Can old floorboards be sanded and refinished?

Yes, but filler in the gaps only lasts a season or two before it cracks and drops through.

The short answer

Can old floorboards be sanded and refinished and saved? The answer is yes, it can.

As you can see on the floor here, original pine boards, and you can see the gaps in there where they have put filler in. What will happen when you get the floor sanded and refinished is they will fill all the gaps in the joints, sand it down and then finish it. So that is great, short term.

But timber expands and contracts. So through the seasons, where there is a lot of moisture, or it has been really hot and it is really dry, the timber will expand and contract. That filler that has gone between the cracks will then basically crack and then fall through the floor.

So then you go back to the situation where you have gaps in your floor again.

So yes, you can refinish it, but it is more of a short term solution if you do not like those gaps. As you can see on this side, this is a new engineered floor that we are putting over the top of this, and you should not be getting any gaps.

Related questions

• Can engineered timber flooring be sanded?
• How long should a wood floor last?
• What should I look for in engineered timber?

See our flooring installation service or get an estimate.

We install floors across Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian and West Lothian.