My 80 year old wood floor is beautful. It's a mix of different lengths and widths of oak with dark wood (mahogany?) round pegs on the end kind of like this:



But with round pegs.

About 20 years ago, a vapor barrier placed under the house caused the boards to shrink significantly to the point where there was some cracking and the planks were domed enough to make it difficult to even walk on it. I thought the floor was toast, but after a while (I guess when the whole thing finally dried out) the floor settled down and is relatively flat now.

However, the gaps left after everything shrank were very large. To the point where our electric bill skyrocketed because the a/c would escape down through the floor!

Back then, everyone I brought in would immediately say, "You have to tear it up and replace it."

Now I'm from up north and I've seen wood floors in way worse shape than mine brought back so I'm thinking since we live in a good neighborhood, the assumption is that I can throw down 20 grand for a new floor without blinking.

I can't. But even if I could, I wouldn't. I value the look and frankly, the beauty of this old floor with planks longer than I've seen anywhere.

The gaps were closed with dark brown silicone by me. It looks OK and solved the problem.

How do find a wood floor professional that isn't out to just replace? Will it cost more to restore than to replace? The floor is solid with few creaks.

So you've already taken care of the gaps with silicone and you are happy with the result? Sounds like there is no need to replace, if you're happy with how it looks.

Performance wise, it's not a good idea to fill gaps between boards, as expansion will cause the filler to pop out and in some cases you'll get edgebonding which can crack the edges and ruin a square edge profile. With a bevel, it'll be less noticable, but you'd still want to monitor your RH religiously, to prevent expansion/contraction.

Most installers I know would tell you to replace it simply because it is 80 years old and there are newer/better floors available.

I hear you.

I was going to do the rope trick, but the thought of sticking hundreds of feet of rope into the gap was daunting.

The silicone caulk has been doing the job for about 10 years now and still looks good. I used a dark brown color that matches the little round pegs so the whole thing works.

I don't get the whole wanting to replace the floor thing however. I'm from up north and I rememer the best looking floors (in my opinon anyway) were the 100+ year old floors that were maintained with I assume the occasional sanding and refinishing.

I have some boards that are over 10-12 feet long! I don't think I've seen that in any modern floor. They are also 3/4 inch and solid oak. I wouldn't want to lose that.

You can definitely get long boards and wide planks these days, especially if you go with engineered hardwood - we routinely sell 7-9ft long, 7-8in wide boards for use with glue down installations. They look fantastic and perform well, the engineered plywood backer is resistant to most seasonal expansion/contraction, so effects of poor RH management are minimized. These floors are not cheap (15-18$/sqft, CDN), however, very little maintenance is required beyond the occasional (read: yearly) re-oiling to keep the finish looking new.

I'm not the guy to ask about solid hardwood, as I sell only engineered products, but I would assume that there are other factors contributing to the "replace" reaction you are getting; maybe your floors have been sanded as far as they can be? Maybe they are worried about sanding in your lovely home and making a mess? There are many reasons why a prefinished reinstall is easier than sand&stain, so that could be a factor as well. If there's nothing wrong with the floors, then my advice is to do nothing at all - if it ain't broke, don't fix it as the saying goes!

Even if you find new floors with the dimensions of your old floors you will never get the type of fine grain flooring that you have, if the wood was from old growth forests. Most floor guys don't notice the older flooring has a different grain pattern that is not available from modern well managed forests where the trees grow much faster. With gaps and loose boards in a large floor it is going to take a contractor who has a lot of pride in their work to take the time working to provide a product worthy of the old trees. Loose boards will need to be fastened down well for the filler to even have a chance of not popping out right away. The expense of this type of work is not in the mindset of most contractors and they can easily lose any profit that they figured if they bid this type of job like a modern installed floor. A square foot price which a lot of contractors use as a ballpark price will not have enough time estimated to do these types of floors justice. You are one of the special customers that are out there with a potentially beautiful floor that you just can't buy today.