We have a 16 year old house that has Robbins natural oak prefinished floors in the kitchen and foyer that were installed when the house was built. The floors were sanded down and refinished 12 years ago (long story on why this had to be done), but done badly (the first refinisher put oil-based finish on the floor when we wanted water-based and did a bad, uneven sanding job), thus requiring a second complete sand and refinsh immediately after. The 2nd refinish job was beautiful. We still had some of the micro-bevel, but it was smoother, and a beautiful, natural wood color. Then we had about 8 coats of finish on it over the next 12 years (another story too long for this forum). The last coat went badly, and we were told by a different contractor that the floors had to be completely sanded again.

Here are our questions:

1). We had it sanded and now there are several problems. (Please see photos and descriptions below). Are these problems typical of refinishes? Should the refinisher have told us to expect these types of results after the 3rd sand/refinish?

a) We have what someone thought might be mineral streaks (weird black marks), on several boards. Is that what this is? Why did it appear now (too much sanded off?)

b) There is a color difference after the sanding - seems to be less uniform. Many of the boards now have a different variation in color in the same board - a section that is dark, and one that is light (not related to where the grain is). Note that the floor was of the highest grade - "select", which did not originally show those shaded boards (or at least very few of them).

Originally, there was some color variation between boards, but not much within a board itself. The boards that were a little darker originally now seem even more dark.

c) The micro-bevels are completely gone, and we see many, many, many, many more cracks. We typically see a few more with the colder weather, but nothing at all like it is now. There are probably cracks visible in about 70% of the floor. (Some are narrow, and some are more noticable). Are we seeing more cracks because the micro-bevel hid them before, or did the new sand job do something to the floor? We do not have a humidifier, and never have. The forum says cracks and shrinkage occur with dry heat, but since we haven't had the issue before, would the sanding have caused the boards to shrink more, or just removed the bevel and show the cracks that were always there but hidden in winter?

d) We have a weird looking finish. It almost looks like the way a fake, vinyl floor looks. Their is a shine to it that seems to be in the grain. We are told it is "grain raise". An inspector called this "dish-out" and said it was because the wood had been sanded into so much that it exposed rougher grain. He said a screen and recoat may or may not fix it. This is hard to capture in the photos, but can you tell us if this is fixable? (The floor was coated with Bona products - water-based semi-gloss). We had Street Shoe semi-gloss previously and did not have this weird look.

e) We have heard very loud popping noises from the floor. We never had these before. They have slowed down a bit now that the weather is consistently very cold, but we still hear them sometimes. Again, the forum said this was caused by dry heat/low humidity but why do we have them now and never before?

Photos for the above issues a-d are on photobucket at: http://s1001.photobucket.com/albums/af1 ... 0problems/

2). The refinisher said these were the steps he followed - Is there anything he missed or could have done incorrectly? (Note that we noticed the BONA traffic directions said "for an unstained floor, make your final cut with 100 girt paper and disc/screen to 120-150 grit". This disc screening step appears to be "buffed with 100 grit" - does that 100 instead of 120-150 make a big difference?

Day 1: Sanding was done with 7" belt/drum sander with 40 grit, fine sanded with 100 grit for main floor, then edges with 7" disc sander with 80 grit then 120 sand paper.then buffed the floor with 100 grit buffer screen.
Day 2: After sanding completed, sealer applied.
Day 3: Bona Finish Coat # 1 Applied
Day 3 Later: Floor was screened with 180 grit, vacuum sanded, damp tac clothed and Bona
Finish Coat # 2 applied.

(No sanding or screening done between the sealer
being applied and the 1st coat of finish).


3). If there is too much finish on a floor, do you have to sand down to the wood, or can you just "screen" the old finish off and then recoat?

4). This floor was stapled in. Can it be removed and another put down in its place, or will there be issues because there are staple holes in the sub-floor?

5). We like a floor that has a slight micro-bevel, but actually prefer the finish we had after it was sanded and coated with Street Shoe. Is it possible to buy a micro-bevel unfinished floor and then have it finished with your coating of choice or are all micro-bevel floors the prefinished variety?

We would greatly appreciate any expertise you can share with us about these issues. Thank you!

How many times have you had a big machine on these floors? As far as the cracks, you could be getting low on your wear service. The new finish will look lighter because it does not have the oxidation that it had previously. Did the previous finish have the oil base finish under the water base? If so, oil base ambers more that water base. It does look like it could use a couple more coats, but I don't do a lot of water base finish in this area. I would try to buff out w/220 screen and coat again first.

The floor has now been sanded and refinished 3 times. The first time was with an oil base. This was not what we had asked for, and we had that completely sanded out (2nd refinish). It looked great after the 2nd refinish. Then we had it sanded down a 3rd time becaues of too much finish on it (long story about that). It is a 3/4" solid floor, originally a prefinished micro-bevel (not engineered). Are you saying that it could not be sanded down more than 2 times? We have been told by several people that the refinisher could have just screened the old finish off and that sanding it was extreme. Do you agree?

Does too much sanding cause these types of problems - the black marks, dark spots, cracks, popping noises, etc. (see photos?)

Thank you!

Looks good from my screen. Yes you can replace it if you want. Streaks can show up the more you sand it even though you have select.

If it were me I'd stop nit pick'n. It ain't no table top it's a floor.

Looks pretty good to me. Especially considering it's 16 years old and has been s&f 3 times!
Just because it was a select floor, doesn't mean there's no mineral somewhere in the board....it's graded on the face appearance at the time of milling. Sanding down through the board, especially several times, is likely to expose characteristics that weren't visible on the face initially, but these are inherent characteristics for oak and not the result of any mistakes on the part of the refinish tech. And as far as the gaps go, you've got a solid floor that has moved, expanded/contracted, over the life of it, and it was a microbevel to start with, so there will be gunk in there, and gapping left just from dimensional change in the wood. Could they have gone by hand and cleaned out some of the gaps, maybe trowel filled some areas...yes. But filler still tends to crack, shrink, etc. over time, so eventually you'd see the same things. From all the information and the photos, I don't see any major issues with the quality of the work you received.

First of all, 12 years ago water based finishes were different. Oil-based polyurethane, even though its cheap, it does have some advantages to water based. Namely a longer wet time. The longer wet time allows the sealer to penetrate deeper into the wood AND gives the finish extra time to level out. Even a sloppy job with oil-based tends to work its self out as it before it dries. Oil-based is not all bad. Water-based is not all good. It depends on the application.

SIDE NOTE: If a homeowner is pushing me to use something that I would otherwise advise against, I would consider letting that business walk. I don't work for the practice and every time I have a homeowner who thinks they know more than me about my trade, there's problems. BIG PROBLEMS!!

Second, you should have been advised that the micro bevel was going to be a problem. Common sense suggests that its not likely that a refinishing tech could consistantly take a floor down with 40 grit and leave the microbevel behind looking uniform across the floor. The high spots will be sanded down deeper with less micro bevel being revealed.

Third. 8 coats in 12 years??? Really?? What in the heck is that about? Even the cheapest oil-based poly should provide enough residential wear to last 4-5 years. This is starting to raise a red flag with me.

Fourth. One of the only reasons I would ever recommend a prefinished solid wood floor is for the consistency of the color. If a client tells me that they are going to be so picky about variations in the wood floors, I'd tell them that prefinished tends to have less variation because of the way they are manufactured. Site finished wood floors will have more color variation between planks because of the method and materials used to stain the floor. A wiping stain will take differently between planks because this is a natural, God-made, product. No two trees are exactly the same. If variations in the wood floor are a problem, I walk. Unattainable high expectations in a homeowner are again, a big problem.

Fifth. I noticed that you mentioned BonaKemi Traffic and then mentioned StreetShoe. StreetShoe is made by Basic Coatings. These finishes come from two different brands. There could be compatibility issues just from this alone. Probably not but its worth mentioning.

Sixth. When you point out that you had too much finish on the floor and this was the cause for sanding and starting over, I point back to my third thing on the list. 8 coats in 12 years. Who kept asking for more coats of sealer??

I think my conclusion about this "problem with a floor" is clear without spelling it out. I don't have to say anymore.

Thanks for your reply.

To clarify about the reason we had 8 coats of finish: After about 3-4 years, our prefinished floor's finished started peeling up (this was after the flooring store had given us a cleaning product to use for it that caused the finish to come off). We are not wood experts, just consumers looking for good answers from those who do know wood. We got references for a refinisher, who then sanded and finished with oil (we told him we wanted the same look as original). The oil turned the floors orange - not a look we like at all, and very different from the original look. I understand some prefer oil for many and various reasons, we just don't like this orangey look. We then went to the largest place in town that supposedly had a good reputation. They sanded and refinished again, with a water-based product. The floors were just beautiful after that. That company told us to buff and coat every 3-5 years. We were following their advice.

Now, here is what happened on why we have the 8 coats. After three years, when we went to recoat as per their advice, they had changed the water-based product that they used (started using Street Shoe). We wanted something similar, and they suggested the gloss finish of Street Shoe. Well, that looked way too glossy, so we tried Satin, and that was completely flat, so we put Semi-gloss on and it was perfect. We did go to their showroom and look at samples, but samples can be very difficult to get a feel for in different lights. Then, following their advice, we had it coated again with Street Shoe semi-gloss (again, great job). At that point there were the original 2 coats from the resand, +3 from trying to figure out what Street Shoe gloss level to use and +1 from the other coat. Then, three years later, we followed advice again and they came out to put on a coat. This time they really did a horrible job. They missed about 10 spots and had tons of dust in it. A supervisor was there at the start of that job even. They redid it, and at that point, it then looked waxy and unclear and even more awful. Then we had a contractor who we trust absolutely recommend his refinisher to us. We told him the whole background in excruciating detail. He didn't indicate it would look any different after refinishing - i.e. bevels sanded off and revealing cracks, possible reactions to the sealer from the wood underneath, coloration differences, etc. We didn't have any of these before. We are just trying to understand what happened, and at this point learn as much as we can so that going forward we make better informed choices and decisions. We have been told that the company who told us to recoat every 3 years did not give us good advice - a finish can last much longer than that, and that you only need to recoat when the finish is starting to show wear. (Probably at least 5-8 years for us).

So, we realize that working with wood is a very skilled profession, and we have tremendous respect for those who do it. We realize that wood is a natural material, and that there are variations in it. We've tried to go with recommended people. Unfortunately, a couple bad recommendations (refinish every 3 years) and work (the flooring store recommending the bad product, the 1st bad refinishing job, and the recoats before the last sanding that went bad), have added up to some really bad luck for us. We really don't like how the floor looks now - it doesn't look like "select" wood anymore, and the finish looks weird, and their are lots of cracks in it. We wouldn't have taken the time to ask these questions if there wasn't a significant difference before and after. Someone can look at this and say it is our fault, but we have recogized from the start that this is not a do it yourself job and tried to go with recommended professionals.

We are just looking for answers here in a professional, courteous manner. I thought that's what this forum was about.

Hi, just sticking my nose in. I don't think anyone meant to be disparaging to you; its just that sometimes when asking questions about background information it can seem intrusive. I think whomever you felt was being discourteous did not intend his questions or response to be taken that way.
Anyway, having said that, I have looked over this thread and it appears as though over the last few years there has been many attempts at providing you with the floor (and finish) that you want, some with less success than others.
As far as the now evident gaps you are seeing, these are indeed visible due to the removal of the micro-bevel, and I feel (as a flooring contractor) that you should have been made aware of this phenomenon ahead of time rather than after the fact. Also, the floor finisher could have filled these in prior to finishing, provided your home has a stable environment.
I looked at the pictures and cannot conclusively determine the origin of the black mineral marks. Remember that wood grows on trees (lol) and as such while growing, certain parts of the tree will pick up mineral from the soil. These pockets are not allowed on the surface when the floor is milled to a select or select and better grade. However, they may be present within thw wood below the surface. Subsequent sanding(s) may expose these, and certainly could not be attributed to the person doing the work.
From what I see in the pictures, the sanding seems to be fine, although as mentioned earlier, filling of the gaps could have been done.
If you could repost pictures showing what you feel is "weird" about the finish, it would be appreciated.

IMO, what probably looks "weird" to the OP is now the floor does not have the finish build they have become accustomed to. It does look thirsty to me as well. Dennis, I know you understand the phenomena re: waterbased finishes. If there is not enough build and the wood looks thirsty, there can be a "glistening" type of look, especially in the spring grain. I'm sure you've seen what I'm referring to. For me personally, I like the look of a fat finish ( multiple coats ) Being from area area where Baca-Glitza was king for many years, I prefer that heavy, fat looking, plastic looking satin finish. In my home, I had six coats. Three of OMU and three of catalyzed waterbase. It's not about durability but the appearance. But think about it, since the finish becomes the wear surface on a wood floor, the thicker the wear surface, the more mil thickness you have before wearing down to the wood. You can still get surface scratches and dents, but the overall appearance and durability is improved, IMO. It's not for everyone and not the industry standard, AND, building up multiple coats must be done correctly or one ends up with a soft finish. But in the end, for me, I like it and prefer it. I do not like thirsty looking site finished floors, and see them way too often from the low bidders.

I realize that the train has already left the station on this deal. But what I would have advised a client to do in this situation is to file a warranty claim with the manufacturer. The floors came apart. Going forward from there, anything that is tried on the floor is a crap shoot. That's my opinion.



Water based finishes typically don't require a buff and recoat in 3-5 years. I'd be surprised if you needed them recoated every 10 if the initial job had plenty of wear layer on it.



Okay.



Was the option presented at this point to attempt to screen off the 7 coats and apply a new layer of finish?



Without the benefit of some kind of colored stain, you're subject to whatever the wood expresses. It sounds like the last tech should have advised you about the beveling too. If the wood character is what you are seeing, then another full sand and refinish won't fix this.



Significant difference before and after? If by that you mean there's a difference between the way the floors looked originally with the prefinished coating and now with a traditional sand and finish, I'd say of course. The factory engineered finish is a different technology.

Please accept my apology for coming across in an unprofessional manner. Finishing and recoating your floors should not have been this complicated. From the beginning it looks like you got shafted and every step along the way. Its unusual that lightning strikes someone that many times. Unfortunately it happened.

Best of luck to you as you try to make the best out of what you have.

Sometimes, the best thing is to just start over. Ideally, a solid 3/4" floor will last the life of the house. But that's assuming normal wear and tear, and no catastrophic events have taken place. I see many floors in older homes that are in poor condition, and the occupants are ok with that. But your home sounds newer and nicer and it sounds as if you would like your floors to be very nice and tidy and fresh. You do not sound too happy with what you have. Therefore, when you can afford it, I'd advise replacing the flooring with a new floor. When you do choose to do this, do NOT just take recommendations. Those are fine but not the end all. Here are some tips for hiring the best hardwood company in your area:

1) list all the hardwood flooring contractors in your area
2) show the list to anyone in the trades for recommendations.
3) select at least 5 of the companies to interview that appear to be the best
4) now is the time to ask questions:
a. professional affiliations
b. licensing
c. insurances
d. experience and how long in business
e. previous customers
f. complaint handling
5) Now solicit bids on your project from your list the best of contractors. Compare apples to apples. The more detail, the better. Do not rely on price alone. If one person is much higher, there maybe a legit reason. If you may wish to use that contractor, ask why much higher cost.
6) Once you've selected the contractor, insist on solid, contracted prices and timelines. The more detailed the contract, the better. Insist on seeing finished samples of you floor prior to signing the contract. Never pay for any work or materials in advance but only upon completion or delivery. You can pay a deposit of 10% or so in advance. Never pay for materials or labor in advance. Do not pay the final invoice until you and the contractor have walked the job and you are satisfied with the work.

Finally, never assume anything. ASK. Contractors are not mind readers. We/they cannot know what questions you have unless you ask.

Best wishes.

Gary,

Very well said.

Also It sound like you would like to go with a prefinished wood, both for the micro bevels as wee as the look of the finish. So remember you get what you pay for if there is a considerable price difference there is a reason, both with the material and the labor.

On a side note I don't agree with the don't pay anything until the end. I for one don't order the material unless I get 50% of the quote. If it is just a labor job then I agree. But have purchased material in the past without a deposit only to have the customer cancel at the last moment. So I am either stuck trying to unload it or return it to my distributor with a restocking fee. I have only had one person in 18 years that refused to give me a deposit and that to me is a red flag, so I passed on the job.

Water based finishes typically don't require a buff and recoat in 3-5 years. I'd be surprised if you needed them recoated every 10 if the initial job had plenty of wear layer on it.

- Yes. We found this out the hard way. Again, long story, but here it is: What we think happened, to give the company some of the benefit of the doubt, is that when the floors were sanded down 12 years ago, finishes were different and did require more frequent buff and recoats (so we've been told although maybe not quite every 3 years). As the coatings evolve, they require less frequent screen and recoats, but no one told us, and we think that when we called to say they were due, the people just sort of did it without questioning (maybe afraid the boss would penalize them if they turned down work). When we went to have the last recoat done, there was a supervisor there. We would have expected that someone at his level would have said we might consider waiting (there were some scratches but no wear-through). With the economy, again, maybe he was afraid his boss would come down on him if he turned down the work. (Just our guess).

Was the option presented at this point to attempt to screen off the 7 coats and apply a new layer of finish?

No, that option was not presented. Could that have been done and then preserved some of the bevels and then not revealed the imperfections underneath that we are now seeing?

Significant difference before and after? If by that you mean there's a difference between the way the floors looked originally with the prefinished coating and now with a traditional sand and finish, I'd say of course. The factory engineered finish is a different technology.

Sorry - what we meant was siginificant difference between how the floors looked before and after this most recent refinish.

Please accept my apology for coming across in an unprofessional manner. Finishing and recoating your floors should not have been this complicated. From the beginning it looks like you got shafted and every step along the way. Its unusual that lightning strikes someone that many times. Unfortunately it happened.

Best of luck to you as you try to make the best out of what you have.[/quote]

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Yes, we've definately been through quite the painful learning experience. We are thinking that maybe this last refinisher just didn't have the experience and knowledge with wood to know up front that there was an option besides sanding (screening the coat off), that sanding the bevels off would reveal so many cracks in drier weather, etc. We had just blindly trusted that our contractor had a knowledgable guy, and he probably is great with new floors, just maybe doesn't have a lot of refinishing experience. Fortunately, when you keep the faith that there are good people/companies out there, you eventually find them.