Hi -

I had my fir floors refinished on the second floor of my house. The floors look good except for the edges on two sides of each room, where the finish is noticably lighter approximately 12" from each wall. The lighter edges are perfindicular to the grain, almost like he didn't get all the way to the wall with the sander. (See picture)



The refinishing guy who did the work said it's just wax build up and is not his fault, but I have a hard time believing him. The lighter area runs the entire width of the room on both sides, and is consistant in all three bedrooms that were refinished. Also, there are not any light areas in front of the doorways, which again leads me to believe it is a sanding issue, since he could continue with the belt sander into the hallway.

There was no variations in the floor like this before refinishing. Any thoughts on how this could have been caused? Was this caused by the edger?

I need some talking points when he comes over tomorrow to discuss options.

Thanks!

--Eric

That is called a "halo effect" and is caused by the perimeter being sanded finer than the field. This is typically done when using a buffer and sanding screen and the edges get "screened" more than the field. This is not the only way this can happen though. Hand sanding or even using an orbital sander around the edges and not sanding the field as finely will cause a similar effect. Unfortunately, the only remedy is a resand, if the floor has been finished already.

Or they could have sanded the edges harder or deeper with the edger than they sanded in the field with the belt/drum sander. The edger can cut very aggressively on soft wood especially if they had to go to course grit on the edger to remove old shellac or wax buildup. We see this happen on old fir, heart pine and other old soft wood. The edger disk gum up so fast you have to go to a courser grit than usual so the edges may get cut deeper than the field so the edges are lighter.

They should have seen the halo before the finish went on. More sanding in the field before coating could have corrected it.

First off, thank you so much for the replies. I've been stressing out about this since I knew it wasn't right, but did not know what to say.

Regardless of the wax buildup and age of the floors, I should expect an even color correct? (Except where there was damage or cross grain scratches) He's been giving me the line 'Fir is hard to work with' when ever I bring up an issue.

--Eric