Important health and safety note: This is an archived educational text from 2018. year, and not an assessment of the existing floor, a material specification or instructions for self-execution. Old floors, adhesives, coatings, leveling compounds and underlays may contain hazardous materials; before cutting, grinding, heating, burning or using solvents, it is necessary to professionally determine their composition. Wood affected by fungi should not be burned according to this text. The cause of moisture, bearing capacity of the substrate, protection of respiratory organs, ventilation, fire safety and the choice of compatible materials should be determined by qualified experts according to the specific object and applicable rules.
Repair and installation of floors are not part of the new public offer of Savo Kusić. The current focus is wood windows, wood-aluminum windows and custom doors. For a window or door project, you can send a request for quote.
Construction carpentry works
The saying “I have worn out my legs” is often used, but in fact it is very rarely the legs that wear out, much more the pathos on which we walk. However, the wear and tear of pavement and parquet is not only due to walking on it, but also for many other reasons. In order to be able to successfully correct such mistakes, it is necessary to know - even if only from a picture - the construction and composition of pathos. The name of the most common patos is boat or Swedish floor.
Pathos boards are placed on the underlays in the form of beams, and under them is the pathos base in one or two layers.
The individual floorboards are connected to each other with straight connecting surfaces, with lap, tongue and groove, and with insert (fig. 1).
Image 1 — Ways of attaching the planks to the pathos
When raising the pathos, wood that is infected with fungi should be watered, separated and, if possible, burned later. If the boards are good and we want to use them again, then we have to be careful while lifting them so as not to damage the back side with the nails. In particular, care should be taken not to damage the grooves of the boards because they are attached with hidden nails. We can place the patched parts of the pathos so that the “patches” are under the furniture. If the pathos is quite worn, during the repair, not only the worn parts should be replaced, but also the surrounding surface.
The previous historical statement about burning wood affected by fungi must not apply. The material should be separated and disposed of according to expert judgment and local regulations, without uncontrolled burning.
A softwood boat deck can only be repaired with boards that are the same width as the existing one and that are installed with a connector. If only individual planks need to be replaced, then it is especially important that the material is of the same width.
Boards with a minimum thickness of 5 cm should be used for the repair. The newly installed elements should also rest on the mats. Damaged parts should not be removed with a chisel, but with a partial lifting using a wedge, cut off with a saw (fig. 2).
Picture 2 — Replacing the damaged part of the board with a saw
The Swedish pathos is the same as the ship’s pathos, but the planks in it are shorter and are installed by tying, similar to a brick wall. The lifting and repair of this pathos is done in the same way as with the ship’s pathos, with the fact that the new parts must be connected to each other (fig. 3).
Image 3 — Swedish Floor Repair
Parquet floors
Parquet floors are installed with different bindings (parallel to the wall, slanted, grouped in rectangles). If the boards are installed in cold or hot glue, then they are dovetail, and if they are installed on mats and on a board base with nailing, then they are tongue and groove or tongue and groove (boards only with a groove are attached with small wooden inserts), picture 4. During the repair, the parquet is removed with a sharp chisel. Special care should be taken not to damage the tongue and groove when lifting the tongue and groove board.
Image 4 — Ways of laying parquet floors
The glued parquet is lifted by running a chisel along the glue layer and only the bottom board must be damaged, the other parts must remain undamaged.
When repairing, the planks are installed in the same way as the entire parquet, but when installing the back plank, only the transverse side with the groove is placed in the groove, and a nail without a head is driven into the underside of the plank. On the extended side, the tongue should be cut off and the board should be brought into place with the blows of a hammer.
Boards that are replaced individually should be removed with a chisel. Installing new boards can be done in several ways:
- as previously described,
- by removing the feather on the longitudinal side i
- by cutting off the lower part of the longitudinal grooved side.
Parquet with an inlay is repaired in the same way as single planks, but of course no inlays are required.
Parquet glued to asphalt can be repaired very easily, because the planks are simply placed next to each other. Parquet in the form of a mosaic can be repaired in the same way, it is necessary to remove only one board with a chisel, and the others can then be easily removed.
The repair of cast warm floors is already less simple, it should be entrusted to an expert, bearing in mind the following:
With a magnesite floor, it is necessary to mark the part to be repaired in the correct shapes.
The connection lines of the new or new parts should be formed with expansion gaps.
Due to the dark color and elastic properties of bituminous emulsion floors, repairs can also be carried out on larger areas. New parts can be directly connected to the existing ones and in time the differences between new and old parts will disappear. It is also possible to repair small parts of continuous floors made of artificial materials, but the trace of the repair will always remain. It is a good solution if the damage is repaired with the same material as the lower layers, then a new thin layer is applied to the entire surface, after thorough cleaning and sanding.
Glued floors
Before lifting, cutting, sanding or heating old PVC, linoleum, glue and substrate, an expert examination of the material is required. Do not use solvents indoors or choose a new adhesive based on this archive text alone.
The situation is somewhat more favorable when repairing PVC and linoleum floors. The causes of damage to these floors are most often the poor quality of the glue, improper preparation of the substrate or non-compliance with the laying technology. The foundation most often fails due to excessive humidity or a poor and uneven surface on which it is placed. If the tiles have not aged enough before gluing, bubbles may appear on them or the edges may rise.
Blisters will also usually occur due to:
- excessive thickness of the adhesive layer (due to which the solvent evaporates hard),
- missing alignment operation after gluing i
- lack or insufficient thickness of the adhesive layer.
Lifting glued floors should be done by hand and with a trowel. After lifting, the roll and the base should be cleaned of glue with a solvent and a spatula. Then you need to fix the base. It is best to apply a thin layer of synthetic material on it. After drying of this layer, the tiles should be glued again (fig. 5).
Image 5 — Lifting the glued floor covering
When repairing smaller areas, the damaged parts should simply be cut out of the floor. The new material to be installed should have the same color, pattern and thickness as the old floor. When we remove the cut part, we have to clean the base from the glue and place a new piece that is slightly larger than the old one. When cutting to size, opposite sides should be temporarily nailed to prevent movement. Cutting must always be done with the help of a ruler so that the composition is flat and without gaps. After gluing, the newly placed piece should be loaded with a weight under which the veneer board is placed (fig. 6).
Image 6 — Repair of damaged part by cutting
When cutting, the edges of the old and new panels should have an overlap of 4-5 cm. Under this cover, a strip of steel, veneer or moline with a maximum width of 0,5 cm should be placed on the base. Above this strip, with the help of a steel ruler, the old and new board should be cut at the same time. After that, you need to take out the backing tape, spread the base with glue, remove the cut tapes and glue the panels in place. In a similar way, wall-to-wall carpets (“tapestry”, “itisoni”, etc.) are glued.
Suitable adhesives for linoleum, rubber boards and PVC floors can be obtained from shops with appropriate instructions for use.