Angela Noble, Applying 3 coats is meaningless if, the contractor does not prep or apply the proper coverage. All of Pallman's water borne finishes require a final cut at 100 or 120 grit and 450-500 coverage per gallon. The sealer will seal 80% of the pores with proper coverage of 450 sq. ft. per gallon. Allowing 20% of wood for the first coat of polyurethane to grab onto. With an additional 2 coats of water borne polyurethane at the proper coverage of 450-500 per gallon. Your floors should be more than sealed. If, the products was diluted or applied improperly. Your floors will not have the proper coverage and will not be properly sealed. Leaving it vulnerable to premature wear and failure. How was the product applied: T-bar, rolled, brush? Are there gaps in the floor? Was there any thinning of the product?

awm03, I have a few pics at http://community.webshots.com/user/coltlake, however, that site may be down. I haven't been able to get to it from work the last few days. If you can't get to that site, I will post a few pics here in the next day or so. I used a 1:4 ratio of Minwax oil based stain to Waterlox Original Sealer (the max they recommend) for the first coat of Waterlox. The stain was a mix of two colors: 1 part Minwax Dark Walnut and 6 parts Minxwax Red Chestnut. We wanted a dark brown/red color. The Red Chestnut was too red and the Dark Walnut had no red at all. The mix was very close to what we wanted. We tried other colors like the Red Mahogony, but it had a purplish tint to it. After figuring out how many cans of each color we would need we opened the cans, mixed the stain in a bucket at the 1:6 ratio and then poured the mixed stain back into the original cans for storage until use. I would recommend getting several pieces of scrap flooring and trying the stain/Waterlox mix out to see what the colors look like. Remember, just apply it to the samples with a lambs wool applicator in one stroke (do not scrub it on) and let it cure - do not wipe it off. If you put enough on it will be wet looking with oil sitting on the surface of the wood. That is how you apply it to the actual floor. As it cures it will self-level and soak into the wood. Do not wipe off the excess oil - what doesn't soak in will harden. You can experiment with adding some of the other Minwax colors to your taste. When applying the stain/sealer mix to the floor be sure to take your time (too fast causes bubbles to form), get good coverage, overlap each adjacent strip, and keep the edges wet (don't stop working until the whole floor is finished). If you absolutely need to find a stopping point because the room is too large to completey cover in one day, you can cut in along the edge of the boards with a brush to finish a section and then cut in with a brush along the adjacent boards to start the next area. This works real well for later coats with plain Waterlox, but you still have to be careful with the first coat with stain that the brush strokes are uniform. If possible, save the larger areas for days when you have time to apply the first coat completely across the room. Because our flooring extends from one room into the next with no threshold, we had no natural stopping points between rooms, so we had to use the brush technique to stop along edges of boards near the doorway. After the first coat, inspect the floor for edges or spots that the stain missed. Wipe on a little stain/sealer mix, let it set for a minute, and then wipe it off and buff it. If you have gaps between the boards that the stain did not get down into, dip a brush into the the stain/sealer mix and work it into the gap and then wipe off the excess from the surface of the boards. You won't have to do this for the subsequent coats. After the second coat of sealer, the Waterlox should start to build up a layer and start to have little more uniform sheen. However, there may be spots, especially around knots in soft wood such as pine, where the Waterlox is still soaking in and does not have as much sheen as surrounding areas. I took some Waterlox and spot treated these areas and buffed it out with a rag so it could "catch up" with the rest of the floor. The subsequent 3rd and 4th coats resulted in an even sheen, even on the soft pine. Waterlox does not build up like polyurethane, though, so don't expect that knots will be have a perfectly even sheen. You will still be able to see them when you look across the floor towards a window, but it will look normal. Mixing the stain with the Waterlox, even at the maximum ratio recommended, resulted in a satisfactorily uniform staining of the white pine floors and saved a lot of effort compared to staining the floors in a separate step. Color uniformity was not perfect, but very satisfactory. It is hard to tell what color variations are due to the method of stain application or due to natural color variations in the wood itself. With lighter stains/ratios or harder woods the results should be even better.

I'm sorry, I have not had a chance to get any charcoal. The smell is still there. Not as strong as it was a few weeks ago and after a month it is tolerable, but everyone who comes into my new room asks "what is that smell?" This is INSANE how much worse the smell is after this supposed VOC compliant crap. There is no way in hell this is better for you. for the first 3 weeks I could not even stand being in the room as I would get a headache after breathing this in for 20 minutes. I loved the old smell of the old stuff and it would be gone within a week. This smell is going on over a month and It is still lingering. I think we need to find another brand or get everyone to complain to these varnish companies to bring back the old formulas. Why did they even change it? How in the heck did they ever test this and Say "Yeah this is better!! You would have to have absolutely no sense of smell to think this stuff is good for anyone to breath or use. Do they really think by changing the smell or recipe of varnish we are saving the planet? It is ridiculous!! I'm so sorry I wish I had the answer for you. I just left my windows open a crack for days until it was tolerable. Also you could use a damp rid bag and hope that will absorb some of the smell. It is strong at first but I know at least these hanging bags smell better than the varnish!! You can get these at Lowes or HomeDepot in the cleaning isle.

This is an old post so I imagine this has long since been resolved for the OP, but since I just saw it, figured I'd throw our experience in anyway for future searchers on this topic: We have an interesting case study in that the floors in our house and our neighbors' identical house were both redone about five years ago (before we were on the scene, so don't know specific products used). The floors are identical hundred-year-old white oak installed at the same time (same family built both). Both were sanded down, neither was stained, and ours was finished with a water-based finish, theirs with oil-based. Both still look fine five years out (if you ignore the scratches from our dog!) but the looks are different. As someone noted above, the oil finish is a bit warmer and much shinier. I think it's fair to say it looks newer as a result, though how much of that is the wear-and-tear we put on our house (significantly more than our neighbors!) is hard to say. Our water-based finish is more matte-looking and pulls out more browns and beiges than yellows and reds (if that makes sense). There are apparently some differences in how you can clean and touch up the two finishes as well. (We use Bona hardwood cleaner on ours, which seems to work fine.) Anyway, just food for thought on this!