Please share your experience installing/finishing hardwood floors
sail_away
11 years ago
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Gracie
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agoEngineerChic
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
My experience: refinish hardwood floors with Bona Traffic
Comments (22)OK I explain. It is a floating floor what we call in the UK engineered floor, so it is not solid throughout but a thickness of the wood mounted on a plywood base. It is a Malaysian wood, not so hard, so I suppose high heels could dent it perhaps, it is not the hardest. It is a click system not requiring glue, interesting. Now from Malaysia it says it has five factory coatings of which some contain aluminium oxide. It got worn out over the years. So a year ago I sanded the wood with the machines with the correct paper and vacuumed well. Then I applied one coat of Bona Traffic silk, you know the glossy one. I then noticed a number of parts were very coarse to the touch. So after some hours I sanded again with slightly finer paper but still coarse. Now I applied again Bona. Once again certain areas were coarse to the touch and you could see stains. So now I did a final very fine sanding but this was by hand with very fine paper particularly in the areas affected. It took me hours. Then I applied the third coat. I called the Bona representative who was at a loss!!! He gave me a bottle of Bona "refresh" it is a type of product to do another pass over. I applied it to the worse parts of the floor. Although one could see areas which were coarse to the touch and which did not look quite right the shine was sufficient to fool guests for Christmas. Now I am exactly one year on. In those area I mentioned there are now black marks. I attach some photos of the present situation with example of the black marks. (sorry I do not know how to create a new thread). I want to sand it and apply Bona again before New Year when my mother is visiting, my wife will just about tolerate me sanding on the 27th Dec. I had the suspicion it was the Bona product maybe the bottle I bought was old or had been exposed to low temperatures where I bought it from but the Bona representative told me it was very unlikely to be the case....See MoreNeed installer to finish my hardwood flooring installation
Comments (10)ricewO, I had found someone from Angie's list on July 4th that sounded great but he had to be booked in advance and could not buy the BR-111 product at the same great price as from TrueHardwoods.com so told me to buy it and call him and he would see when he had time. He wanted me to order one extra box but he said if I was going to be picky on boards, then two extra boxes. I had ordered 8% extra and he felt that was not enough (he was right I see now). When I called him to tell him I think I made a mistake with the order and I should have ordered 2 T-Moldings and 2 Reducers and not 3 Reducers and no T-Moldings, he told me I needed 4 Reducers and 1 T-Molding. He was too far from me to do a quick stop over here to measure again. My current installer before hiring him, came by and pulled up the carpet to test which molding he brought with was the right one and also bought me a white foam pad with a big board to stand on (pulled the rug and padding up so the wood and pad would be on the cement floor)to let me make a decision on if I liked the feeling of a glued down floor or a floating floor. That is when I decided that I did not want 3 extra boxes of wood like my neighbor who ordered a different product from TrueHardwoods.com so I went with my current installer and also my current was able to begin right away. BUT I see now that I was wrong and my current is not doing a good job and I am afraid for him to cut new molding to install since all his cut boards are poorly done with various size spaces next to my wall. Also the installation itself was done wrong and I had to call the manufacturer of the FloorMuffler with Ultra Seal and put them on Speaker phone since the current installer did not believe the instructions and was not using the ULTRAseal tape (he had it tucked under the pad!) at all and was not gluing the pieces together and was not putting the pad up against the wall a bit. The manufacturer said to insulate and protect from moisture he was doing it wrong and I was right. Then my current installer did it right in front of me and then when I left the room and came back I saw he was doing it wrong again! He installed damaged boards and some of the boards are not enough distance form each other with the seams. I am unhappy with his installation but very happy now with the beautiful Brazilian Cherry floors and so glad I went with the 5" wide boards since the grain is gorgeous and the coloring is now the orange reddish color I felt it should be when first installed despite not looking like that in the box. I really would like someone to install the last row of boards when the new box comes in and cut the new baseboard trim to install it so the cuts and piecing together can be professional. If I have no one else, I would have to have the current installer complete the installation of the wood with me there the whole time since I do not trust him anymore. I almost did not hire the current installer when he did not return my phone calls when I found the 47 foot crack in the cement floor but he arrived Thursday morning without return my phone calls the prior night or the prior days and I wanted the floor done. He also ripped out two side corner moldings near my tiles (my brother took the molding off the walls everywhere else and did a good job) and metal is showing and he cracked two tiles. He installed the two T-Moldings and you can see nail heads and he scratched the molding and a tiny crack now from putting the nail in the molding. Now I see why he wanted to reuse the old trim since I do not feel his carpenter skills are that good. He was referred by a client of mine that used to sell the current installer insurance before he retired from the insurance business. I had a painter come in today to give me an estimate on just painting the walls and not the trim. I have another painter coming by at 2 PM to give me an estimate also. Thank you ricewO for the suggestion of Angie's list. I may call back the other installer as well as all the messages I left last night on Angie's list's carpenters, flooring installers and painters. Thank you for your nice offer. I wish you lived near me....See MorePlease advise on new hardwood floor botched finish.
Comments (9)I agree that tearing out is an extreme solution. You may be expecting way too much here, but you have only shown us the 'trouble spots', so it's difficult to say if that's true or not. In any site-finished hardwood floor, you may find tiny bits of debris in the finished floor. These small things can stick out like a sore thumb. The more that time is spent on vacuuming and tacking, the less that debris finds its way into the finish. Add to the fact that you may have rushed the finisher, I am not surprised that you are finding things wrong with the finish. Also, if by "I'll do it again" he meant a complete resand and finish all in one day...well there's your problem; it can't be done successfully. If he just screened and recoated, then it is possible to complete that work in a day....See Morewalnut hardwood floors: share your success story
Comments (0)Im installing new plank and herringbone American walnut hardwood floors. Im trying to figure out how to best finish them. If you’ve successfully installed walnut, can you tell me your process, products, coats, stain, etc? Bonus points for sharing an image! Thank you!...See Morenorthcarolina
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