We recently bought a 70 year old house with original oak flooring throughout (the rows of nails are visible), and had it professionally refinished before we moved in. The refinisher stated he thought that the floor had been refinished at least twice before, and that it had maybe one or two finishing opportunities left in it. He sanded the floor to the bare wood, repaired small holes and gaps, and applied 4 coats of what I believe was water based polyurethane ("50-50" shine). We then waited for 10 ten days before moving in, and we've used thick felt pads under the legs of all of our furniture, and walk about only in sock feet.

The floor is a very pretty natural gold colour (we did not have it stained), and it does look good even with all of its "vintage" imperfections. However, I think that the finish is not curing as it should. It is now almost mid December, and we had the floors refinished in late September. I have already noticed many small (some big) scratches and marks on the floor's surface, despite the house being inhabited by only two, very careful adults (no pets).

If I push my thumbnail into the floor surface, I can leave a mark without much effort at all, and this doesn't sound normal to me. We live in Kentucky, where the weather has neither been very hot/humid, nor very cold since the floor was refinished...we have air conditioning and gas heat, and we left the air conditioning on 65o-70o during the first month of the curing process.

Was there something wrong with the polyurethane?...the way it was applied?...(the 4 coats were applied over 3 days)...is there a "hardener" of some kind that should have been added to the polyurethane? Is this abnormal, or am I just too fussy?

Thank you in advance for the advice. The refinisher that we hired is one of the best in town, and I thought I'd just get some "second opinions" before I contacted him about this problem.

Can you peel the finish up with yor nail? Indenting tends to be more of a wood issue not so much a finish problem. The finish if waterborne should have been cured in that 10 days if done correctly. One thing about waterborne finishes is that they tend to show those small little surface scratches more readily than oilbased finish. Kinda the plexyglass effect if you know what I mean. Most waterborne due use a catalist/hardener but some are hybrid types that require no hardner other than just the exposure to air. Anyway I would call the finisher voice your concerns and see what kind of response you get out of him, most likely he can answer your questions with a little more detail.

Thanks, Kevin ...I tried to peel the finish with my thumbnail but it doesn't budge...just left a little scratch/dent in the surface.

I know what you mean about the "plexyglass effect", and I hope I'm not being too fussy, but the floor surface just seems too soft to me.

When you say that the indenting is a "wood issue", do you mean that there may have been something wrong with the wood itself, or that whatever scratched the floor must have been very heavy? The floor didn't seem too abused when we bought the house...just very dark and dull. The previous owners were in the house for three years and didn't refinish the floors...before that, who knows?

I'm going to call my refinisher and ask what product(s) he uses. In any case I think I will be going ahead with having the last coat or two of finish replaced because it's just bugging the heck out of me. However, I'm thinking of asking the refinisher to use a different product.

Any suggestions for a really tough finish?

I've heard good things about the "Bona Traffic" products.

A friend of mine swears by something called "Diamondique"?...or something like that.

What about basketball courts and other public spaces...do they use some kind of special "commercial grade" products?

Anyway...thanks again for the reply.

Bona Traffic is about the hardest finish available. It is a "commercial" finish. You really need to ask your finisher what products he applied. Basketball courts (sport court) finishes aren't different from commercial finishes; just packaged differently. The reason they usually look good is because they are on a very regular schedule of recoating. ALL finishes of all types and kinds can scratch and indent.

Thanks, Gary.

I ment it my not be the finish, but the wood indenting itself that has nothing to do with the hardness of finish that's on top of it. It's likely the previous owners didn't notice anything because the floors were worn. On a brand new finish job the first couple of scratches stand out readily. Are the scratches from just foot traffic? Can you see them from a standing position under normal lighting?

Well...come to think of it, one of the reasons that we chose this house over several others was because the floors did seem to be in pretty good shape. They were dark and dull, but not that scratched up considering their age.

After the third coat of finish, and before we moved in, my hubby and I checked the job that the the refinisher had done under several types of lighting conditions. We have a smallish house, so it wasn't much effort to go from room to room, checking for scratches and dents. We found very few...the refinisher really had done a great job on such an old floor.

However, there were a few spots were the "polyurethane mop" (or whatever the finish applicator device is called ) had sort of skipped and missed a few spots, and there was also a little bit more "debris" in the final finish than was expected, and very few little (tiny) scratches (from the sander?). That is why we decided to have another light sanding and another coat of finish applied, and when we rechecked the floors after that was done, all was perfection.

The scratches and dents that are on the floor now are indeed new, and seem to be mostly "finish deep" only...at least as far as I can tell. Most of them are visible, no matter how they are lit, or at what angle they are viewed, standing or sitting...others are less obvious. And there are also marks that look as though the finish has been "compressed" under the weight of certain pieces of furniture...and some of those pieces of furniture are not very heavy at all. The floor finish in some rooms does seem more susceptible to this scratching and denting than do other rooms.

Ah...the mystery of it all.

OH...I just thought of an example of how my floors are reacting to "every day" use...I've been painting baseboards wearing moccasins with very soft, suede ties on the tops of them, and I was kneeling on the tops of these moccasins as I painted. When I stood up I noticed that these moccasin ties had left marks on in the floor finish as I moved along, painting the baseboards. That can't be normal...or can it?

Soft finish, can be directly related to, thick coats of finish.

sounds to me like this fella ran into the same batch of pacific strong that i did, customers complaints sound very familiar.

Haven't read any mention of species???? Are they Fir or Larch (Tamarack), perhaps Cedar?... o.k. maybe not in your neighborhood but lots here in North Idaho .... anyway, some folks are crazy about Alder floors too ...UNTILL THEY WALK ON THEM! Anyone wanting an Alder floor after actually touching a piece should have thier head examined. (YES ... we've done 2 of them ... you can almost tell what brand tennisshoes the H/O wears ).... Could it just be a soft wood floor?
OR perhaps an oily exotic species that doesnt like H2O finish ... like Gum wood or ..... you get the picture.

If it's oak ..... nevermind

Hi Will,

Some of us considered that it might have been a soft wood when this poster asked the same question on another forum. However, in the first post, they state it's a 70 yr. old oak floor.

Doh!!!

Guess I couldn't see the forrest for the trees!