Flooring Problem

[ginlane]

Hi there,

I am in Japan for a few weeks helping my friend in her house.

One of her problems is her hallway floor. It is a kind of fake parquet flooring approximately 1.5 to 2.5cm thick (0.59" to 0.98")

(see attached Photos)

As you can see from the photos there is a hole in the floor 30cm by 25cm or 11.8" by 9.8"

Many Japanese houses are built of wood as is this one, and the house is built on concrete pillars and there is a 55cm or 21.6" hole under the floor down to the ground.

So we either need to fix that hole or re floor the whole hall. (Probably the best option is to re floor the whole hall for as you can see on 1 of the photos, the flooring is in poor condition and looks terrible!)

Also the floor is held up with joists Approximately 40mm by 40mm (1.5") in size and running 25cm (9.8") apart.

Please could you give me any advice on how I might go about doing this. I'm completely new to this sort of thing! Also please could you give different-flooring options / materials. Wood of course, but also other possibilities, I'm struggling to figure out how to fix the hole when there is no floor underneath! (For information: There is no access underneath the house so all the work will have to be done above the hole not below!)

PS. my skill level is beginner but there is no chance of me being able to duck out of this task and getting a flooring specialist in a my friend is broke.

Please use easy to understand terms when replying

Thank you for any help or input you can give me

kind regards Gin

 

[vinn]

Is the parquet in 12" squares or panels with four to eight squares attached? Or very large panels with a fake parquet on the surface?
Are all the edges square or can you see any tongue and grooves?
What appears to be below the parquet surface? Is it plywood? Or are they one-piece panels?
Why has the flooring degraded like this?