Engineered Wood Floor Repairs

Engineered wood floors are today's alternative to solid hardwood flooring. Their unique multilayer structure makes them superior to solid hardwood in many areas and inferior in others. Sadly, sanding and repairing an engineered floor is much harder exactly because of this design.

Engineered wood floors come in two different standards – up to 15 mm and over 15 mm. Unfortunately, the only engineered floor that can be repaired is over 15 mm thick, tongue and groove planks. If the flooring is glued down, the repair becomes even more complicated and not every floor fitter will feel comfortable taking these jobs. But our perfectly trained floor men feel at ease performing the repair procedure.

Most of the problems with hardwood floors are either related to moisture problems or some kind of surface damage like marks and scratches. Engineered floors are the most resilient type of wood flooring when it comes to issues related to excessive moisture and high humidity. However, even they will eventually suffer heavy damage if the source of the problem is not taken care of in time.

The real challenge for engineered floors are dents, burns, scratches, spills and other types of surface damage. The only reliable way to get rid of those is to buff minor imperfections or sand the more serious ones. Unfortunately, the relatively thin hardwood veneer sitting on top of the plywood core can rarely take more than a one or two sanding rounds. Every attempt after this will likely render the floor unusable.

It gets even better if you have a dog or two with untrimmed nails and someone in the house who enjoys using high heels. The picture wouldn’t be complete without a high-gloss finish which makes every flaw much more visible. Repairing such kind of damage can be done in two ways. If only a few of the boards are affected, we can simply try to replace to them in order to save ourselves the trouble of sanding the whole floor. Should we attempt to strip only the affected pieces, the newly applied finish will look noticeably different from the original and make everything appear patchy. Sadly, floated engineered boards are particularly difficult to repair or replace because the whole floor constantly moves up and down.

The second way to repair is by sanding the whole surface. If the damage is spread over a large area, this is the logical choice. As we mentioned before, you can only sand a few times during the lifespan of the engineered floor so make sure to make the best of it each and every time!

We suggest to not attempt to repair engineered wood floors alone. Even though such projects are specifically designed for the DIY enthusiasts, you may end up doing more damage rather than good.

Our floor sanding company has extensive experience in engineered wood refinishing and surface treatment. We have the product knowledge and right skills to handle this task properly. Actually, our highly skilled and trained staff can even exceed your expectations.