LESLIE: Jim in South Carolina is dealing with a flooring issue. Tell us what’s going on.
JIM: We had – I had to have our flooring replaced and it’s been about a year ago. And we have a scratch across the planks.
TOM: OK.
JIM: It goes across in an arc and it crosses about six planks. I’ve tried lots of different things. I’ve heard a lot of different suggestions but nothing really takes care of that and I was trying to find out if there’s a way to get that looking decent without removing the boards and putting them back. I do have the wood in case it comes to that but I just wondered if there’s something simple.
TOM: Alright. How long is the scratch?
JIM: It’s about 4 feet long.
TOM: Oof, wow. (Jim chuckles) That’s a big one.
JIM: (overlapping voices) It’s 5-inch.
TOM: And what kind of floor is this? Was it a prefinished hardwood floor?
JIM: Yes.
TOM: You’re going to have to replace it.
JIM: OK. Well, that (inaudible at 0:04:46).
TOM: (overlapping voices) It’s very difficult to refinish a prefinished floor, I will tell you that, because when you sand off the old finish, you almost never – even if you have the materials from the manufacturer – it almost never comes up right. The easiest thing for you to do is to tear those out and replace them.
JIM: OK. Well I’ve tried and nobody down here wants to tackle the job.
TOM: Yeah, well, it’s kind of an impossible job. I mean if you had a small scratch, I would tell you to use a wax stick. There’s a way that you can get – Minwax has these stain sticks that work really well. You melt them a little bit with a lighter and they drip the wax into the crack – into the gouge – and kind of buff it and it hides the whole thing really, really well. But you can’t do that with a 4-foot-long scratch.
JIM: Yeah, right.
TOM: Why did it take them 4 feet to figure out they were dragging something across the floor?
JIM: It was a person who was helping me move it across the floor. He didn’t want to use the dolly and he grabbed the end and pushed it across before I could say no. (Tom chuckles) Son, you know how they are.
TOM: Oh, well.
JIM: They know everything these days.
TOM: You can’t hate them too much. (Leslie chuckles)
JIM: Right. (chuckles)
TOM: Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
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