Hello,

Please forgive me for knowing little about flooring beyond what kind I bought for my house. I am hoping someone here may be able to help me. I had some Shaw dark walnut engineered hardwood florring glued down with Dri-Tac (may have spelled that incorrectly) this past summer. It was glued to concrete in my lower-level family room and to plywood floors in the three upstairs bedrooms. The steps were stained with a horrendous-smelling wood stain that still reeks.

My problem is that the finish on these floors smells TERRIBLE. It is so bad that if I leave a stuffed animal or piece of clothing on the floor (which I do often, especially since I have a four year old), it smells very strongly of wood stain when I pick it up - even two minutes later. This is true of every bedroom and the family room. We tried coating the floors with three layers of AFM Hard Seal (we try to keep our house as green as possible), but it still smells. I am really lost as to how to get the stench to go away! I'm worried about exposing my child to this. We had flooring installed several times in other homes without having this issue.

Does anyone have any suggestions short of harsh chemicals or ripping the flooring out? Why is this still an issue??

Thanks so much for your time and advice.

~sebastians_mommy

the finish sounds like it was an oil-based polyurethane or a conversion varnish (acid cured) finish, if so it can take up to 30 to 40 days before the odor completely leaves the house.

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. It's unfortunately been three months, and it is still gross! I am not familiar with acid cured finishes, but I am going to look them up right now. We have decided to just go ahread and sand the floors and either finish them with a clear low or zero VOC (if the wood lookes nice). If the wood looks crappy and uneven in color, we're going to paint and seal.

Thanks!
~Melissa

I am at a loss here. For all I know Shaw only makes prefinished so why the extra finish on the stairs? Perhaps it was just the stairs to begin with, then you coated the rest of the home voiding any warranty you could have used.

Also could have been a bad batch of adhesive. I would have advised calling DriTac out first as well. Perhaps you still can.Shaw would wash their hands of it.

You should have called Shaw and had them send out a expert to review before you refinished the surface.