Hello,
We are working on a condo renovation on the 28th floor of a 33 floor building. The flooring contractor is have a frustratingly difficult time getting a dust free final finish. They are using Bona Traffic (semi gloss) over a dark stained maple floor. floor is engineered planks glued down over a 1/2" cork sound underlayment.
The air pressures in the building is crazy. If you open the front door slightly you can feel the air rushing in. This last attempt (3 tries now for the final finish) we masked off all rooms/closets not affected. edges of windows were masked off. Bath and kitchen fans were masked off. ( they feed into shafts that have fans to pull air up thru the building. even with fans off there is a good bit of air movement.) Furnace was off and all returns/grills sealed off. The only thing not sealed off was the can lights. They are trimmed out though.
they built a double airlock in the hall outside the unit with zip-poles, plastic and tape. The first one had so much air trying to push it out they had to put up a second one.

Has anyone experinced anything like this? what did you come up with to cope with it. The big areas look good but the hallway where you enter the unit has a lot of dust in the finish which the can lights nicely highlight against the dark stain.
the flooring contractor and I are out of ideas and looking for suggestions?

thanks

Dan L-J

Sounds as if your contractor, is going above and beyond, being a finishing contractor.

That guy needs a medal of honor!!


In this perfect world, nothing is guaranteed to be perfect. I would have thrown my hands in the air after the third time and all the air trap building, only for it to happen again. That's one of those job, where he makes no profit for his time, because he has spent more on finish and labor, then he made off the job.

I absolutely agree! This guy is trying everything possible to deliver a quality product under the most difficult circumstances. Since you state that most of the job looks good, is there a possibility that once all the construction has been completed and the units are occupied, that the flooring contractor could come back and buff out the floors and give them a recoat? It sounds like under the circumstances, everything that can be done has been done. Cudos for your floor guy hanging in there. Consider giving him a token of your appreciation or a bonus.

I heard a good friend of mine recently make a statement ... " ahhh, can lights, gotta love 'em .... they've only put our industry back a mere 15 years .... " anyone relate????