Old wooden floorboards

[Vics128]

Hi. Any ideas on how to cheaply fill the gaps in between my old floorboards to stop the draughts! Some of them are quite big.. TY

[snook]

I'm sure there are lots of ways, including making a papier mach� mix and stuffing the gaps with that, but here's one here

[stormin]

Sheet the whole floor with hardboard. This tends to reduce squeaks as well as eliminating draughts and gives a flat surface to lay carpet, tiles etc.

[lady_p_gold]

Well this might sound daft but I have filled the gaps in my wooden door with wax earplugs from Boots, dunno how big your gaps are but you could mould a candle I suppose .... then I painted them, but not sure what colour your floorboards are or if it would look strange.

[stephen123]

Do you intend to cover it with carpet or are you planning to polish it?

[Vics128]

sorry, not very clear was I!! I would like to try and stain them and varnish them. They are in my kitchen, so id quite like something water proof so it can be washed!!

[Mathews]

You can use string or twine to fill the gaps,single for small gaps or twist 2 or more pieces together for wider gaps.Poke the string down into the gaps with a scraper or other thin bladed knife.Varnish over and the varnish will swell the string to fill the gaap and keep it in place.

[stephen123]

The trouble with all of the above is that the material you are using to fill the gaps, as well as not matching the timer floor, will expand and contract at a different rate to the boards leaving you with smaller but more numerous cracks. I'm afraid there is no trouble free way to do it, the correct way is as follows. Any gaps over 1.5mm wide should be filled using wedge shaped strips of the same timber forced down into the gap with a mallet and stuck using PVA adhesive. when you have sanded off the whole floor save the sanding dust from the final sanding (finest paper) mix this dust with a spirit-based (not water-based) filller (Lecol or Legante) and "grout" all of the floor. A final very fine sanding then apply your seal. The easiest to use are waterbased polyurethane seals (Bona). Do the work in the winter when your heating is on and the gaps are at there largest. You will find that a lot of the draughts are comming from around the perimeter, under the skirting, if the gap under the skirting is small you could fill it with silicon sealant. Good luck.