It may definitely get the check, but better have a very short warranty. Those floors simply move too much to be sealed up tight light that.

The video is funny, many of the screws are not even counter bored. They are just barely below the surface and you can see the cross pattern of the phillips head in the filler.

All you can do is try it and see what 5-10 years brings. There will be little to no filler at that point. More than likely far earlier. The filler will dry rock hard. It will not accommodate the slightest movement.

Still, pretty when first finished.

You more then liekly are right,but it's an old house with unlevel flooring. The boards made the floor level. So in 10 years this floor could be used as a sub floor for a new floor if a person wanted a new floor. I'm 66 years old,so I'll give an up date in ten years if I'm still alive at 76 on how the floor lasted. I've decided to do the whole 1890's 1000 sq ft house with this flooring.

You probably won't have to wait 10 years to see the problems. One winter and one spring should do it. Might be earlier if a lot of water comes out of the shower or sink.

The moisture content of a floor will typically change from 5 to 6 % MC in the wintertime up to 9% MC (maybe 10% MC) in the summertime. A 4% MC change results in 1% width change. So, we can expect the floor to shrink at least 1/16" between each piece. If this crack is filled with putty, caulk, etc. in the winter, then when the floor swells 1/16" in the summer, the pressure will cause the filler to pop out, or a ridge to develop between each piece. The ridge does not go away the next winter. If the filler is hard, traffic will cause it to crack and come out.

The video referenced shows a process similar to spreading filler on a tile floor, but tile does not shrink or swell, so this is an acceptable process. Also, the swelling amount is less with narrow wood flooring pieces.

Although it may not have worked in this case, there are a products (sheets of Hardi Board is one) that are designed to level a floor prior to installing wood flooring.

Well I guess I'll get my router out and tongue and groove ...the rest of the flooring. Below is what the floor looked like as it was laied out before it was screwed and glued down.Most liked it best with the cracks showing.

View higher quality, full size image (2048 X 1152)

The additional flooring laid on top of the original flooring will increase the fuel load, thereby enhancing the combustibility of the structure when the inevitable urban renewal comes to that address.

Keep gluing and screwing - in the long run it's all good.

I think the statement "most liked it best when the cracks were showing" is where the money is.

People want the romance of these old floors but they somehow want to force them to comply with modern consumer demands (smooth, easy to clean, dont trap trash, and so on). But thats simply not possible. When you see someone build a three quarter of a million dollar tibmer frame home and they want old world, wide board floors (meaning face nailed wide16"-30" floors) they actually DO want the old world look. That means that in the summer your floors will likely have a gap between boards that you can look down in and see a tic tac down there that you dropped. There will be all sorts of trash in those gaps that will have to be cleaned out, vac'd out, or lived with.

In the old world days these gaps never filled with trash. Why? Because the floor was the floor! There was no subfloor. So trash that was on the second floor, fell through to the first floor, then fell through to the basement.

It was not uncommon in colonial times to have light peeking through from floor to floor. I even remember as a child, kids who lived in very old homes being able to lay down on the floor and peek through to the floor below and we are talking way way after colonial times.

The problem we face nowadays trying to recreate these floors with modern subfloors is that there is no where for the trash to go. So the gaps fill with trash, the floor expands in the summer, and jacks itself wider. It then shrinks in winter, re-fills with trash, and summer comes and it jacks again. If this process continues until the floor has no more room for expansion (hits the exterior wall) it buckles.

It is a very very difficult thing to incorporate these old world, rustic details, in to modern homes. They can most definitely work, but they have to be accommodated and tended to.

Unfortunately, most people who think they are fine with whatever misconceived cost savings they think they may be getting by using "old world" building practices in modern time soon come to the realization that it was a mistake.

There is no reason what so ever not to build like they did 200 years ago but you gotta take it the whole way.

There is a simple reason why we dont build that way any longer. You cant fight it.

PS. In that photo of the floor with the cracks, you've got what looks like an unvented full S trap sticking through the floor (good you put a cleanout there cause you'll likely need it or want to install a mechanical vent in the future).

Full S traps were banned perhaps 25 years ago.