HELP with heart pine wood floor problem

16 years ago

I posted this on the flooring forum but thought I would post here as well.

We have used wide plank antique heart pine floors on most of the main floor of our house under construction now...about 2700 sq ft and VERY costly and we supplied them personally from a hand picked source. They are absolutely beautiful. GC INSISTED on putting them down right after sheet rock was finished so the trim, doors etc could be set on top, very old school but risky IMO.

He ASSURED me they would be adequately protected through out the rest of construction and put very heavy corrugated craft paper over them and taped the seams. As one would imagine, seams got torn and tattered, and paper got torn. Today we found that some time back one of his laborers was apparently instructed to clean up and sweep up and so he he spread sweeping compound on the paper in the process. The only problem is that he, in his infinite _____, used sweeping compound with oil in it. We have just discovered this and found over a dozen places where the compound found its way to the raw wood and left significant oil stains.

Upon finding this, we immediatley ripped out the paper from the whole house (Friday evening after a LONG week at work!) and cleaned it up every where to stop the damage (got done about 8 pm). I sanded a couple of spots and am mixed as to whether the stains will sand out completely in the final finish of the floors or not(keeping in mind that the floor sanders take off much more than I could with a simple hand sand).

Anyway, what are anyone's thoughts on whether this will sand out? Should we hand sand with orbitals right now(biggest spots are about 2 feet by 6 inches) to stop the oil from penetrating further or am I over reacting? We are talking $50K in materials alone!

GC is generally pretty good but is reactive instead of proactive. He is good at coming in and saying "that's wrong! tear it out and do it over!" When if more proactive, we get it right first and don't have the redo's...in this case, the redo is monetarily prohibitive (as were a couple of others but he has not learned... but in those cases, it has been us who have had to compromise, not him. We get less than we paid for!).

Thanks much for any input.

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Comments (4)

sombreuil_mongrel
16 years ago
See if the oil simply evaporates in a few day's time. If not, apply some acetone or lacquer thinner to help dissolve it. I think it will be all right, unless it stained the wood the color of the compound. Was it green?
Casey
chazas
16 years ago
We had three oil stains on our teak floor before it got finished.

Because we were using Waterlox, an oil-based finish, they blended right into the finished product.

If we had been doing poly, the contractor would have been ripping up and replacing the boards in those places.
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Shellac's solvent is denatured alcohol (or, um, real alcohol if that's handier.) If that doesn't work try mineral spirits or turp - it might just be old-fashioned varnish. Or you can have both, in serial layers. Oh, the joys of old houses! Either way, you'll know pretty quickly because the paper towel you rub the solvent on with will get sticky when you have a match between the product and the solvent. Do the tests in an out-of-the-way spot, naturally. It would be fab if it's shellac as it's much easier to lift than paint. The issue with paint is that it gets deep in the grain and between the boards and trying to sand down below it for total removal can result in sanding too deep. Believe it or not some of us actually still use shellac on floors. It has many adavantages: it's natural (it's made from insect secretions, which may or may not cheer you up!); it's almost completely reversible (as you will find if that's shellac on your floors, you'll bless who ever put it down); and it's touch-up-able as new coats actually dissolve the coat below. It is uncommon now and many (trades)people never having worked with it consider it too tricky to apply so there is much recommendation against it. It is not as durable as poly, though, and it is particularly vulnerable to water. (Though you can wax it - with well-buffed paste wax - to increase its resistance to water. It's very old-fashioned. I don't think it's as fouly stinky as poly. I like the softer, less plastic-y look to it, especially when waxed. It probably takes longer to apply (more coats) than slapping on some poly, which may be partly why it fell out of favor. Casey usually chimes with good advice about buying it dry and recommends not buying it at big box stores because their stuff is not fresh. One buys the shellac flakes in various tints and mixes with alcohol in situ. I think it is harder to apply when it is very hot and humid. At least I have more problems with uneven drying which can lead to a cloudiness. (Not fatal, but requiring another coat.) Try Googling about this. If you get beyond the anti-shellac propaganda, you'll find info and Youtubes of people who have done it. HTH L.
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Hi @mciri001, Please be careful going too dark with your historic floor. I know you don't like the difference in that one yellow board, and I get it, but going too dark will lose beauty of the heart pine altogether. In your picture, you can see that the yellow board is naturally more yellow than the rest of the floor. To make that difference less dramatic, your floor will be VERY dark. And that board will always be lighter. Personally, I would learn to embrace the variation in the floor. But I love heart pine. If I had it, I would be celebrating it!
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gabeach
16 years ago
What are you going to use to seal the floors, anyway?
I am using Tung Oil on my heart pine in the kitchen, so I would not worry a lot if some oil got on them ahead of time.

Also, my contractor is doing someone else's house here in Georgia, and I have heard him talk a lot about how laborious the floors are. The heart pine is from an old cotton mill, so it is soaked with oil. I know he keeps putting down sawdust to absorb the oil and has been at it for months.
breezy_2
Original Author
16 years ago
Good points all, thanks and that's what I am thinking as well. We are using Waterlox, a tung oil product and we think that will help. The only down side is that the stains have a very dingy brown look to them. The heart pine floors are so full of resins that they have stained themselves in places (and the protective paper covering them) but the oils are clear and not brown like that of the sweeping compound. That said, the brown tinge is slight and I think (am optimistic) we will be fine.

Thanks again all, I am feeling better!

HELP with heart pine wood floor problem

Comments (4)

sombreuil_mongrel

chazas

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HELP with heart pine wood floor problem

Comments (4)

sombreuil_mongrel

chazas

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gabeach

breezy_2Original Author

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