Hello, I just bought a foreclosure with approx. 1500 square feet of hand-scraped hardwood flooring. The finish looks extremely thin and worn in several places, so after reviewing this board, I decided to get quotes on a screen and recoat. One contractor came out and did a test spot of dura seal poly. The poly did not fish-eye when applying, so the contractor thought the poly should adhere to the floor. But after 4 days of drying, I can scrape the poly off with my fingernail. The contractor is now going to come out and do a test spot using Bona Traffic. Do I have any hope of this working, or am I doomed to having to completely sand and refinish the floor? Also, the contractor mentioned doing a paste wax finish if the Bona also fails. Any thoughts on that? We have 3 small kids and 2 dogs, so we are looking for a durable finish. Thank you for your advice.

Polyurethane needs to be abraded between coats or it wont adhere. There are some systems that use chemicals to soften the finish so you dont have to mechanically abrade (tykote). The floor could have some contaminate from maintence thats causing the bonding issue as well. recoating a floor like this with no history can be risky. If it were me I would put one or two coats of universal sealer and a quality 2 part waterborne finish.

hand sand to get in the grooves. Vac and coat with TRAFFIC.