I hope I'm posting to the right area.

We've recently had our floorboards refinished in our open plan living/kitchen space and hallway. It looks amazing, I love it! However, the house still smells so potent. It's been 8 days since they finished. I'm 18 weeks pregnant and have a two year old so we left the house for 6 days after it was completed, although the company that did it assured us it would be fine to head back home after just a couple of days.

We're keeping all the windows and doors open, however it's Winter so trying to keep warm is difficult, and I know the cold will impact the curing time.

Can anybody please give me an idea on if the toxic fumes are still present? The house barely smells with good ventilation but as soon as I shut windows and doors the smells returns.

It also seems like the smell has permeated all of our food (which I've now tossed) and I've had to wash just about everything in every cupboard in the kitchen, even though everything was taped and sealed.

I wish I'd realised what a problem the fumes would be in advance!

You are obviously not in North America, or even the Northern Hemisphere.


I have no idea what was used on your wood flooring?

Varnish, oil or water.

Water is usually gone in a day or so.
Oil takes a while.
Varnish dries fast with little smell to linger, longer than a week.

Huh? winter? really?


change your filters to your AC and ventilate..

moisture cure would damage all your food, but don't see poly doing it..use it everyday and have yet for someone to tell me their food has gone bad.

we do kitchens all the time

Thanks for the feedback. I live in Australia, - hence it being Winter. It was an oil based polyurethane solvent that was placed on our floors. It's now been roughly 18 days since it was completed and the smell has abated somewhat. We're still ventilating the house while home and heating it while we are out to help cure the floors.

I had a customer a few years back who was severly sensitive to the smell of oilbase poly, and could not return to the house for weeks. Her husband did some major research online until he found that wipping the floor down with a rag that was submersed in ice water completely killed the smell. Now remember, do not dump a bucket of ice water on a hardwood floor, as that much water all at once can kill a hardwood floor, but ringing out the rag and making sure it stays as cold as possible is the key.

I have passed.this on to 2 other customers who have used this with sucsess. I hope this can help many.

That is really interesting, Atomicri. I just had a customer who called me today about the smell...from 2 months ago. I may call her back tomorrow with this suggestion. I have a feeling part of was that whoever did the job used a really cheap sort of poly.

Somebody should try this out. Could be a unique selling point. There's a huge amount of emphasis on air quality today with this being one, albeit for a limited time.

Every little bit helps with today's competitiveness.

Dry ice treatment with an applicator?

NOTE: I have no knowledge of how dry ice works or should be used. Always thinking different.