To make a long story short, a shelf in our china cabinet collapsed, took out another shelf, spilled thousands of dollars worth of china and crystal out onto our merbau hardwood. There is damage to maybe 25 or 30 boards.

The hardwood is Lifestyles 3/4 inch by 3 1/2 inch solid merbau. It was installed 14 months ago in a home we built at that time. I have two questions.

(1) Are a series of board replacements my only option? I've had a few done on this floor where boards were cracked and it works pretty slick; cut the board with a skil saw then chisel pieces out, cut the tongue off the new board and glue 'er down.

(2) What's the best way to locate some of this wood so the BRs can be done? The local place we bought it from here in Winnipeg, Canada doesn't have the wood any more and says they're looking but I'm not holding my breath. It doesn't much matter where it comes from since it can be shipped easily and insurance should be paying for it. I guess I would need two boxes.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Links to a few pics:

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~carlberg/m ... au%201.JPG

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~carlberg/m ... au%202.JPG

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~carlberg/m ... au%203.JPG

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~carlberg/m ... au%204.JPG

Not sure what is cheaper, replacing the wood if you can find it or refinish the wood. If insurance is covering, why not try to get it refinished? Can't tell by the pictures, are the boards badly dented?

Refinish would be the preferred option, but then we'd have to do the whole floor so it would look right. That would be fine with me but I doubt insurance would get onside for that kind of money.

is the floor prefinished? I cant tell from the pictures. If it was site finished insurance would need to pay for an entire refinish. They wont like it, but they will do it. The companies who would do the work would have to document why it all needed to be refinished, and you may spend hours arguing, but it can be accomplisehd.

Prefinished, unfortunately. I'm thinking my only shot at a refinish is if the wood cannot be found. There's a big movement against Merbau for environmental reasons so who knows--might not be able to find this wood at all.

well you may possibly still be able to get it finished, even if you find the wood. It is a very exotic wood, and changes colors with time, I dont think the new wood would "catch up" with the existing 100% and may be drastic enough of a difference (when its repaired) to warrant a resand...

Interesting...the colour of the floor has changed noticeably over the last year so yeah, boards stored in boxes and not exposed to light would look different. They probably would not blend properly.

Re-sand is best. Simple and without gapping issues left by poorly installed board replacement effort.

Adjustor was around this morning. We talked multiple BRs and I mentioned my concerns about glueing that many boards and that top-nailing was not acceptable. Also I mentioned the colour change would make the floor look ridiculous. He wants "a guy he knows" to come take a look; my interpretation of this is "a guy whose job it is to tell the claimant the cheapest way will be good enough so he keeps getting business from the insurance company." Having said that, he did seem to think a refinish would be acceptable and invited me to get a few quotes, which I will do.

well now your only concern is the bevels... when a prefinished floor is sanded, some of the bevels go away completley, some stay, some get smaller etc. I would suggest asking each respective company how they will address this issue.

Thanks for the comment--when I called one outfit they said "It's probably the case that you'll lose your bevels." What is the downside to this?

The floor was kind of rushed in with subfloor (3/4 inch T&G plywood) still 14% and wood only acclimatized for a few days. So I have a few gaps here and there (board end-to-end, not between boards) that I had decided to live with. Will I end up with a bunch of dark lines when the gaps get filled before finishing?

If anyone has a few photos of what the filling and bevel issues would look like, that would be great.

One last thing...I sort of had it in my head that we would be refinishing in maybe 7 or 10 years once our kids were a bit older and had hopefully gotten all their drops & accidents out of the way. Figured 3/4 inch could be refinished twice then you are done. Am I in trouble doing a refinish so early? Or is it the case that basically nobody ever does a second refinish anyway? We have 860 sqft of this stuff in our kitchen, great room and piano room.

I think if you can lose all the bevels, I personally think the floor will look better. In essence, it becomes a site finished floor. There's a certain appeal to that. Not for all, but at least for me personally. It's just a different look (and one that I prefer). It's more custom looking.

So, unless you really like the look of bevels, you'll end up with a prettier floor.

Well the guy you talked to said you would lose bevels (notice he didnt say how many etc.) A normal sanding would leave some (alot) but may have sections where they are completley gone. Merbuea is a very beautiful wood, so you are going to want it to look as best as possible. I am unsure if the ins company would be willing to foot the extra money to get rid of the bevels completley, you may have to approach the sanders directly and get 2 quotes, Bit I would suggest against filling them. That isnt going to look as good as you may think, and I dont think the company plans on trowel filling your entire house. The filler will look different especially using it to fill large bevels. Pretty confident they dont make merbuea fill (I wouldnt use it if they did) I would take the fine sawdust from the edger and mix it with some laquer and use that, takes longer but then you have a more actuall merbuea colored filler, and it will age (darken)with the floor, as most fillers wont.

Thanks, Jay; that's extremely helpful. I had just talked to a gal working the phones at the company so we'll see what the "estimator" has to say.

The ins. co. will just get a quote for the entire refinish, so if I want the bevels completely gone (and/or the whole floor trowel filled?) I guess I just ask them to include that in the quote? And if they sand that much off does it go without saying that the floor can never be refinished again?

I will mention using the dust to make filler. That's a good trick and hopefully they would do it.

What other details do I need to ask about on a quote to make sure we're all on the same page? Oil vs. water finish & how many coats? (what should I do there)