How to fill gaps between floor boards
Gaps between boards appear during subfloor preparation or when a course of vinyl flooring shifts. These spaces are often discovered when moving into a home or develop as the flooring moves over time.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
How to fill gaps between floor boards
- 1Rip a shim and glue it into the gap.Did this help you?
- 2Glue down a filler piece.Did this help you?
- 3Use a tub of floor patch and leveler to fill it in.Did this help you?
- 4Kicking or sliding the shifted boards back into place with your foot.Did this help you?
- 5Applying wood glue to the joints before pushing the planks back to prevent future shifting.Did this help you?
- 6Adjusting the spacing at the opposite wall and installing new trim to cover the edges.Did this help you?
- 7Filling the gaps with brown caulking.Did this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Any recommendations on how to fill these gaps on my vinyl flooring? This was the state it was in when we moved in.”source ↗
“I'm prepping my subfloor. How should I fill this gap between boards?”source ↗
“That course of flooring shifted. It has happened to me before.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 42How to tile over an uneven subfloor without tearing it up
- 12How to fix a 3/8 inch gap in tongue and groove flooring
- 4Can you put new flooring over old pine boards without a subfloor?
- 12How to fix squeaky flooring joints along the wall
- 7Can you install LVP flooring room by room?
- 2How to stop LVP from moving when going room to room