Hi

Can anybody please help? We have just bought a house with a lovely
large (pine) wideboard wooden floor - running lengthways across the
living room and dining room, each board is about 6 inches wide and 12
feet or more long.

The problem is that there are very wide gaps between the boards - as
much at 5mm (or even more) in a few places and we can feel a draught
coming up from the cellar beneath.

We want to fill these in - and had one quote to sand them, make up a
cellulose-based filler with the dust and then filler them in and
polish. Apparently this would look great and it'd cost about 500quid
(which is within our budget).

The problem is that we got a second quote and the guy told us that the
problem with cellulose, especially with wideboards, is that if they
boards contract the cellulose could itself crack and we'd be left with
long cracks running inbetween the boards - and, eventually, the filler
would fall between the cracks and we'd be back to square one. Our
second guy said that we could use some other filling material (not
cellulose) but that this would be more expensive, and wouldn't
colour-match as well.

I found a website -
http://www.broadleaftimber.com/floor...icalinfo7.html
- which says " ensure that the filler is suitable for the size of gap
you are filling - cellulose based fillers should be used for gaps over
3mm. " - which makes me think we would be OK after all with the
cellulose.

Can anybody help?

Thanks in advance.

"rebelmc" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi

Can anybody please help? We have just bought a house with a lovely
large (pine) wideboard wooden floor - running lengthways across the
living room and dining room, each board is about 6 inches wide and 12
feet or more long.

The problem is that there are very wide gaps between the boards - as
much at 5mm (or even more) in a few places and we can feel a draught
coming up from the cellar beneath.

We want to fill these in - and had one quote to sand them, make up a
cellulose-based filler with the dust and then filler them in and
polish. Apparently this would look great and it'd cost about 500quid
(which is within our budget).

The problem is that we got a second quote and the guy told us that the
problem with cellulose, especially with wideboards, is that if they
boards contract the cellulose could itself crack and we'd be left with
long cracks running inbetween the boards - and, eventually, the filler
would fall between the cracks and we'd be back to square one. Our
second guy said that we could use some other filling material (not
cellulose) but that this would be more expensive, and wouldn't
colour-match as well.

I found a website -
http://www.broadleaftimber.com/floor...icalinfo7.html
- which says " ensure that the filler is suitable for the size of gap
you are filling - cellulose based fillers should be used for gaps over
3mm. " - which makes me think we would be OK after all with the
cellulose.

Can anybody help?

Thanks in advance.

I have no experience of cellulose. I first tried PVA plus sawdust but that
went dark and shiny on drying and contracted anyway. The other option of
filling the gaps with wood slivers was super labour-intensive and needed at
least a bandsaw.

I hunted around for fillers suitable for an applicator gun and after much
fruitless searching and finding the small print specifically excluding
filling of floorboard gaps I came across acrylic frame sealant in natural
( wood ) colour. Dow Corning make it.

My floorboards had up to 1/4" gaps, and that was after I lifted a couple of
really wonky ones and regapped them!

I wasn't sure about the sealant falling through after movement so I caulked
the floorboard gaps with twisted hemp strings. This was tedious, and may be
unnecessary, certainly with small gaps.

I then laid masking tape down either side of all the gaps, and with
something like 4 or 5 tubes of frame sealant for a 10x12 room I filled the
gaps and smoothed off the sealant surface with a wet finger.

The sealant is light to start with but slowly darkens with age and is now
slightly darker than an antique pine shade. I did all this in January, and
found that after a year a few gaps opened up, though the sealant never fell
through or sagged. I added additional sealant to caulk these gaps and all
seems to be OK now. Remember the floorboards may dry out and shrink over
time with the carpet above them now gone.

I repeated this in my hallway a year later, caulking only the largest
floorboard gaps, this time with foam insulation instead of hemp. After 18
months there are no problems.

I can't see the point of an exact colour match between boards and filler,
the filler lines being visible isn't intrusive at all. I suspect you could
rub fine sawdust into the sealant as you go along to get a close match if
that's really important.

Andy.

if you have an accessible cellar ,why not insulate from below much cheaper
and will give a added benefit of better heat retention and no change to the
exposed floor.

Alex

On Sun, 17 Sep 2006 01:56:58 +0100, "Alex" wrote:

if you have an accessible cellar ,why not insulate from below much cheaper
and will give a added benefit of better heat retention and no change to the
exposed floor.

Alex


Seconded. Maybe thin pine faced plywood pushed up against the boards
between the rafters for appearance and to stopt the draft then celotex
for insulation.

There's this stuff which looks a good idea - http://www.stopg-p.co.uk/
Anybody used it?

On 17 Sep 2006 02:20:35 -0700, "normanwisdom" wrote:

There's this stuff which looks a good idea - http://www.stopg-p.co.uk/
Anybody used it?

It's not clear from the website excatly what this stuff loks like .A picture
would have made this clearer .Also read this re T+G boards .

Stuart
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
STOPG-P is designed to exclude draught through gaps between 1–8 mm wide,
especially gaps between square-edged wooden floorboards. The gap must be 10mm or
more deep so that the seal can be pushed out of sight. This makes it unsuitable
for tongue and groove boards. Exceptionally, the seal can be trimmmed with
scissors to fit shallower gaps.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Andy wrote:
"rebelmc" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi

Can anybody please help? We have just bought a house with a lovely
large (pine) wideboard wooden floor - running lengthways across the
living room and dining room, each board is about 6 inches wide and 12
feet or more long.

The problem is that there are very wide gaps between the boards - as
much at 5mm (or even more) in a few places and we can feel a draught
coming up from the cellar beneath.

We want to fill these in - and had one quote to sand them, make up a
cellulose-based filler with the dust and then filler them in and
polish. Apparently this would look great and it'd cost about 500quid
(which is within our budget).

The problem is that we got a second quote and the guy told us that the
problem with cellulose, especially with wideboards, is that if they
boards contract the cellulose could itself crack and we'd be left with
long cracks running inbetween the boards - and, eventually, the filler
would fall between the cracks and we'd be back to square one. Our
second guy said that we could use some other filling material (not
cellulose) but that this would be more expensive, and wouldn't
colour-match as well.

I found a website -
http://www.broadleaftimber.com/floor...icalinfo7.html
- which says " ensure that the filler is suitable for the size of gap
you are filling - cellulose based fillers should be used for gaps over
3mm. " - which makes me think we would be OK after all with the
cellulose.

Can anybody help?

Thanks in advance.

I have no experience of cellulose. I first tried PVA plus sawdust but that
went dark and shiny on drying and contracted anyway. The other option of
filling the gaps with wood slivers was super labour-intensive and needed at
least a bandsaw.

I hunted around for fillers suitable for an applicator gun and after much
fruitless searching and finding the small print specifically excluding
filling of floorboard gaps I came across acrylic frame sealant in natural
( wood ) colour. Dow Corning make it.

My floorboards had up to 1/4" gaps, and that was after I lifted a couple of
really wonky ones and regapped them!

I wasn't sure about the sealant falling through after movement so I caulked
the floorboard gaps with twisted hemp strings. This was tedious, and may be
unnecessary, certainly with small gaps.

I then laid masking tape down either side of all the gaps, and with
something like 4 or 5 tubes of frame sealant for a 10x12 room I filled the
gaps and smoothed off the sealant surface with a wet finger.

The sealant is light to start with but slowly darkens with age and is now
slightly darker than an antique pine shade. I did all this in January, and
found that after a year a few gaps opened up, though the sealant never fell
through or sagged. I added additional sealant to caulk these gaps and all
seems to be OK now. Remember the floorboards may dry out and shrink over
time with the carpet above them now gone.

I repeated this in my hallway a year later, caulking only the largest
floorboard gaps, this time with foam insulation instead of hemp. After 18
months there are no problems.

I can't see the point of an exact colour match between boards and filler,
the filler lines being visible isn't intrusive at all. I suspect you could
rub fine sawdust into the sealant as you go along to get a close match if
that's really important.

What people don't realise is that sawdust is not a colour match for the
boards. Different texture equals different "colour"

rebelmc wrote:
Hi

Can anybody please help? We have just bought a house with a lovely
large (pine) wideboard wooden floor - running lengthways across the
living room and dining room, each board is about 6 inches wide and 12
feet or more long.

The problem is that there are very wide gaps between the boards - as
much at 5mm (or even more) in a few places and we can feel a draught
coming up from the cellar beneath.

We want to fill these in - and had one quote to sand them, make up a
cellulose-based filler with the dust and then filler them in and
polish. Apparently this would look great and it'd cost about 500quid
(which is within our budget).

We went this route using a product called Styccobond B94 , (2-3 litres ~
£15-25 worth does a standard room!) - it worked very well - filled upto 10mm
gaps not probs and has stayed in place for over 3 years - including the hire
of the sanding machine, sand paper and the filler we had change out of £100
and it took less than a day!! -

Any help
Jon

Stuart wrote:
On 17 Sep 2006 02:20:35 -0700, "normanwisdom" wrote:

There's this stuff which looks a good idea - http://www.stopg-p.co.uk/
Anybody used it?

It's not clear from the website excatly what this stuff loks like .A picture
would have made this clearer .Also read this re T+G boards .

Stuart
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
STOPG-P is designed to exclude draught through gaps between 1-8 mm wide,
especially gaps between square-edged wooden floorboards. The gap must be 10mm or
more deep so that the seal can be pushed out of sight. This makes it unsuitable
for tongue and groove boards. Exceptionally, the seal can be trimmmed with
scissors to fit shallower gaps.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It seems to be a folded strip of polythene or something so that it
springs open to close the gap if you poke it in pointed end down.

cheers
Jacob

Thanks for your help everybody.

I think we've now decided not to try to colour match - but to go with a
black acrylic gap-filler - after which we'll polish the boards again.

Before we go ahead do just let me know, anybody, if you think this is a
bad idea.

normanwisdom wrote:
Stuart wrote:
On 17 Sep 2006 02:20:35 -0700, "normanwisdom" wrote:

There's this stuff which looks a good idea - http://www.stopg-p.co.uk/
Anybody used it?

It's not clear from the website excatly what this stuff loks like .A picture
would have made this clearer .Also read this re T+G boards .

Stuart
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
STOPG-P is designed to exclude draught through gaps between 1-8 mm wide,
especially gaps between square-edged wooden floorboards. The gap must be 10mm or
more deep so that the seal can be pushed out of sight. This makes it unsuitable
for tongue and groove boards. Exceptionally, the seal can be trimmmed with
scissors to fit shallower gaps.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It seems to be a folded strip of polythene or something so that it
springs open to close the gap if you poke it in pointed end down.

cheers
Jacob

rebelmc wrote:
Thanks for your help everybody.

I think we've now decided not to try to colour match - but to go with a
black acrylic gap-filler - after which we'll polish the boards again.

Before we go ahead do just let me know, anybody, if you think this is a
bad idea.

normanwisdom wrote:
Stuart wrote:
On 17 Sep 2006 02:20:35 -0700, "normanwisdom" wrote:

There's this stuff which looks a good idea - http://www.stopg-p.co.uk/
Anybody used it?
It's not clear from the website excatly what this stuff loks like .A picture
would have made this clearer .Also read this re T+G boards .

Stuart
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
STOPG-P is designed to exclude draught through gaps between 1-8 mm wide,
especially gaps between square-edged wooden floorboards. The gap must be 10mm or
more deep so that the seal can be pushed out of sight. This makes it unsuitable
for tongue and groove boards. Exceptionally, the seal can be trimmmed with
scissors to fit shallower gaps.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It seems to be a folded strip of polythene or something so that it
springs open to close the gap if you poke it in pointed end down.

cheers
Jacob


A black surround to a suspended wooden ceiling just looks like an empty
space, and I guess the effect on floors would be the same i.e. the gaps
will still look like gaps. Strangely enough, clear sealants don't look
as good.