We're having new carpet to the stairs and landing in the next month or two. By one of the doors, there's a couple of floorboards that have slightly collapsed and broken. They're approx. 137mm wide and 20mm thick tongue & groove, which my Googling is struggling to find locally unless I buy far more than I need.
So, has anyone got any suggestions on what the easiest way to sort might be? I could get some MDF cut but that's 18mm thick.
Probably 150mm x 25mm tongue and groove floorboards.
That's a nominal rough sawn size. By the time it's machined it's about what you're describing.
Take a piece to your local woodyard/builder's merchant and you'll soon source it
You might have to buy a 3.6m length (or similar) so either take a handsaw or ask them to crosscut it to fit in the car
Ask if they've got a damaged board that gives you enough and is priced accordingly
The groove won't be central so make sure that matches
Thanks @timba I think you're right, the boards are probably 145mm including the tongue, didn't realise that was included in the measurement. I can get these from Travis Perkins by the looks of it, happy days.
Sounds like the standard size Kingfisher group sell, B&Q in the UK.
Something to be on your guard for - broken floorboards are often the result of gaining access for any plumbing or electrical work being done previously. Which makes it the perfect opportunity to stick a nail or screw through a pipe or cable when you're fixing them.
Hypothetically.
Something to be on your guard for - broken floorboards are often the result of gaining access for any plumbing or electrical work being done previously. Which makes it the perfect opportunity to stick a nail or screw through a pipe or cable when you're fixing them.
Hypothetically.
Indeed... not speaking from experience (yet) but our floorboards are a shambles after rewiring and some plumbing work / relocating radiators over the past few years. I'll have no excuse if I DO nail (literally) a wire or pipe as I can see where most of them are located.
Take a photo of any area you remove boards from before you start. You’ll see where any nails are which will have ‘missed’ the plumbing or electrics. Pop a tape measure in the view too, to give some reference. Same again of same place with boards removed .It’ll serve as a double check before you start fixing the replacements, it’s dead easy to get complacent and still hit a pipe.
Two mates have done this. One of them struggled to find a plumber. That was one Christmas Eve.
As per the last couple of posts above. Its also not a bad idea to take a marker pen and draw/write on the new boards something like "Beware - pipe beneath here" for when you have the carpets up in 10 years time but have since forgotten where stuff is. Or you sell the house, so the new owners don't fall into the 'nail through the wire' trap.
If you have an attic, and it has a crawlboard/walkway in it, see if those are the same. Pretty common for the builders to use the same boards, I had a load of mangled floorboards in my new place and was able to fix all of em using random floorboards that had been used in construction elsewhere in the house (a bunch more had been nailed to the partition wall to give them something to screw water pipe fittings to)
Thanks for the tips, I've already had a look under most of the offending boards and there's plenty of pipes and cables under there so will be super careful.
As per the last couple of posts above. Its also not a bad idea to take a marker pen and draw/write on the new boards something like "Beware - pipe beneath here" for when you have the carpets up in 10 years time but have since forgotten where stuff is. Or you sell the house, so the new owners don't fall into the 'nail through the wire' trap.
I used a tin of red spray paint to mark where the bathroom pipes were, when putting down 8x4 sheets of ply (for laying tiles)
Still managed to put a screw through a pipe................. on the line I'd marked.
Oh how I chuckled as I had to remove around 150 screws to get to the floorboards, to get to the pipe