First time poster on the site. Have a bit of a dilemma. I had a fish tank leak and the water sitting on the floor has caused de-lamination. The floors have not warped at all, and very little raised ares in the joists or where the plans meet end to end. I would like to avoid replacing the entire floors as the damage seems to be cosmetic, only crackings/wiskering in the finish. Am I able to lightly sand the polyurethane finish off by hand and just re-apply? It is a relatively small area, 8'x12'. The flooring is Bruce E531, which is an engineered oak flooring, so i know the wear layer is think but figured if I hand or light machine sand I could do it. Can't seem to get a reliable floor refinisher to come out and give me pricing for repair or replace, so figured I'd try on my own. Any info is appreciated!

you can do that but sanding off aluminum oxide finish is not easy.It's very tough and eats up sand paper. One issue you might have is getting new finish to match the color and sheen of the aluminum oxide. Aluminum oxide tends to fall between water base and oil base color.

Hi,

It sounds to me like you have a Bruce 3" Turlington 3/8" thick engineered floor. This is a problem. You will need to be aggressive to break through the dura-luster plus urethane Bruce uses on their products. It likely has an aluminum oxide layer in the finish, which is a scratch resistant material that will give you headaches when trying to sand. A very light sand will also not work because you cannot buff and coat a prefinished floor; you MUST sand completely to bare wood then re-apply 3 coats of polyurethane.

With the floor being only 3/8" thick, it is an extremely risky process to sand aggressively enough to remove old finish without going into the tongue and grooves. All this being said, give it a shot trying to refinish on your own or rip it out and replace with a solid hardwood that can be sanded multiple times. Your other, and in my opinion your best, option is to purchase more of the original wood and replace only the damaged sections- this is the greatest benefit to having prefinished wood in your home- you can replace sections without having to sand/finish!

I hope this project goes well for you!

Dustin Deslauriers
Everwood Flooring