I bought a condo that had a small patch of damaged hardwood flooring. The original flooring is Kahrs so I bought a box of Kahrs flooring that matched although not perfectly because the original color has been discontinued. The installer came today and the tongue and groove fits but the new flooring is about 1/4inch bigger than the original. Ack!

Can the flooring I bought be trimmed down to fit? or do I need to search for a better flooring match?

Any help you can provide is appreciated!

Thanks,
Rona

1/4 wider? or thicker? could be the floor is the same thickness but the t$g dont line up. You may have to remove the tounge and glue it in if that is the case.

Since you say the tongue and groove "match" the old flooring, I assume the widths are the same on both floors. And your new kahrs is "thicker" meaning it has a thicker wear layer and sits taller on the floor than the older floor. I can't think of any way to make the two work.

If you were to plane material off of the bottom of the new floor, that would prevent the tongue and groove from ever lining up again and since it is pre finished, you can't do anything with the top of the board.All you can really do is get the identical thickness boards and hopefully return the thicker floor.

The width of the old flooring is 8" and the new flooring is 7 3/4". The thickness is the same and the T & G fits together.
Can I shave of the T & G and the extra 1/4 inch and glue the flooring together?

Today my husband actually found the matching color flooring! (Caramel Oak) The difference is that this stuff is the same plank width but the top layer of the new flooring is 1mm thinner than the old flooring.

That still means Im at square 1.

Usually it is the thickness that causes the flooring not to engage the T&G because the milling is off-set. That 1 mm could make a big difference, maybe not.

Can you demo back the rows so you do not have to weave in the floor? If so then I doubt anyone would know the difference in width.

Stephen thanks for your reply.

For both my options, the T & G fits fine. The challenge is that Option A is 1/4" too wide so the planks dont match up and for Option B, the flooring is 1mm too thin.

What do you mean by "demo back the rows" ?

So you can start a full row of new planks. Sure your going to feel the 1mm thickness but better than an off color. Maybe throw a rug over the traffic area?

Stephen is asking basically what the shape of your repair area looks like . He's saying that if your repair can be done so that you are repairing a straight row instead of creating a stepped pattern repair , that the height difference wont be very noticeable . And that's a good idea usually.

TO answer your question about modifying your flooring, yes , you can trim the new boards as you are saying they are 1/4" wider than the old boards.

Most likely, the best way is to cut the groove side of the board down 1/4" with a really good fine tooth blade on your table saw. After that , you need a router with the appropriate bit to re cut the groove to the factory depth.

It's also possible to cut the tongue side of the board .But not knowing the shape of your repair, I cannot say which method makes more sense. If your repair requires you to leave the tongue on most of the boards, it would make sense to trim material from the other side, the groove side. Or vice versa maybe. Post a pic if you can