Hi and thanks.
I have installed 3/4 X2 1/2 select and better red oak
app, 1500 sq FT
installed and stained dark and coated 3x high gloss,looked great when i was done?
poly urethane Pro tek ,used this product a long time with no problems!

I got the floor installed , ,i wanted the best for this job so i made sure no short cuts anywhere,

after sanding and edging,scraping,orbit edges,the whole ten yards.
i water popped the floor with the little pad and rags,let it dry over night. next day stained it floor was clean came up fuzzy great!
next day coated with urethane,applied with pad(long)
OK here we go floor would not DRY!
in the fall this was done,nice temp.
open the doors air it out ,3 days later finally dried first coat. and the help of heaters as the furnace was not running
What i find out next is crazy ,that a water pipe of some sort busted in the basement and they had to dig part of the basement up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This happened around the time i coated the floor.
what they wanted was 2 coats then left to all other work done and before rug is installed.
I am worried about job (water break )so i told them go ahead and do what the need to do,and ill coat 2 x when the trades are done!
job needs to be done at a certain time as the want the owners in at a cetain time.
ok that went ok ,i got my coats on looks great everyones happy even the homeowner that is a designer,lol
but they are not happy with the gloss to shiny,lol,
ask me to coat it with semi,1 month later floor still looking good ,i recoat with semi gloss same urethane, 1 month after final high gloss coat
6 months later i get a phone call it looks like the floor has wax reaction the finish is seperating?????????
a little wavy???
any ideas how to fix it up with out bringing MR sander out

I have not had this problem before ,finish seperating ,a couple of chips, if it seperates it will crack here and there,
they did fix the basement the same week and proceeded as normal i could not change course of action.........

if possible any solution to fix problem
water break can cuase this
your opionin please
thank you again

len

So, I as understand it, the finish is delaminating. When a finish delaminates, we always look to contamination as the cause but it could be other things as well.
1) The stain MAY have not been dry enough or not been rubbed off enough. I say this because it took 3 days for your finish to dry and you've used this finish before and didn't have a drying problem.
2) You mentioned you let the floor sit for a period of time then applied an additional coat. It's possible the existing finish was poluted by someone/something during that time.

A leak in the basement may have caused a humidity rise but you said the problem was fixed shortly and the floors looked great for months. I suppose you could attempt to get the owners to foot the bill but in all honesty, it appears to be your fault as I believe the stain was not dry enough or on too heavy. I'm afraid a refinish is in order if the finish is not bonding and is delaminating. Since it doesn't sound like you kept written documentation of the problems (or did you?). If you had documents showing elevated moisture problems with meter readings, with dates and records of everything you did, perhaps you could split the bill with the homeowner. I find some people are open to compromise. Good luck in resolving this problem.

hi,
when you reply and say YOUR FAULT those are strong words!
maybe someone did contaminate the floor ,in the period of a month,
when i stain a floor i know if it is dry or wiped to heavy i am not a person that doesnt care about my work i take great pride in my projects.....
anyways the stain aint the problem if it were i would not be posting as i would not coat a floor if it were wet or tacky...
What im asking is that this water pipe busted in the basement,under ground they dug a hole deep to repair this,it has taken them a few days to get this done.also they poured cement into this hole
with this moisture with my belief is suicide to a hardwood floor,could this moisture get trapped in the hardwood and be released causing problems to the hardwood floor ?
to me this is the first time for any problem like this i have dealt with moisture ,rippling,
could the moisture get so bad that it makes the finish seperate looking like wax reaction?????

thank you
len

len,

Sorry to offend you. What I said was I based that on my experience of over 25 yrs. I have had this happen to me and I don't consider myself to be a hack or careless. I know of two different jobs where the finish delaminated and it was caused by the stain I thought was dry. I refinished those floors at no charge. I have seen plenty of finished in place floors cup and warp from moisture underneath. I have not seen a finish delaminate from moisture problems due to high moisture vapor in a basement or crawl space. I have seen waterbased finishes have side bonding issues when the wood moves and then finish starts to stretch and appears as an opaque white film where it is stretching. If you did not take moisture meter readings of the floor after the leak, you do not know for a fact that it was exposed to any prolonged moisture vapor. You are merely assuming or guessing. However, if it is showing signs of cupping after all this time, then yes, moisture vapor has gotten to the flooring or it would not be cupping. What was the MC content at the time of install and what is the MC content now? That should give you an idea if the floor has picked up moisture. If it has, you need to find where that moisture is coming from (most likely the basement). What are the RH readings down there? If they are high (65%+), then that's most likely where the moisture is coming from.
But I am not convinced these two separate problems are caused by the same thing. The problems are:
1) finish delamination
2) Cupping/warping

I still hold that the stain is the culprite for the finish delaminating because it took three days for a 1st coat to dry in good weather under good conditions. The only time I have had that kind of problem was when the stain was not absolutely dry OR the jobsite condition were lousy. Moisture vapor from below or water intrusion are normally the causes of floors cupping. Consider these NOFMA articles:
https://www.nofma.org/Portals/0/Publica ... 005_03.pdf
https://www.nofma.org/Portals/0/Publica ... owning.pdf
https://www.nofma.org/Portals/0/Publica ... isture.pdf

In conclusion, I am also only guessing as I don't have access to all the info and can't see or measure the floor. Furthermore, it is an educated opinion, and only an opinion (which you asked for). Perhaps others could shed some light on this issue.

I totally agree with Garys analysis of the situation.

We know you sanded the gloss finish, before the semi gloss, right?

Is the semi gloss peeling from the gloss, or is all the coats peeling from the stained wood. This answer will tell you where it all went wrong.