There's not much of a downfall to hardwood floors, and keeping your floor properly maintained is key for a long lasting life. The most important maintenance for hardwood is keeping down the moisture in your home. If you don't know much about hardwood, the planks can sometimes expand or contract and this is typically caused by excessive moisture or water exposure. Unfortunately this expanding and contracting causes damage to the hardwood floor like (warping, lifting boards, buckling, cupping edges, cracks and more).
Although this damage is not pretty, it's minor and it's fixable. Most minor buckling can be a DIY project with tools you already have at home. Here is what tools it takes and how to fix hardwood floors that are buckling.
- Grease pencil (you'll want to mark your cuts)
- Ruler (use when marking the cuts, no room for errors)
- Circular saw (you'll need this to cut out the damaged boards)
- Pry bar (this is used to remove the damaged boards)
- Chisel (this is used to remove the damaged boards) It helps to hold the chisel at a 45-degree angle against the boards and tap gently with the hammer.
- Hammer (this is used to remove the damaged boards)
- Towels (make sure all the moisture is soaked up)
- Vacuum (use this to clean up all the scrapings and left over mess)
- Fan (for ventilation and drying) use this to dry out the spot after you've removed the damaged boards.
- Floor scraper (you'll want to get the surface as clean as possible, but without using any liquids)
- Replacement boards: These can be spare boards you saved, or new ones from a local store. If you can’t find a match, buy natural wood boards (be sure to choose the same type of wood as your floor) and then you'll need to stain them to match.
- Flooring adhesive or nails (depending on whether your boards are glued-in or nailed in)
- Weights (place the weight on the replaced boards to hold them down while glue is drying)
