PLEASE HELP and please forgive my lack of expertise here. I will try my best to explain. Here's the 411:
6 month (new) home, 1300+ feet of the home has hardwood floors.
Floors finished in April with water based poly, satin finish, Palmer brand.
Before we even moved in, we noticed "shiny streaks" across the satin finish. We do not wear shoes in the house, and we don't have pets. We do not slide heavy things across our floors.
A few times as I was cleaning the floors, I could literally "rub" a shiny mark just by cleaning. I wasn't even rubbing that hard!
OK… fast forward to 2 weeks ago. We had floors screened (is that the right term? Our floor guy took off a couple layers of the finish to redo them). Applied the same Palmer finish. Assured us he had never seen such a thing and this would not happen again. Looked perfect at first.
We stayed off the floors, etc.. Very cautious. Still haven't moved our furniture back on it.
AGAIN we are noticed the streaking, but something worse is happening this time. If we get even a DROP, like a spot of water on the floors and don't immediately wipe it up, it leaves a permanent shiny circle where the spot was. This did NOT happen 6 months ago with the first round of finish. I did a test spot in a inconspicuous spot to confirm; left a droplet of water on the floor for 10 minutes and it left a permanent shiny circle.
Floor guy has never heard of this before.
Palmer rep isn't available for 2 months.
PLEASE HELP. My husband is about to have a heart attack from me pointing out every new shiny streak and spot!!! (not literally, but it is causing major stress). New spots occurring daily.
We put our hearts and souls into this home and this is so upsetting.
Any ideas? Thoughts? Please help. Thank you so much.

Long story short and without seeing the floor to know why I will get right to it. The floor needs to be completely sanded down to raw wood and refinished. The adhesion is failing and will continue to fail. There are many reasons it could be, waxed between coats, cheap builder put down a coat of lacquer or some other oil based product to try and seal it and the water based product isn't able to chemically adhere to the oil as oil is only a mechanical adhesion, bottom line I would fully re-sand them don't use a sealer before the actual finish (Water or oil based) and just go with three coats of the finish. Do the first coat in gloss as your sealer, the next two in satin. With water based give it no more than 4 hours between, less if you can. Closer together it is the more it almost becomes a unified coat. / The screen and re-coat may of been alright but you would have a better chance with putting oil down on a scratch and coat job. Personally I prefer all oil-based products but I know everyone is moving to water, there are a few reasons I typically pick oil over water but I won't go to much into detail, they both have pros and cons.

Robert,

<Edited By Admin>Removed phone number. Robert. Thanks for joining in but please take a moment and look at our rules. Thanks!

I really hope you're not wet mopping your wood floors.

Robert,
A million thank you's for taking the time to respond. Oh my… sounds like we have an issue here. We have been able to get zero answers… "oh gee, we've never seen this happen before, etc etc" and it was nice to actually get an ANSWER of what could be going on here. Thank you.
I showed your response to my husband, and we will be contacting our finisher today to hear his thoughts.
And no… we're definitely not using water on the floor. We have hardwoods in the throughout the first floor, including the kitchen, so if even a drop touches the floor, it leaves that darn shiny circle. Also in our master bedroom, so if we come out of the bathroom with so much as a drip… same thing. I am over-viligant with keeping water off the floors, so this a rouge drop here and there.
Again thank you for your thoughts.
~Karli

First off Ive never heard of Plamer finishes, There is a Palman maybe that's what you meant? Also what kind of finish are we talking here. Palman makes a hardwax oil finish and waterborne finishes. If you have the magic oil finish I think I know what is going on. If its their waterbase I dont know why its happening. What did you use to clean your floor if not water? A slightly damp mop is fine, just dont want standing water after you mop.

Hello Kevin,
Thanks so much for commenting. I may have been mistaken on the name of the finish. Trying to remember what the finisher said. It is definitely water based. Palmer, Palman, something like that. I'm 100% positive it's water based. We went with a 5" engineered maple with a very thick wear layer. We went engineered because we are in NE with extreme temperatures. We used water based so the finish would not yellow over time. (not sure if any of this is relevant, just trying to mention anything i can think of).
As for cleaning… after this most recent screen and re-finish, we've used no chemicals, just a slightly damp paper towel when I see a spot or drop of water.
This morning I've notice a whole new round of shiny streaks and I'm about to lose it.
If you're still there… can I ask an additional question? (Robert or Kevin)? My husband and I are EXHAUSTED from this house building process. With 3 kids, I'm not sure we could go thru moving all our of furniture out again and doing the rescreen/refinish process right now. If we wait a year or so (just to get out heads together again), this is not harming our floor in any way, is it? I know it's hard to say when you can't see it. I don't feel like the shiny spots are penetrating the stain, they're just unsightly. And you can't see them too much in natural light, but you sure can when our lights are shining on them. Would there be any harm in waiting a year to go thru this process again?
Sorry this is so long… Thank you again.

you need to call Palmann. Explain to them the scenario, I actually would have the floor finisher call and ask what the heck is going on. He will be better at explaining the process and have more details of the job that there going to ask. http://www.pallmann.us/
Palmann is nice finish, the folks there are good and know there stuff.
On waiting a year, I would assume as long as the finish is still intact, there is no concern and it will do it's job of protecting the floor.

Kevin, thank you so much for your advice and the link! I will be doing so first thing tomorrow. I was saying and spelling the name of the product wrong, and I really appreciate you taking the time to point me in the right direction. Our finisher is going to send his Pallmann rep out, but it could take up to 2 months and I just can't go that long without an answer. Either I or the finisher will be making a phone call tomorrow!
Thanks so much again!!!
Karli

Personally my thoughts are if you're not wearing threw the finish the floor will be fine until you're ready to re-sand it. I do agree with the other guy about contacting Palman (Ask your flooring guy if that's the right name) Tell him to call them, then call them first hand. That way you hear it from both and should be able to tell if the guy is being straight up or not also.