How to Fix Chipped Laminate Floors

If you have a laminate floor, which today usually means floating floors that are glued down, you may notice chipping or other damage on the boards ocurring over time. Unlike a solid wood floor, you can't sand and refinish a laminate floor. Generally the only option with such serious damage replacing the damaged boards. The good news is that taking up that laminate floor to get to the new board is relatively easy.

Pry bar
Hammer
Replacement floorboards
Finish nailer

Instructions

- 1
  Remove the floor trim around the perimeter of the floor with your pry bar and hammer. Don’t break it as you take it off. Save it. You will find a small gap between the edge of the laminate floating flooring and the walls.
- 2
  Push the boards toward the wall along the edge of the floor that’s closest to the damaged boards, using your palms and fingers to nudge them into the space by the wall. You may have to wiggle the boards to get them loose from the adjacent boards. Loosen the whole first course by the wall, leaving the loosened boards lying in place in the same order they were in.
- 3
  Loosen the boards of the next course in the same way, letting them sit in the same order they were in. Repeat and continue for each course, working your way out across the floor to the damaged area.
- 4
  Remove the chipped boards. Set the replacement boards in their place, snapping them onto the adjacent boards.
- 5
  Reassemble the floor, working your way back toward the starting wall, snapping the boards together.
- 6
  Put the floor trim back in, using a finishing nailer. The trim will hide the spaces along the walls.

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