I had my red oak floors refinished in my 1923 house... I will make a long story short.

I spent days scraping the carpet glue (see pictures) from the floors in my dining room and living room. Next, I decided to hire a pro to sand and refinish... he finished the job today. The two rooms combined are approximately 350 sq feet and he charged $1,050. The floors look a bit wavy to me. I brought this up and he said that the drum sander follows the contours of the floor and that old floors can chnage shape over time due to the joists, etc. I was not comfortable paying, he got mad, blah, blah, blah,. I simply want other people to look at the floor before I pay in full. However, I offered to pay half and I did. Based on the photos, would you pay the remainder? Is this good work, average? I tried to select photos that show the waves. It is best to use the slidewhow function to enlarge the photos to really see the detail. Oh yea, he said there is nothing more that he can do.

Thank you.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/86144799@N00/

It looks like a ok job for the price you paid it's an old house probably been sanded many times and all that glue

Well, I have only paid him $550 and I am trying to determine if I should go ahead and pay the additional $500.

$3.00 a ft. is average pricing in my location. The floor does have ripple in it. It may have been there before or his machine could have caused it. It's hard to know. The ripple looks to be about 1" to 2" apart and fairly evenly spaced. This would indicate a machine not working properly. I suspect either a drum style machine causing "chatter" or a belt style where the drum is un-balanced or a wheel out of round. Another thing that can cause this is a finisher over screening a floor in an attempt to remove chatter from sanding. IMO, his machine, whichever type it was, was not operating to it's full potential and left some chatter. It is not way terrible but it's not great either. If there was chatter from before, that could have contributed. But a good sander/finisher should be able to deal with that. Understandably, he does not want to redo the job as it's not a big paying job to begin with. You want the best your money can buy. Perhaps the two of you can come to a compromise. Something like you pay for all the materials to redo the floor and he supplies the labor and tools. After the redo, you pay him in full, the balance of the $1,050.00. If he needs some assistance in possible ways to reduce the chatter on your floor, send him here to ask us.

That is a lot of chatter and grain dishout. Excessive if you ask me. I would ask to have him to redo it, using a different machine, if it were my house.

Floorguy, I hear ya., and I did ask him to but he said that he cannot do anything more. Perhaps, if I provide the information that I gained form your message and others, he will. Ugh, if he uses a different machine, I would think he would have to make diagonal passes to reduce the chatter and I am sure he would refuse to do so.

If we part ways now, I am fine with it, but it is a shame that some people just don't care about their reputation.

Well thats a fine older home you have there and that sanding job is not in keeping with the rest of the house. If you are confident that there is enough "meat" left in the floors to resand, I would definitely do that. Would I give the same guy a chance? Given that he has already indicated that what you have is the best he can do, then no.
$3.00 per foot is a decent price to pay for a natural finish. But you should have ended up with a better result. Sometimes these older houses have a lot of flex to the structure and when running a 280 lb sander over them, this type of chatter can appear if the guy on the machine is lacking in experience.
If you dont feel the floor can take another sanding, you could just buff the floor and re-coat with a low sheen finish. While this wont make the marks go away, it will reduce their appearance.

Those marks are not chatter marks!! Their caused from cranking the pressure up too much,walking too slow,and over buffing

Also let me add,If you are using a drum sander and not a belt sander then it can also be caused from having the paper on too tight....another way to get that would be to have too little drum pressure and run with the machine..In the latter the drum skips over the floor thus leaving your so-called chatter marks
Have a gander at the type of work I do
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2 ... 0133520830

You're a peach dude. Are you on here just to be argumentative. Around here, we treat the other professionals with the respect they are due. It appears you just want to argue and be a blow hard. If that the case, please move on.

That said, you even contradict yourself. First you say:



So, it's not chatter ( but you don't have a term for it ) but those "marks" are caused by walking too slow.

Then, in the next post, you say:



So then your "expert" opinion is it definitely caused by walking too fast!

So, to clarify in your mind ( do you have trouble with comprehension ? ), I said:



I used the term "chatter" because it is NOT wave ( which would be spaced further apart ) but was not aware of another term available. I see YOU didn't provide any terminology. Instead, you just criticized my use of the term "chatter". I gave a few, possible causes as well. In any case, we both listed various possible causes but neither of us were there watching the operator. So it is impossible to absolutely know the exact cause.

I looked at your photo of that plain old #2 common oak floor. Nothing special man. Around here, we burn that in our fireplaces; not install it in someone's home.

Like I said before Gary,It was a refinish job,I didn't install it... As for your chatter as you call it (turn the drum pressure up too much and walk slow and you'll get the same results,or have the pressure too light and run with the machine and it will skip across the floor..My comments are stating that it doesn't have to be a machine problem..."I used the term "chatter" because it is NOT wave ( which would be spaced further apart )" If it's a drum sander then wouldn't you agree the spacing would be based on how tight the paper was put on the drum?

Edited by Admin:

easy boys!

My many years of experience taught me that chatter on a drum machine is typically caused by improper paper loading and/or the drum head being out of balance. Call it what you will ( chatter, ripple, wave, etc. ) it is still operator error.

Sheesh, I take a few days off for R & R and miss all the fireworks.

Please, fireworks not needed.

Why that guy put gloss on a sanding job like that is beyond me. Talk about highlighting your mistakes........Wow. Unexceptable work. IMO it was way beyond mechanical failure. Loos as if it was a tilt head drum and he had no idea how to run it. Lucky he got paid what he did.