Just over a year ago I moved into an apartment of a renovated heritage house. The group of homes they repaired were badly neglected, so one by one they were elevated and from the foundation up completely fixed.

Only the ground level kept the hardwood floors, I imagine for noise, and the other suites carpeted.

Apparently what I am going through is not a problem my neighbors are having. From pretty much the day I moved in walking around in socks will pull up some of the filler in between the boards. I am attempting to fix this and have found huge amounts of dust and debris under the wood filler, in some areas almost half an inch of it.

This leaves me with the impression the floors were either not vacuumed before the filler went in, or even had the debris swept into the cracks.

To me this does not seem the way it should be done, but I want to know how bad a mistake this is before mentioning it to anybody.

 

The floors have gone through one year of seasonal changes. Most like refinished when humidity levels were low, like now, when running the heater.

The higher humidity, compressed the filler, and now that the heat is back on the boards have shrank again, allowing your socks to pull the filler out.

The debis and filth in the gaps can be a bond breaker for the filler, but I think there is more at play here. Like humidity, and now the lack of humidity, once again. Don't ya love one year warranties?

 

I don't think the warranty ever came into play, these guys were gone before the varnish had dried (in hindsight, I guess the squealing tires was a giveaway).

Humidity? I'm in Vancouver, B.C. .... so, ya I believe this would classify as humid. Some might say torrential but lets stick with humid.

Previously I've heard Humidity may be the cause, and also that the age of the house. The floor and house were both once level, now as the house sags the floor is doing funky things.

Then I had a thought a while ago:
Why is it, regardless of time of year or average rainfalll, you can walk into any school of any age and the gymnasium floor does not have bits coming out from between each plank?
What can I do to this floor to stop it from happening?
Frustrating to sweep and immediately it needs sweeping again.... all year round.

 

A gym floor is installed with a totally different installation spec, then a residential home. There are control gaps intetionally left in big installations like a gym floor. They are also installed on a rubber cleated subfloor.

Gyms have humidity controls, also. Just for the wood floor, and to maintain a constant moisture content in the wood.

 

so, just 'cause I have the high ceilings I shouldn't rush out and buy the basketball nets just yet, huh?

ugh, bad joke

didn't know all that about the gymnasiums, kinda interesting.

So far I have been cleaning the floor and putting in some wood filler. Sand it down and it high traffic areas putting a very thin coat of varnish, just on the joins. Sand and wood filler again and it looks like I'll be doing the process one more time around.
I'm wondering if my next step should be thick coats of varnish, that might prevent the material from popping through, or at least I hope.
Basically, bury it in varnish.