Do High Heels damage
timber floors?

Over the years, quite a few clients have asked if high heels will damage their timber floors. As I point out, most people in our society don’t wear shoes inside their home. Typically, people change into a softer, more comfortable shoe, slipper or sock when indoors.  This partly to reduce tracking dirt and grit into the home. Dirt and grit damage carpets and will act like sandpaper on a timber floor, as will the claws of the family pooch. I recall a physics teacher telling of days when stiletto heels were banned on aircraft due to fears of the heels puncturing the aircraft’s aluminium floor.  The Jack Green post “Pressure under high heels” actually provides the formula to prove that a 50kg woman wearing high heels exerts 15 times the pressure of a 3 tonne elephant!

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I have hosted many dinner parties where guests have arrived in high heels. Sometimes the wearer will offer to remove their heels, “Only if they’re damaged” is my general reply. You see the problem with heels, are when they are damaged or have lost their “heel cap”, potentially exposing the steel heel shaft.

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Generally speaking though, you shouldn’t experience any problems with high heels on a solid timber floor. Here is a video of the funny fellow over at Astoria floors where, although he is dancing on bamboo flooring, the result is the same.