Floorboards/replacement/reclaimed or just lay a new floor?

[kingtubby]

Hi All

First question on forum, so bear with me (I have looked at previous posts for a similar without luck),
I am currently doing-up the first floor of my victorian house and want wooden floors all over. It has previously had carpet etc. The first bedroom has floorboards some of which will need to be replaced, if I am to sand this floor. My question is :
Can I replace the damaged floorboards with brand new? If not, why not? Should victorian reclaimed boards be used instead?
There are some gaps between the boards which I assume I can fill prior to sanding or should I just forget the whole thing and lay a wood floor on top of the boards...

Any advice gratefully received

 

[WoodYouLike]

Hi Kingtubby

All your suggestions are workable, all depends on personal preferences (and diy-skils perhaps
However: old floorboards in old victorian homes normally don't have T&G's so you can fill the gaps as many times you'll like, after a while it will fall through.
Replacing damaged boards: pine? oak? Whatever type of wood, if you recplace them note any differences in size and make sure they are a minimum of 18mm thick (otherwise they can't be safely installed directly onto joist). Also make sure they are long enough to connect with at least three joists.

Sanding pine boards and applying new coat could result in 'orange' boards, if they are Oak then you don't have that problem.

Reclaimed boards: expensive ('band-wagon' principle) and nine times out of ten from different batches = different sizes.

New wooden floor ontop of existing floor: solves 'draft' problem and you can use any kind of floor (no need for thickness of minimum 18mm). There are so-called 'reclaimed look' floorboards around (too expensive, 'band-wagon' principle again. If you're a bit patient, the boards will age and destress on their own )

Hope this helps

 

[kingtubby]

Hi WoodYouLike

You explained it better than the people I have so far posed this one too!

My preference was for using the existing boards (they are not T & G which may not have been invented in time for my place) as 2/3's of them are ok... I will give this some thought....

Thanks again...

PS I have seen the price of reclaimed boards and could not believe it!!

 

[Deluks]

Assuming the original floor was all laid when the house was built, why don't you remove all the boards in any room you intend to lay carpet, tiles etc, and re-use them to replace damaged boards in other rooms, where you'd like to keep the floor bare.
So any tiled or carpeted areas will have a brand spanking, but unseen floor.