How to seal floorboards from draughts

shadey

I have a fair draught coming up from below the floor boards in my hall. It's an old house, suspended boards with a gap of a few millimetres between each board. I recently had them sanded and finished in a dark matt varnish. So now I'd like to stop the draught without having a negative effect on the aesthetics. What would people recommend re a compound for sealing? Ideally it would last a good few years (there is a lot of floor area to seal), and it would not stand out like a sore thumb, ie colour would blend in well. I'm thinking something that is like a wood filler that can be worked into the gaps a little below the level of the floor. Any ideas welcome. Thanks!

10-10-20

To be honest, you should have thought about that before finishing the floor!
You'll find that anything that you put down there, like putty/filler, will soon come loose and fall down once there is traffic on the floor.
You'll need a flexable filler, but I'm not going to recommend silicone as it's not ideal for such a situation. You might be better off getting a rug!

shadey

10-10-20 wrote: »

To be honest, you should have thought about that before finishing the floor!
You'll find that anything that you put down there, like putty/filler, will soon come loose and fall down once there is traffic on the floor.
You'll need a flexable filler, but I'm not going to recommend silicone as it's not ideal for such a situation. You might be better off getting a rug!

Thanks 10-10-20, I have a rug already, but it's a big hall and not symmetrical. I'm not sure that I would be that much better off had I thought of it before finishing the floor, and its the first winter we have been here so wasn't to know the draughts would be so bad. Anyhow, thanks for the reply. If someone has suggestions re a flexible filler then I'm all ears!!

mad m

Had same problem, ended up renewing floors with pitch pine tongue&groove,secret nailed....

antoinolachtnai

There is a guy who slices thin wedges of wood and puts them down between. I have no idea of who he is or what the job was called. There was a piece in the Irish Times property supplement about him some years ago.

A quick google yields:

http://www.gapseal.co.uk/?gclid=CKSplqqc45gCFdST3wodvTVqdg

http://www.sandedfloors.co.uk/gap%20film.info.htm

I would say that it is important that whatever you put in there has some flexibility for expansion.

Sleipnir

They used to mix sawdust or crumbled cork with woodfiller or pva glue for this. Pretty time intensive work, and messy too, I'd say.
Post above seems like a much better solution.

shadey

Thanks antoinolachtnai, I'll go talk to some of the specialist flooring people and see what they come up with, and do a bit more searching. That gapseal stuff looks like it might be just the ticket. Has anyone used it?

antoinolachtnai

Nope, but I see they do a trial pack to let you see the stuff and try it out! Is worth spending a tenner on anyway, I'd say.

Be interested to hear the results.

shadey

I think I will go with that alright. I'll post when I have tried it out. If they'll send it to Ireland, one of my bugbears, UK sites that dont have Ireland as a registration country...

antoinolachtnai

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Nope, but I see they do a trial pack to let you see the stuff and try it out! Is worth spending a tenner on anyway, I'd say.

Be interested to hear the results.

This is like what the guy i read about was doing:

http://www.oldpinecompany.co.uk/acatalog/About_Old_Pine_Slivers.html

but you are supposed to do it before sanding!

shadey

Unsightly gaps??? I like the gaps, part of the charm of floorboards in an older house with original floors!!

Thanks for the link all the same.

shadey

I got the GapSeal tester pack. It's very straightforward to put into the gaps, a few seconds work per metre. No adhesive, just bend along the line in the middle of the tape and stick in the gap. If you had very narrow gaps, like one or two millimetres, you might not get it down into the gap. It's like the plastic strip stuff that is used to wrap around heavy boxed goods. It'll certainly stop a lot of the draught. By it's nature it does not form an airtight seal like some of the other methods mentioned above. Then again, it'll stay and not move or dry out etc like some of the other methods. It's not very visible, I suppose the depth of the floorboard will determine how far down you can push it, and therefore how visible it is. My boards are not particularly thick, if you look you can see it, but then again you could see the unstained board before you put it down. All in all it pretty much does what it says on the package and I'll be getting some more of it.