Laminate flooring is an excellent flooring choice due to its high durability, versatility, affordability, and easy maintenance. But in case of any significant damage to your laminate floors, you should consider prompt repairs. In this incredible guide, we have debunked all the essential steps to restore the glory of your laminate floors. Moreover, this comprehensive guide will give you plenty of knowledge and confidence to repair your damaged laminate floors.
Repair Laminate Floors | An Effective & Helpful Guide
Before starting the floor repair, you should know what type of damage it is, such as scratches, water leakage, molding, or buckling. Because each type of damage requires specific repair techniques and materials. Up ahead, we have come up with effective solutions for all possible laminate home floor damages.
Repairing Laminate Floor Scratches
If you find visible scratches on your laminate flooring due to high traffic, abrasive particles, dust, furniture, and pet damage, you need to repair the laminate planks. Here, we have enlisted all the essential supplies and steps for repairing laminate floor scratches.
Supplies You’ll Need
- Scratch repair kit
- Wood filler
- Sandpaper
- Microfiber Cloth
- Putty knife
- Paintbrush
Use an Appropriate Scratch Repair Kit
After getting all the essential supplies, you need a scratch repair kit that usually contains putty, wood filler, and a marker. The scratch repair kits offer a variety of color contrasts. Before starting a repair, you can easily match your existing floor color with the available repair kits.
Try to Match Floor Coloring
Always try to use a suitable kit that matches the floor coloring. Before using the kit, you can also use a plank sample to check whether it is perfect or not. When it is confirmed that the kit offers the exact color, you can use it for the repair job.
Prepare the Area
Before repairing, you need to clean the scratched or worn area with the help of a microfiber cloth. This cleaning removes the dust and dirt particles from the scratched area and makes the bonding of wood filler or marker easier to take place.
Scratch Repairing
After preparing the area, you can apply wood filler or putty to fill the scratched area. Apply the material until it fills the scratch and level the surface. In addition, to remove the excessive filling material, you can scrape the flooring surface.
Sanding and Applying Varnish
Sometimes after filling the scratches, you need to rub sandpaper on the repaired area to create smoothness. While sanding, always try to protect the surrounding area because sanding can also scratch the surrounding surfaces. After sanding, ensure cleaning the surface with a cloth to remove any dust and debris. Moreover, you can also apply a suitable varnish to the patched surface with the aid of a paintbrush.
Repairing Water Damage On Laminate Flooring
While everyday spills can’t affect the types of laminate flooring, sometimes, it does get damaged due to a high amount of water leakage for an extensive time. We have enlisted all essential supplies and steps to fix water damage on laminate home floors.
Supplies You’ll Need To Repair Floor Water Damage
- Prybar
- Hammer
- Oscillating multi-tool
- Replacement floorboards
- Painters tape
- Finishing nails
Detach the Moldings or Baseboard
If the laminate planks are affected by water, they must be replaced. To remove the affected planks in the surroundings of the damaged place, you can use a pry bar.
Detach the Water-Damaged Boards
Detaching water-damaged boards is somewhat tricky because all laminate flooring planks have a groove and locking tongue system for fixing. After removing the moldings or affected planks, you need to remove the water-damaged planks.
Before detaching the damaged boards, you need to explore the exact groove edge for unlocking. When you have explored the right place, unlock the groove and remove the water-damaged boards.
Install New Laminate Boards
It must be ensured to mark the detaching position for placing new boards at the exact location. Now, you can install the new boards by observing the right groove edges. In addition, placing the new boards at the exact position prevents spacing issues.
Fixing Laminate Floor Buckling
Buckling in laminate floors occurs due to temperature variations, flooding, and high humidity and the affected planks need to be repaired. We have enlisted all crucial supplies and steps to repair a laminate floor that has been affected by buckling or lifting.
Supplies You’ll Need To Repair Floor Buckling
- Prybar
- Circular saw
- Hammer
- Oscillating multi-tool
- Spacers
- Painters tape
- Finishing nails
Detach the Moldings or Baseboards
To detach the moldings or baseboards from the floor, you can use a pry bar. The moldings or lifting occurs due to multiple reasons such as high humidity, temperature variation, and flooding.
Detach the Damaged Floor Boards
As you know, the laminate planks have interlocking groove edges for precise fixing. Before detaching the damaged floorboards, you need to find the appropriate groove edge. After locating the groove edge, you can easily remove the damaged boards.
Install New Floorboards
After removing the damaged floorboards, you can now install the new laminate planks. While installing new boards, it must be ensured that there is no spacing between boards.
Conclusion
It is concluded that If you find any damage to laminate flooring, it should be repaired promptly. Repairing the laminate flooring requires extensive knowledge about types of damage and their possible causes. For your convenience, we have enlisted all possible laminate floor damages and their effective repair solutions. Now, you can start your DIY project to your laminate floor’s elegance and actual look by considering our precise guide.
