That has to be scraped, scarified, grind-ed or sanded off, no chemicals either. Using a patch coat would cost a fortune and would not work either. There are commercial floor machines you can rent to do this.

I (hope) suspect they had a pet sitter. We used to use one in our house when we went on vacation, but I can tell you, it's an imperfect system since my dogs would eliminate in the house (and the pet sitter wasn't nearly as eagle eyed as I am!) so we came home more than once to a stain on the rug. Luckily, heart pine seems to handle dog urine better than other types of floors. Have you tried a little wood bleach or oxalic acid (Bar Keepers Friend?) - try a bit in an inconspicuous spot and see if it helps. If yes, then go for it over the entire area. Or try Nature's Miracle first. Our dogs have been pretty awful about going out since we moved to this temporary apartment and I swear I've been through a gallon of the stuff on our living room rug. Some days I forget they're housetrained. Sigh.

Jake, I was reading your post here, and was wondering if you could give me advice on my situation. I currently have a gas powered hot water heater. It is located in the basement of our 2-story home. It heats the water for the front loading washer (in the basement), dishwasher, kitchen sink (both on the first floor), shower and bathroom sink (on the second floor). While the hot water heater seems to work OK (it does leak from the pressure valve for some reason) I have the same problem many others have - it takes a long time, and a lot of wasted water, before it comes out warm/hot. I have heard about the tankless water systems, but don't know anything about them. Is one enough for the whole house? Do you get one for each faucet? There are only two of un in the house, so our overall water usage is small compared to a larger family. I can imagine we would want to have hot water in the shower and maybe a sink. We usually don't run more than one appliance at a time. I would like to get hot water to where I want it faster than I currently do, and I would like to save water and energy. Is there a system that can be recommended for my household? Does a regular hot water heater make sense? If there is an alternative, what would that be? Thanks for all of your help. Tim

thanks for the comments, both! So, indeed orange peel/fisheye. He tried something yesterday, by buffing down and treating it with something. Then reapplied the top coat. It was much better, but the pattern is still there so he's going to have to sand right down. The issue is that the source of the problem cant' be identified. We went over the many different potential causes. He repaired 2 sections of flooring from damage and removal of marble in front of the fireplace, and the effect was present on the new wood as well. So that to me, logically, means it's not parafins, oil or silicone residue in the wood. Also, the orange peel is uniform over the entire 500+sqft of floor. Humidity, temperature, air flow etc are some others... I raised contamination (applicator, batch of finish, residual sawdust etc) but I suppose that I would agree that it would be extremely strange to have the effect cover the entire floor if it was contamination. He's not spraying. It's still possible but... likely its the application, or the product. It happened after the 3rd coat. Other floorers he consulted mentioned a couple of similar cases - after the 3rd coat. He was confident that there was enough time to cure between coats, but I'll insist that we leave larger gaps and wait. So maybe there's something off with the product or the conditions causing the product to behave like after 3 coats have been applied. Potentially. All to say though, he's sanding down and starting anew. We're disappointed of course, it's been stressful because every time we return home it's a mess. It's delayed the reno, and of course the conditions in the house with dust and fumes isn't ideal over such a long time. This seems like one of those things that is never sure as a cause...? Thanks again for your comments!