Standards in my area are

oil 3 coats (or 1 stain or sealer and 2 coats)
water 4 coats (or 1 stain/sealer and 3 coats) **some companies only do a 3 coat water.

there is also other finishes, synteko, glitsa, and other sweedish finishes. You have the backing of the 25 yr aluminum oxide finish to fight your case. With all the advertisments of how long it lasts ect, you should have a leg to stand on to get a comparable finish (But I know some of those 25 yr finishes are ruined in a few years...)

Off hand I cant think of wich finish is better for your application, I can do some checking and get back to you.

As for the company who will do the work, its not the smae as doing an oak floor, so I would talk to people who have had experinces in your area with prespective companies and go from there. You should target the more high end wood flooring companies, they do charge more, but normally its for good reasoning.

I don't think that is necessarily true. It depends on how even the floor is. If you've got peaks that have to be sanded down and then additional flooring that has to be sanded down to remove the bevels, then the peaked portions will certainly have less remaining life. Prefinished to some extent will be uneven, but the more even it is the more life it will have remaining after the refinish.

standard 3/4 floors should be able to have between 4-6 sandings. The upper prtion above the groove is over 1/4 thick. a normal resand takes 1/32-1/16 off (this first sanding usually more) those grooves are less than 1/8th if micro bevels So roughly to remove them would be the equivilant of 2 full sandings.

With proper maintiance (recoating per finishes suggestions, floors can last 15-20 yrs before needing to be resanded.)

I suggest to my customers that every 5-7 years for oil (dependant on wear) and 3-5 for water to have a buff and recoat done. Doing so will greatly increase the life of your floor.

So you may be sanding double the amount down to remove the bevels, but if you maintain it, you can outlast the supposed 25 yr aluminum oxide finish

Great point to bring up the 25 year finish and that I can argue for a finish of the same quality. That would be great if you would look into the best finish for my floor.



I had no idea you could sand that many times. That makes me feel a lot better about getting the refinish done at this time.

Makes sense; hopefully I don't have many "peaks" to deal with.

Wonder how many quotes I need to get?

I know waterbased will work well with your floor (traffic ovbiously)

oil I am unsure of, the wood itself may be oily

Sweedish may be another route to go.

I would get 3 quotes for your insurance company

Okay, had what is supposed to be one of the top flooring companies in our city (Winnipeg has about 700,000 residents so is a good sized place) come around and talk about what they will do.

Obviously they sand first (said the bevels would be all removed), once at 45 degrees to the grain, then with the grain. Said they would not attempt to fill the floor because we would not be happy with the way filler would look on a floor with this many different colours. They would put down 2 coats of sealer and 2 coats of water-based finished, which I think he referred to as Basic Coatings Street Shoe (?) with a catalyzed finish.

Does this sound like a process that most people would be happy with? Is there anything missing?

edit: he said most people go with a matte (?) finish--if I go with something shinier will I regret it because more scuffs will show up?

sounds like they have the bevel issue all worked out, so that is a plus.
Street shoe is a similar finish to traffic, It is a 2 part system also people can argue all day about wich is better, without a definate winner. Its more of a company/personal preference.

The not filling, that is a good responce to the issue, a pre made filler definatley wont match, and the laquer method it would blend all the different colors of your floor (from the dust) So it would match/and darken better than the premade stuff, but still would possibly stand out. they could try a few different colored puttys if the gaps are large.

But over all I like the things you say about the company. I would still get a couple more estimates (as I am sure the insurance company will want more than one)

A few more pics. The first two show why a BR in this case wouldn't work. I found a few leftover boards not exposed to light so haven't changed in colour like the floor has over the last 14 months. They're set in the middle of the floor. The colour difference is amazing (the pics don't do it justice).

The last picture is just to show what the finished floor looks like; the installer I think did a nice job of colour matching. Comments by other pros on what he did right/wrong would be appreciated.

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~carlberg/m ... au%205.jpg

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~carlberg/m ... au%206.jpg

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~carlberg/m ... au%207.jpg

looks like a good job of mixing the bundles to me. I dont see large sections of similar colors togther. It looks like it is supposed to.

Have you contacted your original installer? Have you asked him about sanding the floor? Or who he would recomend to do it?

I thought the installer did a good job but it's nice to have pro confirmation...I nearly cried when I saw the floor in this thread:

http://www.hardwoodinstaller.com/hardwo ... php?t=5455

He recommended the outfit he does some installations for now, the one who came out today that I described above. I didn't mention it before but I guess for the process he outlined they charge $2.50/sqft or so.

yeah that was a poor install. 2.50 a foot, thats extremely reasonable to remove all the bevels. We would have charged more but we arent in your area, so we dont know what average pricing is.

Here 2.50ish is standard, just over 3 for waterbase, but we would have charged extra to remove the bevels completley probobally about another 1-1.50 (just for comparison)

You received a lot of sound advice. I question why the idea of board replacement hasn't been fully explored. Let's look at the pros and cons.

BOARD REPLACEMENT BENEFITS: Warranty intact, way less intrusion on your life and home, factory alum. oxide finish, original appearance. NEGATIVES: Patched boards will not match for awhile. SANDING BENEFITS: Removes bevels, flattens floor, removes damaged areas by sanding out, gets a "custom floor" appearance. NEGATIVES: No factory warranty (voided), no access to home while work is being done, floor will look much lighter after refinish (especially with waterbased), Street Shoe not as durable as factory finish ( it's good, just not alum oxide).

So there are pros and cons with any repair. If you like the way the original floor looked and performed, go with a board replacement. Eventually, the patched boards should blend in, especially in a few cartons are purchased and the installer cherry picks the boards. If you want to change the appearance, then have it sanded and refinished. Neither is inherently better than the other, just different.

I saw in a Lumber Liquidators catalog a comparison of Bellawood 50 yr durability versus Traffic, Mega, Shoe etc. The Traffic did amazingly well compared to the factory AlumOx.

Thanks very much for your advice. If we went with the BRs, there would be say 15-25 boards in a relatively small area. So I guess some of the boards could be nailed (stapled) properly, the rest would have to be glued down? Do I have any reason to worry about having a number of glued boards in the same area not being as "stable" as being stapled down?

Do the folks here who do refinishes typically take baseboards off? Our baseboards are 5 1/2 inch MDF and he said (a) they won't take them off because they are afraid some might break, and (b) the tops of the boards were caulked by the painter to "blend" to the wall and would have to be redone. The refinisher who came around yesterday said if they were left on there could be a few scuffs but they're pretty careful. My own opinion is that it shouldn't make a difference whether they are taken off or left on since nobody will ever see what's under them.

The only other benefit to the refinish is a "free" repair of dents and dings to the floor that were not caused by our accident. As well, the finish is cracked on probably a dozen of these boards (chalking it up to the cheaper brand name of the manufacturer) so that gets taken care of as well. My only worry is that I won't like the look of the floor as much.