Whats the best way to fill a gap hardwood floor thats about 2 dimes wide?

Whats the best way to fill a gap hardwood floor that's about 2 dimes (vertically placed) wide?

Any product recommendations?

 

Is this a single location or is it throughout a room? Posting a picture sure would help us give better advice. Sometimes it can be filled with epoxy or wood filler, sometimes not. http://www.doityourself.com/forum/el...your-post.html

 

Along with letting us know how many/long the gaps are - is this a new occurrence? It isn't uncommon for gaps to expand/contract with temp and humidity changes.

 

Please see image of crack. Suggestions?

 

It appears what happened, the installer nailed the quarter round to the flooring rather than to the base as it is normally done. This fixed that piece of flooring not allowing it to move. Two routes: one, remove the quarter round and use a pry bar to move the flooring together, replacing the quarter round properly. Second, would be wood filler colored as close to red oak as possible, sand lightly and apply polyurethane. I'll leave the paint stuff to Marksr.

I'm not even going to comment on the cleat nails used as face nails rather than finish nails, but that's another story.

 

I was also going to recommend that the baseboards be pulled and a pry bar used to pull the gap closed as well.

Did they use cleats or crown staples?

 

Thanks Chandler and czizzi!

 

Could have been crown staples, but you still have to ask "why?". Finish nails leave such a smaller footprint.

Nugmebot, if you decide to pull the molding, be sure to slip in a piece of wood between your prybar and the wall/base to keep from damaging it. Hopefully after pulling the quarter round you will see a gap and won't have to pull the base.

 

While I agree finish nails would have been more appropriate, filling the staple/cleat holes with the appropriate colored putty will go a long ways toward making them less noticeable. I like to take the two jars of colored putty that come closest to a match and intermix them as needed to make the nail hole disappear.

 

I bid on a job where the homeowner had replaced 100% of the fascia on his 2 story house and used a framing nailer to put the boards up. He filled the nail holes in with caulk (used the wrong kind which molded on him). He was not happy with the finished product. Wonder why? He ended up hiring someone else to re-wrap the whole house with metal, what a waste. I don't own a siding brake, so it would not have been cost effective for me to do he job.

 

Z, I suspect it wasn't the wrong caulk but that it was used in the wrong manner. Probably didn't paint over it. I've never had a mold issue with painted caulking. I've also seen a lot of idiotic attachment procedures or misuse of material by diyers or incompetent contractors over the years