Fixing hardwood floors

Q: Short of replacing with new wooden strips, is there a way to fix dents and holes (from heavy furniture movement) in hardwood floors?

A: For dents, I remember (from somewhere) that it "may" be possible to use an iron to steam out the dent. I have never actually tried this. For "holes" (as in nail hole?), I assume standard wood patching would work for small holes.

The other solution is to drill out the bad spot and replace with a matching sized piece of wood. I recommend matching the stain before inserting the new piece.

And there is always a rug.

A: Depends... If they aren't too deep and the floor has enough thickness, you may be able to sand them out.

But lots of people (me included) consider that to be "character". It's also true that if it's happened before, it will likely happen again...

A: I had a significant amount of pre-finished ½” bellawood hardwood installed in late May. The installer botched the installation and now I have two issues:

1. A nasty rise where the boards popped free of their nails, or were not nailed to begin with (his crew was “nailing” without nails in their gun for a little while – we already fixed on other such spot). This one’s pretty easy to resolve.

2. Numerous locations in the house where the boards are always settling – walk over the spot and all the boards shift, resulting in a sound like a string of firecrackers. Leave the room and wait a few minutes and the boards shift back, resulting in another string of firecrackers.

The installer (Igor Kochnev of PK Flooring) has disappeared and has not resolved issue #1 above, and based on the other problems we had with his installation I’ve got to attribute #2 to his installation as well. I won’t use him to resolve this issue, even if I could get a hold of him or get him to return my calls. Consider this a hearty disrecommendation for Igor.

However – does anyone have thoughts on #2 above? I need to get a qualified hardwood person out (any recommendations?), but I’m wondering if I’ll wind up needing to sand the floor down, top-nail everything, and then refinish it. Or maybe not - perhaps it sounds like a subfloor issue, or something else?

Snap. Crackle. Pop.

A: They make special screws designed to snap off when driven in to correct this type of problem. You drive the screw in and the head snaps off below the surface. Putty the hole.

Or depending on your access you could screw the floor from below.