Hardwood floors?

Question:I am going to refinish the hardwood floors in my home and I have some planks in the middle of my living room with water damage and I would like to replace them. How do I replace them without damaging the good planks around them?

Answers:
Using a carbide-tipped saw blade in your circular saw, set the depth to the thickness of one of the finish floor boards (you don't want to cut into the subfloor) and cut a slot down the length of one of the damaged boards. The saw kerf will give you space to pull out the damaged board in two pieces. Use a sharp chisel to chip and pry out the pieces if necessary. Worst-case, make two saw cuts down the damaged board.

For standard hardwood floors made from solid wood, a tongue and groove are routed on the edges. The first piece of the damaged board that comes out is probably the tongue side. Note that the boards are held by flooring nails set at an angle thru the tongue side, so you need to also pull out the nails.

To install a new board, you probably have to cut off the tongue on the new replacement board, and fit the tongue of the existing adjacent board into the groove of the new board. Then nail the new board straight down, set the nails and fill with wood putty and sand smooth.