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As long as it gives you comfort and balance underneath your feet, your flooring system should be OK, so you think. Most people care about the finished product and would rather not be part of the installation process, which is fully understandable because it can be a messy and time-consuming process. However, choosing the right flooring material and planning an efficient installation go hand-in-hand with considering your climate and foot traffic. That’s where our Walpole flooring repair experts come in to help you complete your next project.
As you may know, healthy flooring has many aspects, from cleaning habits to other types of maintenance. Depending on your chosen material, it might need more periodic care than others or be unsuitable for pets, especially if you have not treated the surface areas properly. In short, plenty of circumstances lead to flooring repair. In Walpole, MA, homeowners may not immediately notice the warning signs until it’s too late, and the subfloor needs to be replaced or a whole section has to be torn out.
Your local Walpole handyman at Mr. Handyman of Central - Eastern Norfolk County & S.Shore is a flooring repair expert who knows all about common and local issues while offering efficient repair solutions and preventative measures to help you maintain a healthy flooring system. Mr. Handyman is your locally-owned and operated business that only hires trained service professionals with many years of experience serving local property owners in Walpole and surrounding areas. From seasonal maintenance to home repairs and improvements, you can count on our excellent workmanship and customer service to get the job done.
About Our Walpole Flooring Repair Service
Everyone has reasons for choosing what they want, including the ground they stand at home. You don’t have to be a flooring aficionado to choose what you love as long as you have a professional tell you all about flooring installation services to save you future headaches. The truth is every type of flooring has its own unique characteristics and maintenance needs. If you had known that maintenance tasks included sanding and resealing, you might have been put off by the idea and chosen against that type. But you wouldn’t know if the original installer you hired had kept it from you because they were merely focused on doing the job you hired them for rather than providing you with a detailed consultation about your actual needs.
There are ways to save yourself from future flooring repairs in Walpole, MA. Homeowners know that to keep repairs to a minimum, they have to establish some important priorities. With that being said, let’s dive into common options.
Common Flooring Types and Their Issues
Here are the common types of flooring options that we frequently repair:
Natural Wood
As one of the most popular options, natural solid hardwood flooring is a sustainable and environmentally friendly choice. Although new constructions opt for more simple and cost-effective flooring, natural wood remains a classic, especially for rustic cabins and for homes in rural communities.
While real hardwood has become more difficult to come by, Mr. Handyman can help you find trusted sources so that you’re well-informed about where your material comes from, how the installation process goes, and how you need to maintain it to prevent early floor repairs. We aim to help you fully understand all the details necessary to keep a healthy wood floor.
In a humid continental climate like Massachusetts, you must be aware of the pros and cons of hardwood floors before you decide it’s what you want, whether it’s oak, maple, or pine.
Pros:
- Highly Durable: Designed for heavy foot traffic and weight impact
- Long-lasting: With the right maintenance, solid wood can last up to 100 years
- Aesthetics: Besides functionality, it’s natural and looks beautiful
- ROI: Selling your home? Because natural wood is highly desired, expect to recoup the money spent on your initial installation!
Cons:
- High Cost: Installation comes with a high upfront cost that includes material and labor.
- High Maintenance: Aside from sweeping and mopping, it needs sanding and refinishing every five to ten years; otherwise, scratches and gouges from furniture and wear and tear will be visible.
- Prone to Moisture Damage: With a high potential for water damage, wooden floors with surface damage will be prone to letting in moisture, which may lead to cupping, swelling, and even wood rot; plus, your subfloor will also be affected. This can lead to severe issues such as mold and structural damage.
Engineered Wood
Engineered means that the wood was treated with chemicals to become more resilient. While natural wood has a solid core, the engineered core is made of shredded wood fiber, adhesives, and other scrap materials, but the surface is of quality wood material and provides the same visual aesthetics as its natural counterpart.
Despite its cost-effectiveness, stylishness, and climatic resistance, its overall core strength cannot keep up with the quality of natural solid hardwood. Maintenance also includes sanding and refinishing, but knowing that it’s not as thick as natural wood, the surface layer might not last after the third round of sanding. Your Walpole flooring repair expert does not recommend engineered wood if you have kids and pets because that will call for more maintenance and repair than you already need.
Tile
Choosing tile for your floors is a smart choice. Whether you need it for high-moisture areas like your kitchen or bathroom, you can install it almost anywhere in your home without experiencing issues. Tiles take us back to ancient history when people already knew how to create functional, durable systems, although it wasn’t until industrialization that tiles began to revolutionize the world.
Why do Walpole homeowners love tile? It’s water-resistant, durable, and low-maintenance. Besides its functional aspects, tile has become a form of art where mosaic lovers and glass painters use tile sheets to create artistic pieces for walls, floors, and canvases. But even the most versatile and heavy-duty flooring system has weaknesses, and it’s up to the homeowner to decide if the strengths outweigh the weaknesses.
Pros:
- Long Shelf Life: Tile floors that are well-installed and maintained can last over 70 years; some types, like porcelain, last even longer than others
- Water-resistant: Unlike most flooring types, tile, as long as both sheet and grout are sealed, is water-resistant and ideal for areas that are exposed to a high moisture content
- Low-maintenance: Tile flooring is one of the few types that can handle a wet mop regularly; they’re quite easy to keep clean
Cons:
- Cold Surface: Unless you have floor heating, tile might not be suitable for those who enjoy walking barefoot
- Porous: Tile and grout are made of porous materials that can suffer from water damage if not properly sealed—not to mention that sealants wear off within a few years, depending on moisture content. Crumbling grout is one of those issues your local Walpole flooring repair professional tackles regularly.
Pro Tip: Laying tiles is an art in itself and requires expertise, especially when working with epoxy grout. During your Walpole flooring repair, our service technicians use epoxy grout that is less porous than its cement-based counterparts. We also prefer using epoxy to treat cracked tile sheets. It’s still common for installers to use Portland cement during tile installation services, but feel free to ask about epoxy grout, which will help you save a lot of maintenance work. One disadvantage of epoxy is that it dries fast, so you’ll need an extremely skilled tile expert.
Luxury Vinyl Plank
Also known by its abbreviation LVP, luxury vinyl planks provide a home with a smooth, modern vibe that many young professionals prefer to have in their condos. While your home looks like hardwood, you’d actually be marveling at the smoothness of vinyl floors with this product. Luxury vinyl planks comprise about eight layers of PVC materials in vinyl sheets, providing a crack- and scratch-resistant surface. It’s durable and handles medium to heavy foot traffic.
LVP is also perfect for homes with kids and pets, although protecting it with additional rugs will help protect specific areas and minimize the need for early flooring repair in Walpole, MA. You will benefit from an easy installation process because these floor planks have a click-and-lock system—unless you prefer gluing your LVP onto your subfloor. Gluing versus click-and-lock is something you should discuss with your Walpole handyman in advance, as both strategies have their pros and cons, depending on the room size. Nonetheless, if either strategy was completed poorly, you may look for a Walpole flooring repair expert to take care of damages associated with improper installation, such as bubbles in vinyl flooring.
Lastly, it should be mentioned that vinyl flooring types are sensitive to sunlight. If not previously treated with UV inhibitors, they can fade over time.
Laminate
Laminate floors have improved in the last few decades thanks to advanced technology that uses aluminum crystals to enhance the laminate surface areas. Now, they are just as scratch- and water-resistant as luxury vinyl planks, except that they are cheaper and offer a wide variety of design options.
Although they’re also installed with a click-and-lock mechanism like LVP, laminate floorboards are not glued onto the subfloor; instead, it merely sit on the subfloor or even float over concrete flooring. It may sound nice and easy, but it also means that your subfloor will be more susceptible to moisture. As long as you keep the humidity level in your home low, you shouldn’t experience any issues with laminate flooring. However, your Walpole flooring repair technician recommends routine inspections and paying attention to signs of lifting or buckling.
Top Signs You Need Walpole Flooring Repair
Squeaky floors or deeper scratches aren’t just a nuisance but could potentially indicate serious problems. Hopefully, these issues are within the early stages so that your Walpole flooring repair professional can rectify the problem before anything spirals out of control.
When in need of flooring repair, you should keep an eye out for these warning signs:
- Minor Scratches and Chips: As your expert Walpole flooring repair specialists, we detect scratches and splintering on wooden floors before they worsen. We’ll analyze the depth of the accidental damage and decide whether sanding and refinishing are sufficient repair methods. Minor cracks can be treated with epoxy wood fillers and other common issues, but you might need to consider flooring replacement in more severe scenarios.
- Squeaky Boards: Since you can’t look underneath, it’s hard to tell whether your boards need to be refastened due to poor installation service or whether you have rotted wood. Having a flooring expert investigate your entire floor for you sooner rather than later will stop the damage from deteriorating.
- Buckling or Sunken Floors: These are signs of water leaks or moisture damage that either occurs underneath your floor system or on the surface. They could be due to high humidity levels in your home or an undetected leaky appliance. Sunken floors can also occur from the natural settling of your home and may require floor joist repair.
- Warped Floors: Floor materials expand when they’re hot and humid and contract when they’re cold. Extreme temperature fluctuations can cause these materials to warp over time.
- Musty Smells: Musty smells typically signal mold growth and may be hard to detect whether they come from the wall, ceiling, or floor. If you have damaged floors, it’s easy for moisture to penetrate the affected areas and cause further subfloor damage. With the detection tools used by your Walpole flooring repair technician, you’ll get a thorough diagnosis of how serious the mold situation may be. In the worst case, your subfloor needs a replacement.
Why Choose Mr. Handyman For Walpole Flooring Repair?
We are proud to be one of Neighborly’s trusted home service experts and are blessed with a reliable team of skilled professionals who have built strong relationships with our local customers by proving their excellent workmanship.
Unlike contractors who can’t provide references and background details, our team of professionals have all passed their background checks and are fully insured to perform any handiwork that would otherwise pose a safety risk to the homeowner.
What can you expect when hiring our expert services for flooring repair in Walpole MA? Service technicians at Mr. Handyman won’t waste any time! Let’s get that project done.
