LESLIE: Nathaniel in Colorado is dealing with a floor that’s kind of in disrepair. Tell us what’s going on.
NATHANIEL: I’ve got a floor problem. I was – had removed some shelving and it appears underneath the shelf, the floor has started to just rot out. And actually, when I step on it, it kind of crumbles away. And we’re kind of trying to find some advice so I wouldn’t have to replace the whole floor but maybe just replace that segment somehow.
TOM: What’s the floor made of? Is it – is this a strip floor, like a hardwood floor? Or is it a plywood floor? What kind of flooring you got?
NATHANIEL: It’s a hardwood floor. It’s got little cubes of wood laid over top of particle board.
TOM: Does it look like somebody put a bunch of puzzle pieces together?
NATHANIEL: A little bit, yes.
TOM: Yeah, I think he’s got parquet floor.
LESLIE: Yeah, that’s a parquet.
TOM: Alright. Well, here’s the thing. That’s the hardest floor to patch. But what you’re going to have to do is – first of all, you have to – in order to repair the rotted section, you have to remove the parquet layer in the area that’s damaged.
NATHANIEL: OK.
TOM: And before you do that, of course, you’ve to see if you can find replacement parquet for it so that once you get the structural part repaired, you can replace the parquet part. So that’s going to be a lot of work but it can be done if you can identify the product and see if you can get replacement parquet flooring for it.
How big is this room?
NATHANIEL: It’s approximately – the section I’m replacing is a lot smaller but the room itself is probably 20 feet by 15 feet.
TOM: Alright. Well, I think this is going to be a lot of work to try to find the replacement to preserve that floor. Is the floor so nice it’s worth preserving the rest of it?
NATHANIEL: Not particularly but just having to replace that much of it – I’m OK with replacing just a segment, even if it looks a little odd, just so that – because it’s a lot of floor to replace.
TOM: Because what I was going to say is if you just did the structural repair, you could probably put a second layer of flooring on top of that.
NATHANIEL: Oh, OK.
TOM: And you could put engineered floor, you could put laminate floor or something of that nature. And that would make the whole room look terrific.
NATHANIEL: Right, right. I did see some laminate floor that wasn’t too expensive, that looks like it’s wood.
TOM: Right, exactly. And it can look like wood. And like I said, as long as the floor isn’t really structurally damaged, you might even be able to go over what you have. But if it is completely rotted through, then you would just cut that area out, rebuild it and then put the laminate on top of the whole thing.
NATHANIEL: Oh, OK. That’s a good idea. Well, thank you. I just need a direction to head.
TOM: You’re welcome, Nathaniel. Good luck with that project and thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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