We had our hardwood white oak floors refinished (and about 200 sq. feet added to replace old carpet in the living room) last week. The contractor was carefully selected from Angie's List with excellent reviews. They showed up on time, were very professional and pleasant. I know next to nothing about harwood floors which is why we hired a professional. Everything was going great until the final coat of water-based finish on Friday. As soon as I was able to walk on the floor, I noticed the floors were very wavy.

So I started looking for more and what I found just broke my heart! These dent/gouges/grooves are ALL OVER. Even in the living room with the newly laid wood.

It also looks like every place they stopped a run with the drum sander near the walls or cabinets, there's a deep indent.

Here are all my pictures on Google Drive. All of these defects can be seen by the bare eye from a standing position, I just got down on floor level to highlight them for the pictures' sake. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5w-6 ... HVQVjBpRXc

So my questions are:

A) What caused the waves? The guy doing my floor said he'd been doing this for 20+ years, but he did have a helper who'd been doing it less than a year. I didn't pay attention to who ran the drum sander - I wasn't there most of the time.

B) Is this spot-fixable, or is it a scrap-and-redo? If it's a redo, can this wood be salvaged, or should I demand new wood? I worry about how deep these indents go - if they level out the existing wood I feel there won't be much left! This is the first time these floors have been refinished.

C) I did also notice chatter marks (lines perpendicular to the grain of the wood). They are not *terrible* but are noticeable. How much of this is normal and how much is sloppy workmanship? It doesn't show up much in the pictures because of the fading evening light.

D)What are reasonable expectations? There are several other imperfections (debris in the finish coat, smaller-than-quarter-sized pools of finish in 2 places, and some dents in the baseboards). I had just kind of chalked these up to the price paid for in-place finishing. Is that reasonable?

We get taken for a ride by just about every contractor we work with - whether we get them by word of mouth from friends, by Angie's List, or from the phone book. Which is why we usually do most work ourselves and live with the "DIY"ness of it. I REFUSE to settle for DIY quality when I am paying close to $4,000 for these floors. Help me know what to say to my contractor and how hard I need to push! They already tried the "we noticed lots of settling in your floor" and "it's the joists because your heavy island sits there" and "I'm not really sure what you're talking about" over the phone. Hubby is out of town and I am refusing to meet with the contractor until my hubs can be there (Thursday of this week) but don't want the delay to meet to be construed as acceptance of the product. Please help!!!

Sorry you found a contractor who has a helper who is starting out to become a journeyman and is still an apprentice. It takes five years to become a journeyman according to the Union when I started working on hardwood floors.
The contractor may feel like he should pay to have some paint touched up. The in crustaceans in the finish should be an easy fix to make look better.
It's hard to be in business anywhere, but the contractor is providing a service. I'm sure that this is the best that he can deliver in the circumstances.
As far as finding workers that you need, you may have to find other ways to determine qualifications than getting recommendations from word of mouth or Angie's list. A good contractor will have references that you may be able to see their work on previous jobs. You may need to be more patient in looking for the right company. Be willing to pay more, or both.
The contractor delivered on his part by providing a finished product. It is probably acceptable to most people. Water-based finish will show minor defects than the older varnishes, and expectations of quality are higher these days.
The only thing I would recommend to be done over is that silly looking shoe around the fireplace column. It should surround the column, not die into the tile.

Thanks for the response Pete. Can I ask what you think is the best way to find good contractors? We have seen their work both firsthand and in pictures - all looks wonderful. Doesn't seem to affect the quality of work (or honesty for that matter) when it comes to our job.

Price wasn't really a factor in our selection of our flooring contractor except to note that he was in the upper-middle of the pack on his estimate. We paid $4/ft to sand/refinish 354 ft and $10/ft to install and finish 224 ft of common #1 2.25" white oak. The estimate came to $4075. We are in Kansas, btw.

In their defense, the base shoe around the columns is not their doing - they just put it back the way it was . I had honestly never even noticed it until we removed it for this work. And since I loathe that tile with every fiber of my being, I'm not going to fix the shoe properly until I get some tile in there that I actually like.

So you're saying that you wouldn't have them fix the waves? Both people I've shown our new floors to have noticed it right away as it's the first thing you see coming in the front door and there won't be any furniture there - it's a hall. I guess maybe I just have them fix the 3 areas that are worst? If I don't have them do something about the hall and the kitchen where I spend 90% of my time, I will go bonkers.

I guess my next question is can they just re-sand those areas and blend in or will my wanting those areas fixed mean re-doing the whole floor? I'm really just sick over being so unhappy about this - they were so wonderful to work with and I really, really wanted to be happy the results.

It's difficult to spot sand and make a re-do, if not impossible.
A great floor contractor is a treasure and it takes time to be able to do top-notch work.
I would just accept the work, but have them look to see what you don't like, so they can maybe improve the quality and then have a plan to do it over after a certain amount of time when you start to see wear.
They certainly didn't sand too deep to be able to refinish your floor after maybe 5 years.
A matte finish will show less of the surface irregularities, if they could apply another coat of finish. It has little or no shine, but the floor is still there and will hold up longer and look better.

It’s tough to not get the job you wanted. I can see some of what you’re describing in the pictures. There is one picture that clearly shows an area where the edger left divots, and they didn’t go back and take them out.

I’m going to have to agree with Pete, on his reply to hollerusc. The problem was the same one—an unacceptable job.

Pete A wrote:


As unfair as it may seem, you may have to consider hiring someone else to re-do the job. This contractor is not going to be able to correct the problems you’re describing. Drum-drop marks at the end of the row, not leveling edger-only areas, chatter from the machine, problems with the finish—these are things that are not going to improve if he re-does the job. The wood will be fine—it can handle the re-sand.

Whether or not you decide to have this guy redo part or all of the job, I would pay to have another flooring contractor come in and inspect the job.
That way you’ll have a third party appraisal of what is reasonable to expect from a floor job. I don’t doubt that you’ve got problems there. It will help if you know exactly what they are, and what to request from either your current guy, or a new contractor.

For instance, to guarantee little or no chatter, you need to have a company that has a belt sander, and not a drum sander. Hummel is the leading brand of belt sander, and there are others.


This is a troublesome issue. I’m not sure what you’re referring to when you talk about the waves, and the pictures aren’t showing me. Even a well-sanded floor is not necessarily going to be level; a certain amount of ‘waviness’ is always present. This is what a third party contractor can help you determine—what’s reasonable? What can you expect? I knew of one company that specialized in using buffers to disc-sand the floors, to insure no waves—but even that company couldn’t get rid of imperfections in the subfloor, and settling of the house.

You’re saying right now: “Well, I thought this guy was good. How am I going to find a reliable company who I can trust to give me an accurate assessment of what I’ve got here?”

Ask to see a home where the contractor has worked. This is not unheard of, and I have customers who have agreed to let someone else see my work. It doesn’t happen often, but this is a reasonable request, when you’ve been burned once.

Thanks for the reply Alloy7. The owner of the company came out and agreed that, while some imperfections are to be expected, this is beyond what he would consider acceptable. He has agree to attempt a fix (though it won't be for 2 weeks due to his schedule being full). He told us to go ahead and move our furniture back in and that his guys would move everything out and back for the repair. He did say a spot-fix would probably not be feasible and I didn't think to ask whether he would send the same or a different crew. He said the areas that are bad are those that were hand-sanded, which I'm pretty sure the new guy did. I know every craftsman has to start somewhere...I just don't want it to be on my $4000 job ! We'll see how the redo turns out - I'll come back and post pictures in 2 weeks when it's done.

Thanks again guys.