As seasoned experts in floor restoration and hardwood floor refinishing, we hear one question quite often, and that question is, “can you fix scratches on wood floors?” It’s a reasonable question, but at the same time, it’s a loaded question.
Yes, you can fix scratches on your hardwood flooring. However, as professionals, we consider very few solutions as being the correct way to fix scratches on hardwood floors.
Many products and strategies claim to hold the answers, but at the end of the day, services that only a licensed hardwood flooring installation expert can provide will give you the best/long-lasting results you’re looking to achieve.
Tricks, Products, and Strategies That Clean Floors but Don’t Fix Scratches on Wood Floors
Liquid scratch-removal products
Many products claim they have proprietary technologies to help remove and fix scratches on wood floors. Still, in reality, all these products accomplish is masking the appearance of blemishes on hardwood floors for a temporary period of time.
What these products are useful for is cleaning the wood. You see, many people believe that they may have scratched, dented, or worn hardwood floors, but in reality, the wood is not scratched or damaged at all.
Quite often, what looks like a scratch on hardwood floors is dirt, scuff marks from shoes or superficial scuffs from furniture. If this is the case, the floors are not really scratched, but the flooring finish is just dirty and needs something a little more than water and sweeping to remove the grime.
Non-toxic floor cleaning products are suitable for removing dirt and grime caked onto the flooring, but they will not remove or fix scratches on wood floors.
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Pantry ingredients – baking soda and olive oil
Mixing baking soda and olive oil to create a scratch-removing solution will not effectively remove hardwood flooring scratches. This method fits into the category of “old wives’ tales.” The idea is to mix baking soda and olive oil and rub it on the wood’s affected area with scratches.
Again, just as with the scratch-removal products, this is good for cleaning surface area dirt and grime, but it will not remove scratches. Your floor will have an interesting, pantry-like smell after doing this, for better or for worse.
Filler products
There are a variety of hardwood filler products on the market. Some of the more notable brands would be Bondo or DAP plastic wood. Most of these products are made from pliable/moldable synthetic materials, like composite plastics. They are not made from wood in any way. Filler products are meant to be used when there’s a deep groove in a flooring plank.
When these products are installed correctly, the best-case scenario is they can help mask minimal dents or grooves in flooring. More often than not, people will use them to excess, and these solutions can detract from the beauty of the wood flooring.
Hot iron trick
This old “trick” may take the crown prize for craziest at-home floor fixes. Yes, some people have suggested that if you have a dent in your hardwood floor, you can use heat to “pop-out” the dent.
The idea is to place a wet towel over the dent and then put a hot clothing iron on the towel. In a perfect world, the radiating heat would lift the dent out of the floor.
This does not work, and heating wood is not like heating metal to remove a dent from a car. All this will do is put a burn mark on your floor and or destroy a perfect towel.
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JJ Hardwood Floor Repair Methodology
At JJ Hardwood, we only consider two solutions as viable options for fixing unsightly floor scratches.
If we have a client with minor scratches on the floor, we will send in our wood restoration expert. This team member has worked for decades repairing floors and high-value furniture with reference-level results.
If our restoration expert believes that his methods will not be the best solution, The floor will need to be sanded and refinished; that’s the only way to rid a beautiful hardwood floor of ugly scratches.
By taking preventative measures to protect your hardwood flooring, you can avoid significant damage that requires professional servicing. For example, have guests remove hard-soled shoes or heels in the guest room, use furniture pads, and lay rugs and liners in areas with high foot traffic.
If you have questions about hardwood flooring maintenance, care, refinishing, or restoration, please contact us!
