We are restoring a 1762 house with old floors in poor condition that have large gaps between the boards. Beneath the boards, there's a thick layer of dust, dirt, hair etc. in the space between the floor joists... years and years of gunk and grime beneath the floors. Is there any way to clean out this space without tearing up the entire floor? I was wondering about services like the ones that vacuum ducts. Has anyone run into this and found a solution? Thanks for any ideas!

The rope is useful because it moves with the wood and is anything but rigid, so it will compress as the wood planks expand in the summer. I have only done this once, and it turned out acceptably well. You can twist up your own rope from sisal twine, and make it as thick as you need; lay it in the grooves and then varnish it in place. Casey

Thanks for the help guys. I'm just going to use a drum sander and edger instead since I think the drum will hopefully cut through the glue better without clogging up the paper. I heard from a few flooring guys that Bondo has worked perfectly fine for them and accepted stain as well, but I just picked up some of the Varathane Red Oak stainable filler and I'm just going to patch up the larger and more noticeable gaps and it should be fine then. I did replace 1 board and have to cover up some old registers with new boards. Originally, I thought it was pretty cut and dry and the floor was 1.5" x 3/4" Common Red Oak of some sort, but after viewing some images of #1 and #2 Common Red Oak samples, they don't seem to match up quite as well. The floor I am working with isn't as "knotty" and has a much larger variation in terms of grain patterns and color. Any idea what kind of wood and grade this is and where I could get 1.5" strips of it at? Worst case scenario, I could always just miter down 2-1/4" boards at Menards on the groove side and regroove them. From 12-7-2011 From 12-7-2011 From 12-7-2011 From 12-7-2011 From 12-7-2011 From 12-7-2011

The finish will not 'jump' or span those gaps. These are SOLID WIDE plank wood floors. The house does NOT have the humidity control and heat control going. The installers did NOT acclimate properly. They did not install them properly. And I can guarantee there will be BIG issues with these floors in the summer time. Especially if they putty those gaps. In the summer (the expansion time) the floors will get all puffy. They will push closed those gaps. And if there is putty in the gaps that putty will squish up and out...all over the floor. And let's just say that's going to get ugly. An engineered hardwood isn't safe in the hand's of this builder either. They have the same issue...just less likely to be so visibly. Imagine pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into your home and ending up with floors like this. Now how happy to do you feel. See if you can negotiate a 'real' hardwood flooring pro to do the floors. If they say no, then find someone else.