High Heel Damage and Wooden Floors....What Can I Do ?

Hello and Welcome to another WFR Blog Post.


Today's question is a contentious issue which happens every day to someone's Wooden Floor, follow a few of the following simple steps and it may not happen to you.... 


The question is..."High Heel damage to my wood floors, what can i do ??"


The quick answer is Not alot the damage caused by High Heels can be really bad, I myself have seen indents of well over 5mm into a hardwood floor, this kind of damage cannot easily be sorted out.



High heels concentrate a person’s weight on a small point (estimate: 125lb person = approximately 2,000lbs per inch when taking a normal step). This kind of force can damage many types of flooring, fracturing ceramic tiles and perforating vinyl, as well as denting wooden floors. While high heels in good repair may not damage wood floors, we recommend a ‘no high heel’ policy.


NEVER feel guilty about asking your friends to take off their high heels on entering your home, better that than having marks and indents all over your wood floor....


We have Sanded and Refinished numerous wooden floors of various species that have had high heel damage, very often the marks are removed during the floor sanding processes, but sometimes these marks CANNOT be removed with floor sanding as the indents are just too deep, these indents can be filled with a gap filling mixture, but its likely that you will still be able to see the indents, but to a much lesser degree, sometimes this is the best option.

• As I mentioned earlier, if people are coming into your home with high heels on, politely ask them to take them off, A NO HIGH HEELS policy will keep your wood floors looking good for many years.....
• If you wear high heels around your own home make sure the heel tips are in good repair, heels without tips are almost certain to cause damage.....
• Damaged wooden floors are not easily repaired, consult a professional for advice if you are in any doubt.

Thanks for reading......We'll be back soon.


Checkout our website at Woodfloor-renovations

How Do I Fill the Gaps in my Hardwood Floor ?

Hello and Welcome to another Woodfloor-Renovations Blog post.


This subject really is the one I get most correspondence about, its a fairly simple process really but if its done badly or you don't know what you are doing or what products you should use then things can go very wrong very quickly. 


This Blog is about Gap Filling your wood floor, it doesn't matter if you have a beautiful hardwood Oak Parquet Block floor or old softwood Pine Floorboards, the principles are the same as is the method for getting the job done. The Gap Filling part of the Sanding & Sealing process is carried out shortly before applying the first coat of seal to the floor so it really does need to be done correctly otherwise your floor could easily look a mess.


Two main components are needed for Gap Filling are some nice clean fine sanding dust from the floor/species you have been sanding, and the Filler itself.

 There are two distinct product types in the Filler market, Solvent Based Fillers v's Water-based Fillers, both have different properties and behave differently, for example the solvent based fillers have a quite pungent smell when used, and the Water-based fillers don't, with solvent based fillers you have a quite short working time whereas the water-based fillers have a  long open time.


I can tell you are leaning towards the water-based products already :-) but before you make up your mind read on.

 From a Professional standpoint I personally almost always use solvent based fillers, this is because a solvent based filler dries really quickly [10-15 mins] and most of the filling I do is for relatively small area's in respect of the overall job. I need the filler to go off quickly to be able to move onto the next phase of the operation which would be to properly Sand off any residues and to finish the preparation on the newly sanded floor.

The two above pictures are of the exact same area from a recently completed job, where the pictures clearly show the dramatic difference that applying filler can make, in the top pictures your eye's are drawn to the 'black gaps' that can be seen pretty much everywhere in that picture. In the lower picture you can clearly see the difference that the gap filling has made - believe me that particular floor took some gap filling :-(( 

Click on the link and you will be taken to the complete Gallery of that project - the before and after pictures are quite startling   Conwy Valley Pitch Pine Job

The main component of gap filling is the dust, make sure it's nice and clean and at least 80 grit and finer, meaning 120 grit dust is better again, mix the filler into the dust, to the consistency of a thickish custard, don't worry if you pour on too much filler and it goes very runny, simply add more dust and mix well.

When properly mixed you basically scrape the mixture into the gaps, somewhat similar to grouting tiles. I would advise using as wide a scraper as possible as gap filling can be a very time consuming and tedious job if all you have to use is a 4" wallpaper scraper.

As soon as you apply the filler mixture to the area you are filling, make sure you scrape off as much of the residues as possible, as when the filler dries, it dries hard and can be difficult to remove if thick residues have been left on the floor to dry.

Remember - Solvent based fillers have an approximate 10-15 minute working time, while the water based fillers have a much longer open time, and can be as much as an hour or more before it is properly dry depending on how wide the gaps are...the wider the gaps the longer the drying time and that refers to both filler types.

Hope this article helps - Good Luck with your project.