If you have a squeaky wood floor under tile or carpet, you may be able to eliminate the squeak without removing the floor covering. Try to reset loose boards by pounding a hammer on a block of scrap wood in the area over the squeaky boards. The pressure may force loose nails back into place.
You may be able to silence squeaky hardwood floors by using talcum powder as a dry lubricant. Sprinkle powder over the offending areas, and sweep it back and forth until it filters down between the cracks.Try filling dents in a hardwood floor with clear nail polish or shellac. Because the floor's color will show through, the dents will not be apparent.
Sometimes you can flatten bulges or curled seams in a linoleum floor by placing aluminum foil over them and "ironing'' them with your steam iron. (The heat will soften and reactivate the adhesive.) Position weights, such as stacks of books, over treated areas to keep them flat until the adhesive cools and hardens. To remove a resilient floor tile for replacement, lay a piece of aluminum foil on it and then press down with an ordinary iron set at medium. The iron's heat will soften the mastic, andyou can easily pry up the tile with a putty knife.
To remove a damaged resilient tile, soften it with a propane torch fitted with a flame-spreader nozzle. I Be careful not to damage surrounding tiles.) When the tile is soft, pry it up with a paint scraper or putty knife and scrape the adhesive off the floor so that the new tile bonds cleanly. You can also remove a resilient tile by covering it with dry ice, wearing work gloves to protect your hands. Let the dry ice stand for 10 minutes and then remove any remaining ice. The cold will make the tile brittle, so it will shatter easily. Chisel out the tile from the edges to the center.
Laying resilient floor tile will be easier if the room temperature is at least 70°F before you start, because tile is more pliable at higher temperatures. Put all boxes of tile in the room for at least 24 hours prior to positioning tiles on the floor. Try to keep the room temperature at the same level for about a week after laying the tiles, and then wait at least a week before washing the floor. To prevent scratching the floor when moving heavy furniture across uncarpeted areas, slip scraps of old carpeting, face down, under all furniture legs.
After laying floor tiles, you can help them lie flat by going over them with a rolling pin. If you want to replace a damaged area of resilient flooring, here's a way to make a perfect patch from scrap flooring: Place the scrap piece over the damaged area so that it overlaps suffi ciently, and tape it to hold it in place. Then, cut through both layers at the same time to make a patch that is an exact duplicate. Replace the damaged area with the tightly fitting patch.
To patch a gouge (not a dent) in a resilient floor, take a scrap of the flooring and grate it with a food grater. Mix the resulting dust with clear nail polish and plug the hole. Another way to camouflage a gouge or hole in a resilient floor is with crayon wax. Choose a crayon that matches the floor color, melt it, fill the gouge or hole, and then wax the floor.
Solvent-based cleaners and polishes preserve cork tile floors and should be used instead of water or water-based products. So chairs won't scratch a hardwood floor, glue bunion pads to the bottoms of the chair legs. To make a bathroom carpet fit perfectly, make a precise pattern with paper. Lay overlapped sheets of paper on the bathroom floor, tightly butted up against corners, walls, and obstacles.
Tape the sheets together and cut. Turn the pattern over, face down, on the back of the carpet, trace with a pencil, and then cut. Thumbtacks pressed into the bottom ends of wooden chair legs will also allow them to slide more easily across a wood or tile floor. If you're going to use flagstone or slate as indoor flooring, these porous materials should be sealed to keep them looking their best.
Brick flooring can also be sealed and waxed to protect its porous surface from staining. It is especially helpful to treat brick this way if it is used for flooring in a kitchen. Install floor tiles from the center of a room outward, because the center of a room is where appearance and matching are most important. To stop squeaks at the front of a stair tread, drive pairs of spiral flooring nails, each pair angled in a "V," across the tread and into the top of the riser below it.
Try eliminating squeaks in stairs by using packaged graphite powder or talcum powder in a squeeze bottle, applying the lubricant along the joints in the problem area. If an application of graphite powder or talcum powder fails to eliminate a stair squeak, go under the stairs and drive wedges into the gaps between the moving components.
You may be able to silence squeaky hardwood floors by using talcum powder as a dry lubricant. Sprinkle powder over the offending areas, and sweep it back and forth until it filters down between the cracks.Try filling dents in a hardwood floor with clear nail polish or shellac. Because the floor's color will show through, the dents will not be apparent.
Sometimes you can flatten bulges or curled seams in a linoleum floor by placing aluminum foil over them and "ironing'' them with your steam iron. (The heat will soften and reactivate the adhesive.) Position weights, such as stacks of books, over treated areas to keep them flat until the adhesive cools and hardens. To remove a resilient floor tile for replacement, lay a piece of aluminum foil on it and then press down with an ordinary iron set at medium. The iron's heat will soften the mastic, andyou can easily pry up the tile with a putty knife.
To remove a damaged resilient tile, soften it with a propane torch fitted with a flame-spreader nozzle. I Be careful not to damage surrounding tiles.) When the tile is soft, pry it up with a paint scraper or putty knife and scrape the adhesive off the floor so that the new tile bonds cleanly. You can also remove a resilient tile by covering it with dry ice, wearing work gloves to protect your hands. Let the dry ice stand for 10 minutes and then remove any remaining ice. The cold will make the tile brittle, so it will shatter easily. Chisel out the tile from the edges to the center.
Laying resilient floor tile will be easier if the room temperature is at least 70°F before you start, because tile is more pliable at higher temperatures. Put all boxes of tile in the room for at least 24 hours prior to positioning tiles on the floor. Try to keep the room temperature at the same level for about a week after laying the tiles, and then wait at least a week before washing the floor. To prevent scratching the floor when moving heavy furniture across uncarpeted areas, slip scraps of old carpeting, face down, under all furniture legs.
After laying floor tiles, you can help them lie flat by going over them with a rolling pin. If you want to replace a damaged area of resilient flooring, here's a way to make a perfect patch from scrap flooring: Place the scrap piece over the damaged area so that it overlaps suffi ciently, and tape it to hold it in place. Then, cut through both layers at the same time to make a patch that is an exact duplicate. Replace the damaged area with the tightly fitting patch.
To patch a gouge (not a dent) in a resilient floor, take a scrap of the flooring and grate it with a food grater. Mix the resulting dust with clear nail polish and plug the hole. Another way to camouflage a gouge or hole in a resilient floor is with crayon wax. Choose a crayon that matches the floor color, melt it, fill the gouge or hole, and then wax the floor.
Solvent-based cleaners and polishes preserve cork tile floors and should be used instead of water or water-based products. So chairs won't scratch a hardwood floor, glue bunion pads to the bottoms of the chair legs. To make a bathroom carpet fit perfectly, make a precise pattern with paper. Lay overlapped sheets of paper on the bathroom floor, tightly butted up against corners, walls, and obstacles.
Tape the sheets together and cut. Turn the pattern over, face down, on the back of the carpet, trace with a pencil, and then cut. Thumbtacks pressed into the bottom ends of wooden chair legs will also allow them to slide more easily across a wood or tile floor. If you're going to use flagstone or slate as indoor flooring, these porous materials should be sealed to keep them looking their best.
Brick flooring can also be sealed and waxed to protect its porous surface from staining. It is especially helpful to treat brick this way if it is used for flooring in a kitchen. Install floor tiles from the center of a room outward, because the center of a room is where appearance and matching are most important. To stop squeaks at the front of a stair tread, drive pairs of spiral flooring nails, each pair angled in a "V," across the tread and into the top of the riser below it.
Try eliminating squeaks in stairs by using packaged graphite powder or talcum powder in a squeeze bottle, applying the lubricant along the joints in the problem area. If an application of graphite powder or talcum powder fails to eliminate a stair squeak, go under the stairs and drive wedges into the gaps between the moving components.
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