Have you got fir floors in your home that need refinishing?
Fir floors are probably the most beautiful floors within many homes throughout THE UNITED STATES. It was probably the most popular types of flooring set up here for quite some time because of its easy availability.
But fir flooring have many unique characteristics compared to true hardwood floors like red and white oak. This means the appearance and performance of your floor will differ significantly from those of an oak floor. If you want to be thrilled with your floors, then understanding these variations is really important. To start with...
- Fir IS QUITE Soft -
Fir is about 100% more susceptible to impact damage than red or white oak. The solid wood flooring industry has a guide to inform the density of different types of solid wood known as the Janka Hardness Level. This test procedures the force required to embed a.444 inch steel ball to half its diameter in various types of wood. On this level, white oak rates at 1360, red oak 1290 and fir at the bottom with a lowly 660. Because they are so soft, fir flooring are a lot more difficult to refinish.
Great care needs to be taken to ensure the complete minimum amount of wood is removed through the sanding process. This takes a lot of skill and years of knowledge. This is one of the easiest floors to mess up if you do not know what you are doing. Many fir floors become ruined by extremely deep drum marks caused by inexperienced hardwood floor refinishing companies.
Once these drum marks (due to departing the drum sander in one spot too long) are produced, the only way to remove them is to sand the surrounding areas flat to the same depth. This will take decades off the life span of a floor and in cases of already thin flooring, it can mean having to replace large sections with reclaimed timber.
Fir is certainly not the type of flooring to apply your sanding skills on.
- Mottling or Bruising -
Refinished fir floor surfaces often exhibit another characteristic called mottling or bruising. The degree of this bruising can vary greatly from area to room and also from area to region within a single room. In high visitors areas or near the perimeter of an area, the fir often shows darker, blotchy areas. Most of this is due to many years of foot traffic and wear. The framework of fibers and cells in smooth fir is very dissimilar to hardwoods like oak. As visitors makes its way over the floor over many years, fir becomes bruised which turns up as darker, blotchy areas in the floor.
It is not uncommon to be able to tell specifically where furniture had been placed for several years in a room. It is possible to see a light patch that's exactly the size of a bed or dresser encircled by a darker area which ultimately shows the occupants strolling path. Usually there will be a darker way to the closets and entrance of the room as well. Unfortunately there can be nothing that can be done to guarantee this organic occurrence of mottling, bruising or blotching won't occur. Actually the only assurance that it will not show up is if you use a new floor.
- Your Fir Floors IS QUITE Thin -
Over the years your floors might have been refinished many times, especially if you have a heritage home built before 1940. Due to numerous sandings, the thickness of the real wood eventually decreases and the heads of fingernails begin showing between your boards. If your fir flooring are this thin, occasionally refinishing isn't an option, and installing a new floor could be necessary.
Sometimes though this is often a false assumption, particularly if there is only a few nail heads showing plus they are irregularly scattered throughout the floor. The initial installer might not have fully set the nail and it is now sitting higher in the floor compared to the rest. Also, these fir flooring set up over a ship lap sub-floor can be extremely loose and have a whole lot of movement. It could be the case that the nail provides slowly worked its way to the top over the years and just must be set again. So don't let someone tell you that they cannot be restored unless they are sure that they are unrecoverable.
Another clue they may be too thin is to look at the very best of the grooves. If they are splitting and breaking off, there is a good chance there is not enough real wood still left to sand. You could also place a knife blade down between one of the boards (if there is a gap) and measure just how much timber is still left. The measurement will be the difference between your surface and the length to the tongue. If its 1/8 of an inch or even more you may be in luck.
- Movement And Squeaks -
Old fir flooring are also a lot more prone to movement and squeaks than other types of hardwood floors. This is because of just how they were set up and the fasteners utilized. Back then, screws weren't used for holding down the sub-floor, or ship lap as it is named under these type of floors. The ship lap was attached to the joists with nails. (If your house is old more than enough they may also be square headed nails.) The tongue and groove fir flooring was then blind nailed to the ship lap.
Through the years, through many winters and summers, your home has settled and the floor has settled and moved along with it. Especially in high visitors areas, the fir and the ship lap will often work its way loose from the nails causing these areas to go and possibly squeak.
Motion and squeaks are normal for these beautiful vintage floors. For those who have no squeaks consider yourself one of the extremely lucky few. Wanting to repair this kind of movement can be extremely pricey. It involves very carefully removing the existing flooring to expose the ship lap which then needs to be correctly screwed down. No easy, quick or cheap process. You are far better off accepting this within the personality of your flooring and getting used to it.
- Large Gaps -
Another characteristic of fir floors is they often times have huge gaps between your boards. This provides a lot related to the settling and motion as described above. Because they contract and expand over the years, the boards can gradually spread apart and keep you with space between your joints. Many refinishers trowel fill up putty over the entire floor to fill up these gaps just like they might for an oak flooring. But this might not always be in your best interests with fir.
Because these floors can move so very much, the dried filler could have a hard time staying in place. Also the gaps between the boards will be full of dirt and residue that has collected over the decades which will further hinder the adhesion of the filler. Filler that becomes loose will get ground in to the newly finished ground shortening its life, scratching it up and surface.
Fir also varies from board to https://diigo.com/0il7hd board with respect to color. Some boards will be very reddish colored, others a lighter brown and still others could have significant light coloured streaks in them. Because of this, no filler color will match perfectly. Always take these points into consideration before deciding whether your floors certainly are a applicant for filling or not really.
A number of these older floors also need repairs because of prior careless renovations like walls being removed etc. Make sure that reclaimed vintage fir from the same era as your floors are sourced therefore they match as close as possible. Unfortunately, brand-new fir looks nothing beats old growth fir from years back. If you use this new flooring to https://en.search.wordpress.com/?src=organic&q=Georgia patch areas in your floor, they will stand out just like a sore thumb.
So there you own it, soft real wood, bruising, movement, squeaks and gaps are part of the charm, beauty and personality of the gorgeous vintage floors. If you accept these characteristics for what they are, then you will love these floors as much as we do.
Tadas Real wood Flooring Inc. is focused on high quality restoration work with all of the Naperville hardwood ground sanding projects it takes on. We've successfully completed hundreds of wood floor restoration projects and have many happy customers to vouch for our top quality work.
But before you choose us or any various other business in Naperville to refinish your hardwood floors, be sure you pop over to our website and download and go through our FREE Consumer Report that will educate you on what questions you should ask any hardwood flooring refinishing business in Naperville before hiring them. As long as you're presently there, take a few minutes to check out a few of our photos from function we've done for previous happy clients.