None of the finishing elements of the apartment experience such high operational loads as flooring. No matter how carefully and no matter what quality materials it is made of, there comes a time when it becomes necessary to repair the floors. In some cases, you can get by with cosmetic repairs, but if the coating has already fully exhausted its resource, you will have to spend a lot of money. You can save on the services of specialists, the price of which is quite high, and do the repair of the floors in the apartment with your own hands.
Assessment of upcoming pavement repair work
At the initial stage, it is necessary to assess whether it is necessary to start capital work or whether it is possible to limit the cosmetic repair of the floor with the replacement of elements that have become unusable.
In most cases, the following flooring options can be observed in apartments:
- Plank floor.
- Parquet.
- Laminate.
- Linoleum.
Each type of coating has its own characteristic "sores":
- a wooden floor made of boards or parquet slabs dries out over time, after which cracks appear, and the coating begins to creak or sag;
- laminate flooring can deteriorate if exposed to moisture;
- linoleum, even the most durable, can be rubbed or torn.
Depending on the condition of the coverage, financial capabilities and your own preparation, you should decide on the nature of the repair. It will be easy and profitable to eliminate minor defects in the floor with your own hands. Repair of medium complexity can also be done by yourself: replace rotten coating elements, strengthen sagging logs. But here you need to soberly assess your capabilities. It would be useful to find out how much such repairs cost if you entrust it to professionals. Perhaps, if you have the funds, it will be easier to hire specialists than to suffer with damaged flooring yourself.
Major repairs, especially complex ones, such as repairing a warm floor, are not recommended to be carried out on your own. It is much more reliable to order a turnkey floor repair from a reputable construction company or from a trusted private trader, using the recommendations of friends and acquaintances. Often, their prices for floor repair are much lower, and in construction organizations it is easier to “run into” incompetent craftsmen.
Boardwalk repair
In most Soviet-built apartments, the floors are made of tongue-and-groove boards laid on logs. The design is quite strong, but over time it begins to creak, individual floorboards bend under the weight of a person, or noticeable gaps appear between them, as in the next photo. Wood floor repair produced as follows:
- In the defective area, the floor layer must be disassembled. Worn-out areas of the coating can be carefully cut out or removed completely.
Particular care must be taken when dismantling the skirting boards in order to save them and not damage the wall. This will save you from unnecessary hassle and costs.
- We carefully examine the lags. If they have not rotted, but simply deformed from time to time, then their deflection can be eliminated with wooden wedges. They are hammered under the bars with a step of 400–500 mm.
It is advisable to re-treat the logs with an antiseptic solution, to replace the worn out insulation.
- Cracked and rotted floorboards are replaced with new ones. If tongue-and-groove boards were used during the coating, then most likely the entire floor will have to be sorted out. This is a more time-consuming procedure, but there is a guarantee that the floor will stand for a long time after such repairs.
With good preservation of the coating, you can limit yourself to replacing individual fragments.The boards are fastened to self-tapping screws or twisted nails, with their hats sunk to a depth of at least 5 mm, otherwise they will interfere with scraping or grinding the floor.
- Floor polishing is a must. It will allow not only to obtain a single plane, but also ensure the uniformity of the coating.
- After grinding, small cracks and recesses in the floor are sealed with a special wood putty.
- Large gaps are eliminated with wooden inserts attached to glue or putty.
- At the final stage, the entire surface of the floor is polished again, and after cleaning from debris, paint, varnish or other coating is applied.
Parquet restoration
Parquet repair will require precision and patience. It makes sense to carry it out on your own if the base of the parquet is in order, and you only need to replace cracked or rotted dies. In this case, you need to calculate the required number of these elements and go to the store. It is best to bring one sample plate with you. You also need to stock up on special glue and a gun for it.
- The old bituminous mastic, on which parquet was fastened in Soviet times, should be removed with a chisel.
- It is necessary to sweep out all the garbage, and put new dies on the glue.
- Then the surface of the floor is sanded and varnished.
The effect of such a repair is visible in the photo.
Linoleum floor repair
Most often, they simply remove the old layer and lay a new one. But if the linoleum is still in quite good condition, then you can extend its life by gluing the joints and replacing the crushed fragments. If, after the last repair, the remaining trimmings were not thrown away, then such an operation will not be difficult to carry out.
- A rectangular piece is cut out in the area of the defect.
- The base surface is cleaned and dried.
- The patch is planted on a special glue, after which it is necessary to wait a certain time indicated by the manufacturer on the package. Only after that you can walk on the repaired floor area and put furniture.
Laminate restoration
This type of coating mainly eliminates two types of defects:
- Chips and scratches are repaired with a special repair compound, which can be purchased at a hardware store.
Shallow damage to the coating can be removed with a wax pencil. The main thing is to choose the right color.
- It is much worse if the laminate is deformed under the influence of moisture, as in the photo. The only way out here is to re-shift the coating, replacing completely unusable elements. It is good if some of them have remained in stock since the initial installation.
How can floors be repaired with more significant defects? This will require a significant investment of both money and time. For example, it will take at least a month to dry a new concrete screed. Therefore, such repairs must be planned in advance, and it is better to entrust their implementation to professionals.
flooring repair cost
The cost of a partial floor repair will depend on the nature and extent of the damage. It will be reported to you by a specialist after examining the floor and analyzing problems.
The cost of new flooring will depend on the type of flooring:
- laminate - from 250 rubles / m2 in Moscow, from 150 rubles / m2 in St. Petersburg;
- parquet board - from 270 rubles / m2 in Moscow, from 170 rubles / m2 in St. Petersburg;
- board (array) - from 750 rubles / m2 in Moscow, from 460 rubles / m2 in St. Petersburg;
- parquet - from 690 rubles / m2 in Moscow, from 500 rubles / m2 in St. Petersburg.
- linoleum, carpet - from 100 rubles / m2.
This amount does not include the dismantling of the old coating, which will cost from 40 to 300 rubles / m2, preparation of the subfloor, installation of skirting boards, sanding, etc.
