Repair & Restoration
Hardwood Floor Repair in Elmwood, Philadelphia
Board replacement, weaving in new wood, squeaks, gaps and cupping. In Elmwood, Philadelphia the median home dates to 1942 and 46.9% of the housing predates 1940, which changes what Deco Hardwood Floor expects to find before the work starts.
Repairing a floor that is a century old
In Elmwood repair means matching wood that is no longer milled the same way, and the match is what separates a repair from a patch.
Original boards here are narrower than modern stock and cut from older, denser timber. A replacement has to match the width, the species and the grain, and sometimes the right source is reclaimed flooring of the same age. A new board forced into an old floor stays visible however it is stained.
The common repairs in this housing are boards damaged around radiators and old plumbing, gaps that have opened wider than the seasons explain, and sections that have come loose from the joists. Each one starts with finding out why it happened.
Before you get a quote
A repair in the middle of a room usually means refinishing the room. New finish beside old finish shows as a patch, even when the wood itself is a perfect match.
How the housing in Elmwood compares
Of the 6,318 housing units in Elmwood, roughly 3,000 were built before 1940 and approximately 5,700 before 1978.
That makes the housing here older than the 132 Philadelphia neighborhoods in our data taken together, where approximately 82.8% of 733,961 units predate 1978, and above the 60.5% figure for our whole service area. By the share built before 1940, Elmwood ranks 61st of those 132. The full table is published as open housing data.
Within Philadelphia, the oldest housing in our data is in Cedar Park, with a median year of 1925, and the newest is in Kensington, Old, at 1997.
| Place | Median year built | Built before 1940 |
|---|---|---|
| Elmwood | 1942 | 46.9% |
| Paschall | 1937 | 53.0% |
| Penrose | 1954 | 28.0% |
| Kingsessing | 1929 | 66.4% |
| Bartram Village | 1951 | 21.4% |
| Southwest Schuylkill | 1938 | 50.9% |
| Clearview | 1964 | 9.8% |
For repairs, the median year tells you what has to be matched. Older floors need narrow boards from denser timber, and newer ones need a factory color that may no longer be made.
What is usually under the floor here
Housing this old normally holds narrow strip oak laid straight over joists, and often it has only one sanding left.
In a place where a large share of the housing predates 1940, the floor under the carpet is usually the original one. That means narrow strip oak, sometimes heart pine on upper floors, nailed straight to the joists with no plywood in between. It also means the floor has probably been sanded before, possibly more than once.
Only the wood above the tongue can be sanded, roughly a quarter inch on a traditional floor. A floor that has already given up two of those sandings is a different job from one that has given up none, and the difference is not visible from standing height. We measure at the edge of a board before quoting.
Worth knowing here
Parquet and herringbone turn up under carpet in this stock more often than people expect, and they sand differently: the grain runs in two directions at once, so a drum sander used the normal way tears them.
The federal lead rule applies to most of the housing here
Approximately 90.5% of the homes here were built before 1978, which is the line the EPA rule draws.
Paid work that disturbs painted surfaces in pre-1978 housing falls under 40 CFR Part 745, and floor sanding reaches painted surfaces more often than people expect: the edger runs to the baseboard, the shoe molding and the door casing, and in older housing those carry many layers.
The part that matters for the equipment is 745.85(a)(3), which prohibits high speed machines that strip a coating on painted surfaces unless they carry containment and a HEPA vacuum collecting dust at the point of generation. That is a description of how the sander has to be assembled, not a suggestion about tidiness.
How hardwood floor repair runs
We find the cause
Moisture readings, and a look underneath where access allows.Damaged boards cut out
Removed without disturbing the sound wood around them.New boards woven in
Staggered joints, matched species and thickness.Fastened and levelled
Flush with the surrounding floor, because a proud board catches every time.Finished
Blended into the surrounding area, or the room refinished where that is what makes it disappear.
What does a hardwood floor repair include?
A repair includes finding the cause, removing the damaged boards, weaving in new ones of the same species and thickness, fastening them flush and finishing the area. We supply the wood together with the labor.
Included
- An in-person estimate from the owner, with moisture readings on the surrounding boards
- A look at the subfloor from below, wherever a basement or crawl space gives access
- Removal of the damaged boards without disturbing the sound wood around them
- New boards matched in species, width and thickness, supplied with the labor
- Joints staggered into the existing floor so no straight seam is left
- Sanding and finishing of the repaired area, blended into the floor around it
Not included, or quoted separately
- Plumbing, roofing or any other work to stop the leak that caused the damage
- Framing or joist repair, if the movement turns out to be structural
- Refinishing the whole room, which is often recommended and is quoted as its own line
- A promise that the repair is invisible on day one beside an old finish
What changes the price of a hardwood floor repair?
The price is set after we see the floor, because the visible damage is rarely the whole job. What moves it most is how many boards come out, whether the subfloor is involved, and how much refinishing it takes for the repair to blend.
| What changes it | How it moves the price | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Number of boards replaced | More boards mean more material and more cutting. Weaving adds to the count, because the neighboring boards are cut back too. | A few stained boards at a dishwasher become a wider area once the joints are staggered into the floor. |
| Access from below | An open basement ceiling lets us inspect and fasten from underneath. A finished ceiling means working only from the top. | A squeak over an unfinished basement is a simpler job than the same squeak over a finished ceiling. |
| Species and board width | Common red and white oak strip is easy to source. Old widths, old pine or an unusual species take a search or custom milling. | A wide pine board in an old row house costs more to match than oak strip in a later house. |
| Subfloor condition | A soft, wet or moving subfloor has to be dealt with before new boards go down, and it is only fully visible once the floor is open. | Boards at an old leak come up and the plank subfloor under them is dark and soft. |
| How far the finish goes | Blending a small area costs less than refinishing the room, but a large or central repair may only disappear with the whole room done. | A repair near a wall can be blended locally. One in the middle of a living room usually cannot. |
The full method, the equipment and what we will and will not promise are on the service page: Hardwood Floor Repair.
Also in Elmwood
Hardwood Floor Refinishing
Sand the old finish off, repair what needs repairing, and put a new finish down
Dustless Floor Sanding
Vacuum-extraction sanding
Solid Hardwood Floor Installation
Solid wood, nailed down over a wood subfloor
Engineered Hardwood Installation
Real wood over a stable core
Luxury Vinyl Plank (LVP) Installation
Waterproof, quiet, and it does not care about a wet basement
Custom Stair Installation
Treads, risers, stringers and skirt board, built to a drawing instead of a catalog page
Stair Refinishing
Stairs take more wear per square foot than any floor in the house, and they are sanded almost entirely by hand
Why homeowners hire Deco Hardwood Floor
Deco Hardwood Floor is owner operated: the person who quotes hardwood floor repair in Elmwood is the person responsible for it, and the material comes with the labor in one number.
Material and labor in one number
We buy the flooring direct from the distributor and pass the store price through, so you are not sourcing wood on your own between quotes.
Samples come to your house
Samples and larger offcuts come to you, so the color gets chosen in your own light instead of under a showroom lamp.
Stairs and railings built in house
Treads, risers, handrails and newel posts are drawn and built by our own crew. Most flooring crews subcontract stair work or decline it.
The owner quotes the job
The person who measures your floor is the person responsible for the work. There is no salesperson in between.
Measured before it is promised
Remaining thickness is measured at the edge of a board before we say a floor can be sanded, and no price is firm before we have seen the room.
Told straight, including the limits
Vacuum extraction catches most of the sanding dust and not all of it. We tell you that before the job instead of after.
More about who we are and what we will not claim on the About Deco Hardwood Floor page.
Questions about floor repair in Elmwood
How long does a hardwood floor repair take?
It depends on the cause more than on the carpentry. Replacing a few dry boards is a short job. A hardwood floor repair after a leak waits until the moisture readings come down, and a repair followed by refinishing the room adds the sanding and the finish coats. We explain the sequence at the estimate, once we have seen the floor.
Can I fill the gaps between boards instead of repairing them?
Usually not with lasting results. Gaps that open in winter and close in summer are seasonal movement, and filler in them cracks and gets pushed out when the boards swell again. Hardwood floor repair is for gaps that stay open all year. Those are dealt with by replacing boards or, where they are narrow, by filling as part of a full refinish.
Can I stay in the house while the floor is being repaired?
Yes, in most cases. A hardwood floor repair is confined to one area, so the rest of the house stays in use. The room being worked on is closed off while boards are cut and sanded, and it stays off limits until the finish has dried enough to walk on. Vacuum extraction on the sander catches most of the dust, not all of it. Keep pets and children out of that room.
What should I do before the crew arrives for a floor repair?
Stop the cause first. If a leak damaged the boards, have it fixed and tell us when it happened. Then clear the area of furniture, rugs and anything fragile. Before a hardwood floor repair it also helps to look in the basement or the attic for boards left over from the original installation, because those are the closest match there is.
Can you tell me what my floor needs over the phone?
We can tell you what is likely, and this page is most of that answer. What we cannot do is quote a floor we have not seen, because remaining thickness and what is under the covering both decide the job and neither is visible in a description.
Do you bring the material?
Yes. We buy direct from the distributor and the material lands in the same number as the labor. Samples and larger offcuts come to the house so you choose in your own light.
My house is from the 1920s. Can the floor still be sanded?
Often, but it is a measurement rather than an assumption. Only the wood above the tongue can be sanded, and a floor that has been refinished twice already may have one pass left. We check at the edge of a board before quoting.
Floor Repair near Elmwood
Send a photo and we will tell you what you are looking at
Hardwood Floor Repair in Elmwood starts with someone reading the house. We quote every job ourselves, with no salesperson in between, and a photo of the floor gets you a straight answer faster than a form does.
