floor board joints

[Gary]

The floor board ( chipboard) upstairs have gone soft at the joints. house is 1980 vintage. any suggestions as to best cure/ what to do

[Tim+]

"Soft" as in crumbly or "soft" as in saggy or bouncy?

Tim

[Roger Mills]

Rip it all up and replace it with proper T&G floorboards!

[Scion]

Roger Mills put finger to keyboard:

Even it it's going to be carpeted? That'll cost 5x as much.

[Nightjar]

What makes T&G floorboards 'proper'? Square edge would be more traditional and is what I have had in every house I have lived in.

Colin Bignell

[Roger Mills]

They lock together and are less prone to creaks and drafts - even when they've shrunk a bit.

Also, relative to chipboard, they're susceptible to liquid spills and it's much easier to lift small sections when doing plumbing or wiring.

[harryagain]

Depends how extensive the problem is. Sounds like there has been a flood in the past and the water remaining in the cracks has caused the problem. If very extensive, it's likely that flooring grade chipboard was not used but a cheaper grade instead. Flooring grade will stand a small amount of damp/wetness for a short period of time. Ordinary chipboard won't If so, it will have to be replaced. Not easy if it goes under partition walls.

[Nightjar]

I've never found creaks a problem with plain edge boards, using traditional floorboard cleats, and the traditional covering of lino or carpet with newspaper underneath stops draughts.

Even easier with plain edge boards.

Colin Bignell

[Roger Mills]

Plain edged boards are certainly easier to lift. But they need to be very well seasoned so as not to shrink - and such wood is difficult to find these days.

[My previous post should have said "relative to chipboard, they're LESS susceptible to liquid spills . . ]

[Geoff Pearson]

In Edinburgh T&G is traditional back to at least 1809 - the oldest house I have owned. I've never seen square edge here.

[Nightjar]

On 13/11/2013 17:06, Roger Mills wrote: ...

The youngest house I have lived in was built in 1931.

Colin Bignell

[charles]

I'm pretty certain that my father's house in Murrayfield, c1900, had square edged boards in what was originally the servants' rooms. The rest probably had T&G - they were polished, too.

[Gib Bogle]

I have dealt with this problem using a low-viscosity two-pot epoxy resin. First I abraded off any proud areas, then I applied the epoxy. The one I used is a local product called Polymer Liquid Glass - it's just a "thin" resin that soaks into porous wood (also very good for wood with dry-rot). It can be diluted to some extent with meths. There used to be a similar Epiglass product called Evidure.

A few applications of this product made the chipboard as strong as new.

[Gib Bogle]

P.S. You'll still need to stop it from getting wet.