Polishing floorboards

Hi all,

I have just ripped out the carpet in my house to sand and polish and found that due to previous water leak from a shower, parts of the floorboard is showing some black strains. My guess is that as the nails from the carpet holders rusted, it bled into the floorboards. What is the best way to fix this without removing the boards? I've tried to sand back some parts of it and it seems that stains are too deep for that. Is there any chemical I can use to minimise the obviousness of these stains?

thanks

Im not sure that water stains like that can be removed - we did the floors next door and they were very badly stained from an old fridge. We sanded the crap out of the floor and it made no difference, so now the stain is a 'feature'

He he do what I did, rip'em out and concrete it then use the wood elsewhere!
With old style house/floor boards IMHO they look good but thats all, they scratch easy, they sound like a herd of elephants is in your house(espes if you have kids)and no matter what you do they'll always end up squeeking.
What are they made from?

I am in the same boat as you Mowy. I have just ripped up a heap of vinyl tiles and masonite in my kitchen and dining area to discover water marks on the boards and black stains around the nail holes. I sanded the water marks with an orbital sander and this reduced the severity of the water marks, but the black stains are still quite prominent.

A builder friend of mine said marks and stains give the floor more character. I can accept that this might be some peoples opinion, but when the stains are only in one portion of the floor, I think the inconsistency may stand out like nobody's business. I am a little bit of a perfectionist and I think even a small amount of substandard flooring may bother me.

I would like to hear from anyone who has disregarded these black stains and still refinished a water damaged timber floor. Even if you have seen a floor that has been renewed after obvious water damage - then I would be interested in your opinion also.

We ripped up carpets in the hall, stairs and bedrooms of our 70 year old house. Lots of stains and water damage. At first I thought I'd never be happy with seeing the flaws. But HWMBO remined me of the budget............and well, you can guess the rest. That was 18 years ago for one room and 5 years ago for the others. I love the floors just as they are. They are upstairs (and of course the stairs) and with 6 people living here, all of us either in the late 20's (x4 males) or us 2 who are late 50's there would seem to be a lot of noise but I never hear it somehow. Guess I'm either used to it or it's not there. True, the floorboards do squeak a bit but the stairs don't at all. As for the marks, everyone who sees these floors remarks how beautiful they are. The budget has allowed us plenty to spare to carpet these areas but we don't because they are so pretty and cool in summer.
We oiled them with tung oil and redo it every year.
Hope this helps. You can always give it a go and if you still don't like it a year down the track, redo it with a real solid wood (good choice) or floating floor (waste of money in my opinion).

Thanks for the feedback Cassandra.

I didn't make mention in my previous post about the excessive amount of nail holes in the floor. The water stains in my floor are the minor problem as compared to the number of nail holes left after removing the masonite sheeting. Once these holes are filled and the floor finished, I think that they will be more prominent than the reminents of the water marks.

I also have a section of the floor, where the fridge used to be, that has rotted away. Somebody has carried out a previous repair by cutting the rotted boards out and nailing sections of chipboard in. If I were to restore the original floorboards I would also have the chore of locating appropriate timber and installing it where the chipboard is currently located. I find this task to be a little daunting.

I am curious why you think that floating floors are a waste of money? My fiance and I are seriously considering a floating floor for the kitchen, family room and hallways now. I am just starting to look into floating floors so any information would be helpful in making an informed decision.

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Originally Posted by Hybrid

.......... Once these holes are filled and the floor finished, I think that they will be more prominent than the reminents of the water marks.........

.........used to be, that has rotted away. Somebody has carried out a previous repair by cutting the rotted boards out and nailing sections of chipboard in. If I were to restore the original floorboards..........

........ I would also have the chore of locating appropriate timber and installing it where the chipboard is currently located. I find this task to be a little daunting...............

.............I am curious why you think that floating floors are a waste of money? My fiance and I are seriously considering a floating floor for the kitchen, family room and hallways now. I am just starting to look into floating floors so any information would be helpful in making an informed decision...........

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The nail holes are easily fixed. The floor sander should be able to come up with a wood putty which will be pretty close. With our car bog we only did it on the joins and used yellow wood putty for the nail holes (Cypress floor)

Replacing a section of old boards isnt such a chore. You could make a feature out of it by installing diagonal boards or some other fancy thing. Failing that just remove the boards you need to replace from the wall outwards and then replace them back towards the wall. This is only a brief synopsis on replacing boards, but you can more than enough help here. It also gives you a good opportunity to get under the floor and check out the state of your floor joists and bearers.

Finding similar boards should be straight forward. Start by identifying what sort of boards you have (a photo posted here could help). Then get the dimensions on each board - width and thickness. Width is probably the one you need to match most, because you dont want to have to frig around using shims under your boards to make them the same height as your existing. Once youve identified your boards then get yourself a copy of the Melbourne Trading Post (Ive assumed your in Melbourne) and start shopping.

There are a lot of people with an opinion on floating floors either way, however I am one of those that isnt a big fan. Each board is sealed independently as opposed to a normal hardwood floor where the whole top is sealed as one. This means that stuff can get down between the joins, stuff like water, and once water gets on those boards they buckle big time!!!! personally I would never use a floating floor in kitchen of all areas. If you have a hunt around in the forums there is a lad here somewhere who installs floating floors and he may be able to give you another perspective.

Cheers

G'day.

Why not lay a 12mm solid timber T&G floor over your old floor?
I've seen it done a few times and it will really put a smile on your face.

It's better than the old floor sanded by a country mile.

Hooroo.
Regards, Trevor.
Grafton

I am not a fan of floating florrs for any area because they can't take the ordinary wear and tear of people and dogs. They scratch easily and once scratched, are ok to sand back once or twice but no more. That's not very long usage considering how dear they are. I go for solid wood every time, see no advantage in floating over solid. You can find the same depth in solid, thicker 'real wood', and finish it the way you want. Oiling is good because you can re-oil when you choose and where it is scratched without having to sand it all back. We laid a real wood floor inour kitched and sealed all sides before laying then sealed it again after. Yes, water spills on it but it has now been down a year and looks great, not a mark on it. Not bad considering it is the main throughfare of the house. We polyurathaned it but oiled the bedrooms, which after 8 years still look great.
Good luck in it.

I have used oxilic acid (crystals mixed with warm water) with a fair amount of success in removing the black water marks in antique furniture table tops. It is not a quick process - you need to keep the stained area wet with the acid for several hours. when you get to the level of bleaching you are happy with wash the surface with clear water.
this will not always clear up the entire stain but it will usually fade it enough to make it not noticable. without taking the natural color out of the wood.
since the water will raise the grain of the wood a sanding is required after the wood has completly dried.

I am not sure if you can still get oxilic acid (use industrial grade not the very expensive chemically pure varity) as the powers that be tend to outlaw anything that seems to work well. The last time I bought some was several years ago in a smallish backwoods hardware store. My experience is in the US where you can still buy most the things you need to get the job done.

on second thought - the black stain marks do give it a bit of character

Thanks all for your feedback. I have many things to ponder over after reading everyone's input.

I took some snaps with my digital camera today and have put the pics on my webspace so you guys can have a look at the extent of the nail holes, water marks and black corrosion stains. Also, if you can tell what species of timber my floor is, I'd love to know. I think once you see the pictures you will be in a better position to offer a professional opinion.

http://home.exetel.com.au/hybrids/floor%20pics.htm

For some reason the thumbnails for the pics are not displaying for me, but if you click on the pic you should still be able see the full size image.

Cheers

Im pretty sure that is Baltic Pine.

Definitely persevere with sanding this floor - done properly it will look stunning and add much value to your house..

The staining doesnt look that serious too me, I would just sand it and see what we end up with.

The nail holes could be puttied up after the sander has gone over the floors with a 25/40 grit sandpaper.

Those patches would be relatively straightforward to patch up. Baltic pine is very accessible wherever you are.

Yup def baltic pine recent stuff tho, the baltic from my house(1940-50s)has a lot more defined colors.(see pic, excuse the R/bits was for another thread)
This piece isnt sanded back that how my boards looked raw, once coated in poly it hides most of the colors.
Dunno bout Namtrak, but I'd say that water damage looks quite bad and you need to fix up the fridge area which will be hard without pulling up boards if you want to hide it completely.
What sort of house is it?

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Originally Posted by Harry72

........ Dunno bout Namtrak, but I'd say that water damage looks quite bad and you need to fix up the fridge area which will be hard without pulling up boards if you want to hide it completely..........

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I guess I was thinking relative to the house we sanded next door. Maybe he could run an orbital sander over a small patch and see how it cleans up?

The fridge area is another headache with the original floorboards that I hadn't yet mentioned. I actually put the pine boards in as a temp fix a few years back. This house was an investment property which I rented out for 5 years. The tenants noticed that their fridge had dropped down at the front. When I investigated I found the boards rotted that bad that a hole had formed in the floor. I ripped up the vinyl tiles and masonite, cut out the worse bits and replaced with pine board and then stuck new masonite down with the original tiles. Unfortunately time constraints dictated my course of action.

I think I will have no alternative but to pull up the boards and replace the dodgy ones. The house was built in 1979 I think. It's just a 3 bedder, brick veneer project home I believe.

Hmmm.. after looking at those I guess my floorboards arent too bad. Luckily for me the black marks are where furniture is likely to be. I'll post some photos when I get a chance. This is the first time I am going to sand, any advise? Even if its obvious??

Mowy, going back to your original question first - I think some colouring can add character but if it is one spot then it will be noticeable. Replacing the floorboards in that spot isn't an option because the new boards will stand out, probably more than the stain because they will have a square look to them. If it is so bad that you want to replace floorboards, the best thing is to just move them from a less obvious area because the best match for your existing baords is to use your own boards. Even try lifting a section of carpet that you won't be sanding to see if any boards there are worth scavenging.

With floorboards, decide on what finish you want first as this will effect the final grade of paper you need. Low odour, water based finishes need to be sanded much smoother than oil based because they will raise a nap when applied. While they dry quicker, they need extra sanding so you don't necessarily save much. It's probably best to just avoid water based finishes anyway.

Thanks for that. I was going with Wattyl Estapol Gloss (which I believe is a oil based finish). Has anyone used this product? I basically picked this one for its price over cabots CFP. It was basically about half the price of cabots. Any opinions on this product? Also what is the best applicator to use?

Regarding the water stains, I had a big black patch just in front of my kitchen sink, I used a product called Intergrain Revia, available from Bunnings, It is a timber cleaner and it did a good job of removing the stain

Grinner

Hi, everyone, the timber is Radiator Pine, not Baltic Pine as first thought.

Judging by the pictures, I'd say that pretty much all of that colour can be sanded out, leaving just small black dots where the nails have rusted.

To help blend the black dots in I highly recomend that the floor be stained, or at least tinted to help get rid of the stark "yellowness" of the pine which only makes the black stand out fairly dramaticaly. Maybe go for a bit of a Walnut type colouring.

As for the holes left from the removal of the underlay, I'd suggest Timbermate Putty, in a Teak colour (not pine) which will virtually leave the nail and staple holes unnoticable. This putty is also stainable if you decided to go that way.

With the repairs that may be needed a good floorsander should be able to carry that out for you, without too much grief.

For maximum wear and a great look go for Wattyl Estapol 7008, which is their two pack product and is clearly the best on the market.

Why don't you try using a deck cleaning product? Like AussieBruce said, oxalyic (sp??) acid, which is the active agent in decking cleaners, can work wonders. I've seen decks come back to life with this stuff. On my own deck, we got rid of heaps of black spots etc - I think it improved some of the black marks left by old nails (it is a recycled timber deck) but it didn't get rid of them. Then again, we weren't really trying to.

If it doesn't work, you've only lost about $10...

Trav

If you have a marine store near you for example Whitworths [you can buy online] they sell a number of wood cleaners Like Deks Rensmarine wood cleaner and brightener that are pretty good, or try household bleach have used this to get water stains out of hand rails on the boat and it works pretty well
On coatings Carbothane CFP is a lot toughfer than Wattyl Estapol and there is an additive for CFP that makes it harder have used both and cabots appears the most durable and have just ripped up carpet in lounge room and I am giving tung oil ago because its easier to redo and lot less smell for the wife, have CFP in bedrooms and passage.
:rolleyes:

i just looked at your pics... i am a floor sander and i have done floors that are worse than yours and they have come up a treat. that high tide mark will go, you may not lose all the black marks but you will proberly lose some of them, in any case they dont look as bad when they are sanded. you will need to replace those odd species that have been put their to repair the floor. best thing is go to a recycle demolision yard and buy boards that are the same species and a few years old. get a floor sander who knows how to do board replacement, ring a contractor who builds floors. he will do the best job for you. tell him you want him to stagger the joins. d ont buy new boards and put in. they will be a different colour. use old boards and you will not tell the difference when you get them sanded. the only problem you may encounter is you may find that the old boards where they have been subject to constant water, they will have wood rot in them. you can tell by scraping the surface with a sharp iknife , and if the timber gives way and is crumbly, then you will need to replace them as well and most likley the joist under them. But as trevor said in his coment ...a 13mm overlay is great for this type of renovation.....gget a sander in to level it all and get a nice new timber floor installed. either way you will be happy. sanding costs about 20 to 25 dollors per sq mt, that also includes 3 coats .