Floor repair
Take out what is bad, keep what is good
Damage is nearly always local. A leak under a sink, a slow drip behind a fridge, a pet left on an old finish, a joist that has dropped. The rest of the floor is fine. So we open up the bad section, find out why it went, fix that, then weave new boards into the old rather than butting a patch against it.
Once it is sanded and finished with the rest of the room, a repair like that disappears. That is the difference between a repair and a replacement, and it is usually thousands of dollars.
Got a spot that moves underfoot? Call Best Choice Flooring.
Why is the floor soft in one place?
Because the layer under the finish floor has gone. Water is the usual culprit and it rarely announces itself: a slow supply line, a failed wax ring, a washer hose weeping into the floor for a year. The subfloor swells, then rots, then gives. Central Delaware's high water table means crawl spaces here stay damp, which does the same job more slowly from underneath. Finding the source is the first half of the repair, because putting new wood over a live leak just buys a couple of years.
Finding the cause before the fix is how we work on every flooring job in Dover.
Will the repair be obvious?
Not if the boards are woven in. The ends of the new run are staggered into the old floor rather than cut in a straight line across it, which is what makes a patch look like a patch. Then the whole room is sanded together and finished together, so the color and the sheen match everywhere. Old growth boards in a hundred year old Dover house are a different grain from anything on a shelf today, and matching them is a stain job as much as a carpentry one. The finishing side of it is the same work as a full hardwood refinish.
That is not bad luck, it is geology: the Delaware Geological Survey records a shallow water table across the central part of the state.
Before you tear the whole floor out
Let Mike look at it first. Most floors people have written off need one section rebuilt and the room refinished.
Call (302) 480-9637What about squeaks and moving stairs?
Squeaks are movement: a board rubbing a nail, or a subfloor lifting off a joist as you step on it. Fixing it means securing the layers back together, from below where there is access and from above where there is not. Stairs are the same idea with more consequence, because a loose tread is a fall. We refit treads, rebuild nosings and reface steps, then finish them to match the floor they run into.
The same work scales up into commercial and business floors.
Do you repair commercial floors too?
Yes, and speed matters more there. A damaged patch in an office, a hall or a shop floor is a trip hazard and a bad look, and it usually has to be fixed outside opening hours. We cut out the failed section, sort whatever caused it, and blend the repair into the surrounding floor so it does not read as a patch. Where a floor is beyond patching in one area we will say so and price the section properly. See our commercial flooring work.
Ask the man doing the work
Straight answers about your flooring questions
Can you repair water damaged hardwood?
Usually. If the boards have cupped but the subfloor is sound, drying the floor out and sanding it flat often does it. Where the wood is rotted or black, that section comes out and new boards go in.
Can pet damage be sanded out?
Surface scratches and dull patches, yes. Urine that has gone through the finish and into the wood leaves a black stain that sanding will not reach, so those boards get replaced and the room is finished as one.
Do you fix the subfloor as well?
Yes, and it is usually the actual problem. We open it up, replace what is soft or rotten, make sure the structure under it is sound, then lay the finish floor back over it.
How do I know if it is worth repairing?
Mike will tell you. Solid wood can be sanded several times over its life, so there is usually plenty left. If a floor is genuinely finished, he says so rather than selling you a repair that will not hold.
Can you repair vinyl, laminate and tile too?
Yes. Planks and tiles can be lifted and replaced individually, though matching a discontinued run is the hard part. Keep any spares you were left with.
How fast can you come out?
Call (302) 480-9637 and Mike will tell you honestly when he can get there. A live leak or a floor somebody could go through gets looked at quickly.