Closing gaps between wide panelling/floor boards

[sue gazzard]

I feel sure there is a very simple solution to this one involving string but I just can't think how it works! I have a "wall" in my hall made up of very wide, very old, very bowed oak boards, which, (now that all the hardboard is off) turn out not surprisingly to have a fair number of fair sized gaps between them. Ditto my upstairs floorboards.

Help please on closing them up!

 

[Penners]

You've put the word "wall" in inverted commas. Does this mean that it's not really a wall? What is the structure that we're talking about? (A picture might be useful).

If it really is a boarded wall, then the same techniques could be used for the wall and the floor.

How much damage would be caused by removing the boards from the wall and the floor? If not too much, then you could do this and refit them tightly together. This effectively takes lots of small gaps and makes them into one big gap, which you then fill with an extra, new (or reclaimed) board.

If the board edges are very bad and crumbled, you might want to consider getting them skimmed off by a timber specialist, to give clean, straight edges.

Alternatively, if you feel removal of the boards would be too damaging, then papier mache might be the answer, provided the gaps aren't too big. Pack it in tightly, wait until it's really dry, then sand it off flush and colour it to match.

 

[Nemesis]

Listed building?

 

[Penners]

No mention of that, but it's a fair question.

Listed status will of course mean that LBC is required for anything other than the papier mache treatment (unless you have a view on that, Nem?)

 

[Nemesis]

I think that I would be wary of disturbing 'historic fabric' and go for repair.

 

[Penners]

The trouble is, in this context, what constitutes "repair"?

I know you don't mean replacement like-for-like (which could mean destroying the old boards), and removal and re-fitting of the old boards could cause some damage.

So, on the face of it, papier mache would seem to involve the "lightest touch". But I'm not sure that even that is reversible, given that it involves glue.

 

[essexbearhunter]

I feel sure there is a very simple solution to this one involving string

This sounds rather like caulking which was used on wooden boats to make them watertight.
Old hemp ropes were unpicked (normally by prisoners or workhouse inmates) for mixing with pine tar to produce oakum which was forced into the gaps between the planks on ships to make them watertight. The resultant joint is then faced with putty or pine pitch.

There would be nothing to stop you changing the pine tar or pitch pine for something more user-friendly...unless you really need a watertight wall!

 

[Moo]

Sue - a bit more information about the 'wall' would be a help. For example, is it just a single-skin of boards, or are they a sort of cladding? And do you want to fill the gaps for purely aesthetic reasons, or need to fill them to eliminate draughts or increase privacy?

 

[sue gazzard]

Hi, it is a single skin of really wide old oak boards which runs from the front to the back of the building. Previous owners had covered one side with hardboard (bendy enough to go with the fairly massive bow of the boards) and layers of woodchip. With all this stripped away you can at various points see straight through from hall to what will be my kitchen gaps up to a few mm wide. So desire to fill the gaps is about privacy/noise/cooking smells. It was the hemp/tar thing which was lost in the depths of my memory, so thanks v much for the prompt and I will look at going this route. Am planning to use Hemcrete to fill in shrink gaps around daub panels and to replace daub where it has fallen/rotted away so may also see if this can be got to stick/be aesthetically pleasing.

two btw's - huge thanks to whoever it was who sent me the Marianne Suhr link - am now specifying the Hemcrete blocks in place of Thermalite for my new extension as well as it turning out to be the dream material for daub repairs/insulation which I was still looking for. 8) Second btw is that my building is NOT listed, although it is in a Cons area.

 

[plumbers mate]

I have a similar gaping wood wall problem - in the bathroom. The walls are wood about 90mms wide, presumably t&g lengths. Behind the wood is nothing but the rear side of the adjoining room's lathe and plaster walls. On the external wall side, behind the wood is the inside of the external single skin brick wall. They only had the wood wall down to the level of the old bath. When the bath was replaced by a "modern" one in circa 1950s, they put hardboard on to cover the gaps. The original wood is very dark but I don't know what it is. The ceiling is also the same wood. I haven't poked about in the roof but I suspect that the wood is actually the ceiling and that there is no plaster above it.
Due to poor maintenance (mea culpa but lacks of funds and time and spirit were against it) gaps have appeared beteween some of the boards - I was hoping that several coats of paint would do it and hide the gaps.
When the bathroom gets it's periodic (ie every 50 years) sort out, I'd love a shower but will have to cover over the wood around the end of the bath with some sort of waterproof board which can then be tiled. How much easier it would be to rip it all off and get a "proper" wall put on, but I couldn't do it. I physically and mentally couldn't do it.

 

[Penners]

you can at various points see straight through from hall to what will be my kitchen gaps up to a few mm wide.

It sounds to me as though the most effective solution would be to cover the whole lot with hardboard and several layers of woodchip.

 

[Nemesis]

Penners - have the marbles gone as well as the appendage?

:shock:

I have been considering - what about pinning some moulding or t'other over the gaps? (Not the floorboards obviously!)

It's something traditionally done to plank doors when gaps opened up. Is that possible? Can you post a pic?

Pleased about the hemcrete - it woz me. Be interesting to know how it all turns out.

 

[Nemesis]

Here's an older version:

http://www.theporchhouse.com/html/plank_and_muntin_walls.html