glue down some vinyl first! Lol. We are installing laminiate upstairs (as we speak). One guy told us it's all about how thick the "wood-looking-piece" is. Well, if that's the case, then why are so many different thicknesses? Because of this dog, we are sealing our laminate with an epoxy glue. Yes, we bought the old fashioned kind that doesn't 'click' together. We figured if we have to put something on it, we might as well get good stuff that has been marked down because the lock system is so much easier and is the big thing. The guy at 'hd' told us this was 'unnecessary' with the click/lock stuff. If this is the case, why do they sell a product called "click seal??" it is to seal out moisture that WILL get in if it sits there long enough! I also got my 'pad' at Lowe's. It is a house wrap. It is accordion folded, plastic sided, 4' by 50' and 1/4 inch of styrofoam -- at $35.00+/-! This takes away most of the sound we would get from people walking upstairs! Downstairs, it will give us a moister barrier (we are putting it on the slab in the master) and a nice pad so that it will not have that hollow, like-your-tapping-shoeing-on-your-laminiate-kitchen-counter sound. It's a 1,000 times better than any of the crap they wanted to sell us specifically for laminate! As far as upstairs, I'm not sure why you can't just use carpet padding!! Any takers on that one? At our other house, moister came up through the glue, and we could see the mold in the wood below the polyurethine (if you were looking for a reason to get out of using a moister barrier on your slab). But seems from the way you are talking, your house is pier and beam. With the peiced-solid wood, heavy things will most definitely mash it in. I wish I had a great answer. If I had built this house, I would have made sure they kept the concrete clean (they use it to spray paint trim) and I would have stained the concrete. :mad:

Boy, is that looooooooong, sorry.. .

Thanks for your input! Yes, the wood is solid and we already have many dents in addition to the gouges. Definitely not happy with the outcome of this project. Between the dents, the gouges and the gaps it's not looking too good. If I had it to do all over again I would definitely choose a different product. I thought since it was prefinished we wouldn't have to worry about spills or anything damaging the wood. I never realized how much space would be left between each plank. The tongue and groove never really seemed to go together very tightly. We spent a lot of time fitting different pieces together to get the tightest fit possible. Then we hoped once we nailed really hard it would come together - but it just never did. We'll probably replace the damaged pieces eventually and try filling the gaps and hopefully it will look decent enough to last a few years!

We're about to put laminate upstairs, and wood down (we have to match what's here). We're going to throw a couple layers of poly on the wood after we get it in. that will take care of the leaking issues. I think they should recommend this -- but I guess they want it to seem as easy as possible, and to heck with you later. We were reading the box on the laminate yesterday and it says we have to lay it over a "shaw" underlayment (that's the brand). So, guess what? If we use the underlayment from the store -- no warranty!! They getcha no matter what. I wonder if I could get the store to put it in writing that they guarantee it if shaw spits it back -- if I use their pad.

It is real wood not engineered! Don't listen to the other post that talk about the durability of laminates. True they may wear a little longer but a all metal floor would wear even better than laminate, but I wouldn't use either because the look like crap. Your floor is beautiful sorry about the bad luck. A wood filler is one of your best options, I would not refinish the floor. It is important to note that modern wood floors do not use polyurethane, It is why they last so long. They mainly used aluminum oxide. You can do this yourself just allot more work tools and precautions.:)

I'm not sure I understand if you have real or engineered wood? It appears to be real wood from what I can tell. Anyway... did you put down a moisture barrier of any sort. I think that's usually the norm for real wood anyway. I'm not sure about engineered although it wouldn't seem to hurt, esp in the kitchen.

We also have many furniture scratches on our hardwood floors. We moved in but neglected to really delve into care, maint, etc. Ours is in the living room,etc We'll have to bite the bullet one day and have it all resanded and refinished. Our's has beveled edges also. A lovely look for a country look but OMG what a PITA for cleaning on a day to day basis. And then you add stupidly dragging furniture.. LOL We've at least gotten better at that but you usually only get one chance at it per piece of furniture.

Good Luck!

Yes, it is solid wood - but it is engineered. We did not put down a moisture barrier, just plywood over the floor boards. We have a full basement below, not a foundation. I wasn't too concerned with spilling liquids because of the nice finish, but I didn't expect the huge gaps between each board.

If I had it to do again I would NEVER put wood, or anything with potential gaps, in the kitchen! Now this spring we noticed the cute little ants that were always outside our house found a way to get in. They use the gaps as their own little tunnel system! UGGGGHHHHH!

Kim, I hate to tell you this but you just need to pull it up and call the pros to come install the new. You could use wood putty but it will look bad. This was HD's long plk solid w/ a 3 plank look. Looking at the side view of the product, I can tell you had a hard time getting the plank together in the first place. The groove is real fuzzy/hairy this is always a sign of "inexpensive flooring" that HD is so good at carrying. One thing you are supposed to put down before the wood is felt paper. This helps with some moisture coming up from the lower floor and dampens some sound as well. You let it set upstairs long enough, and it sounds like there where no gaps right after the install was completed. But is started gapping pretty soon after. Did you drive the staples in at the right angle (45 degree angle into the board at the base of the tounge), did you use the right staple(usually 1 1/4 in to 1 1/2 in, 18 gauge staple), was the setting on the nail gun set right to counter sink the staple just below the level of the wood. The top of the staple sticking up could cause the planks not to go together very well. I always say us a 3/4 in gap on solids around the walls, but then again I never recommend solid woods. Only the true engineered wood that has 5 plys or more.

As for the dents in the floors, usually you can remove and replace the planks even if they are in the middle of the floor. Even with the fake plastic laminates you can remove and replace a plank in the middle of the floor without taking it all apart.

I would call an installation company, have them come out and look at it to see what they can do to save the floor. If not claim it on your home owners insurance and have the pros install the new.

Kim,
The dark flooring pics look very similar to the floor I laid in my home. Your gouges look beyond a putty fill. I would think your options are to sand it out and re-stain and re-finish. For the grooves you could carefully sand those grooves back in yourself, but that would be very tidious. Or your second option is to cut out those boards and replace with left overs (assuming you have some) this would require some face nailing with brad nails, but those holes are easier to puddy and disguise then trying to fill a huge gouge. As far as the gaps, when you installed the flooring did your staples sink all the way in that they should have because that could very possibly be why you had a difficult time in the first place getting them to go together. Sure, there could be moisture issues, but from your original statement and the picture it seems the staples could have prevented your being able to tightly fit them (which they should be tight). As for closing the gaps, you'll probably have to pull them up and do it again. Not fun, I know, but any attempt to fill with putty or anything else is probably not going to be to pretty to look out. Good luck!

Hire a lawyer and sue them for a grossly high amount ($80,000-$120,000) claiming that the owness is on them for selling an honest and sound products. Their company is one of the leading flooring providers in canada (or USA) and needs to be held accountable to sell products honestly. It seems to me they lied and cheated you and the proof is on your floor. I've seen a few case of this in british columbia canada, and in every case the company settles for 15-25 grand. In my experience it is completely unexeptable what they did to you and a judge will see that. But they will probably settle with you before you go in front of a judge.

Don't FILL THE GAPS WITH FILLER. When the floor expands and contracts the putty will crack in many places along the side of the boards. It will look ten times worse than it does now. The basement is the culprit here I believe. The wood should have acclimated in the room or rooms that it was being installed. There are no fixes for that problem. Your only hope is to have your dishwasher leak onto your floor where it has to be taken up and replaced. PS-- I am a floor installer and refinisher for 26 years,

Very old thread however, I will add my thoughts for future readers. First, this does not appear to be engineered wood, this is solid planking. It may be nailed as well as glued, generally not both but only because it would be overkill. When nailing, a flooring specific nailer along with the appropriate fasteners should be used, a regular trim nailer is not the right tool for the job.

As mentioned before, a week out of the basement, even with a dehumidifyer, likely is not sufficient. A basement is the worst place to store wood unless it's being installed there.

Proper underlayment is extremely important. It must be (in total) at least 3 quarter inch, flooring appropriate and properly offset, plywood.

The manufacturer's requirements may be more stringent than this. Deviation from the above 3 are likely to create the problem that you have now.

You can expect to have seasonal expansion and contraction. Gapping of about 1 16th of an inch or less can be covered by a matching wax filler. You may be able to address larger gaps (due to improper aclimation or fasteners) by strapping the floor and face nailling the perimeter. Success of this is highly questionable though you should be able to improve the larger gaps.

If you have a improper underlayment, I am sorry to say that you will likely have to tear out and reinstall. Short of that, if you have access to the subfloor from your basement, you may be able to strap and then screw from below Screwing may well create it's own problems and is not recommended. You may also be able to apply plywood strips between the floor joist to help strengthen and reduce movement.

You can cut the affected board out and replace with a new one

This thread started in 2007, let it die