WoodFlooringGuy.com

Q: Due to a hardwood refinishing job w/ improper preparation my entire home has polyurethane pooled in all the heat vents. What are the health concerns and how do I remove it? A: There shouldn’t be any health concerns. Once the finish is hardened the mineral spirit solvent has left the film. I would probably [...]

Q: My question is related to your posting on “popping” or “cracking” sounds in wood floor. In my 2nd fl bedroom I recently replaced the old carpet to hardwood floor (not the pre-finished kind). We have, several times, been awoken by the loud popping sounds from the wood floor around 2-4 AM. What is the [...]

Q: Can previously wet underlayment cause cupping in newly installed wood flooring? A: Yes, if it hasn’t thoroughly dried before installing the new floor.

Q: Before applying finish, I want to know whether my fir floors have been properly sanded. There are numerous areas of darker color, for example, a 3-inch band of darker wood parallel to the wall and offset by about 6 inches. It seems like this strip simply was not sanded as much as it should [...]

Q: I inspected a job today where the oil poly was pushing up through the seams. The sanding was done in Feb., there was heat in the house. It was a sand, sealer and two coats of oil semi gloss. No stain? I am going back in August to resand, this time using waterborne product. [...]

Please don’t laugh too hard when I tell you that I applied peanut butter to my kitchen floor. This had worked beautifully on a linoleum kitchen floor years ago when I accidentally dropped some peanut butter on it. It restored the colour that had been ruined by my son spilling turpentine on it. With this information, the contractor did not want to touch my floor.

Q: I bought some “no warranty” wood from a popular wood flooring store. It was advertised as damaged w/ split, knots, damaged grooves and burns. I bought 15% extra for waste. I’ve noticed that some pieces have obvious termite damage. Should I be concerned? Is there a possibility that some of that wood may still [...]

Q: We have laid an oak hardwood in our living room. We notice some areas with a little residue, where it looks like something has burrowed in it. What would be causing this and can we fix it? A: Something burrowed into your floor? Does it look like someone drilled a perfectly round hole? Post [...]

Q: Problem- Floors have cracked, gapped, and some planks slightly cupped. Floor Description: 3/4″ Thick, 5″ wide new poplar floors, installed fall/2008. Finish: A water-based polyurethane finish was applied to unfinished boards after installation. There is a full size, unheated basement below the floors. Humidity readings we started taking in late winter of 2009 have [...]

Q: What is the fastest, cheapest way to make hardwood floors with tons of stains and damage look nice? My husband and I are renting our house and want the floors to look nice, but don’t want to put too much money and time into refinishing floors in a house that doesn’t belong to us. [...]

Q: I recently moved home and had several floors sanded. Unfortunately, one room subsequently required some plasterwork. The plasterer was a dirty worker and the floor is now covered with plaster stains. Is there anything I can do to remove this? Or will we need to have the floor re-sanded? A: It can be irksome [...]

Q: We have a brand new home with hardwood flooring throughout. The builder installed the furnace in the attic. The condensation hose was faulty and water poured onto the hardwood flooring below. This resulted in a huge buckle/hump along one row of the hardwoods, smack in the middle of a room. How do we repair/flatten [...]

Q: I’ve got a new construction home in Dallas. My family room has solid oak flooring over slab. In one plank are small holes appearing over the past several months that are about the size of a medium sized nail head with what appears to be saw dust surrounding it. My guess is that I [...]

Q: I live in Southern California where the fires are. Last week while having the fascia board and under-eaves painted, I discovered there are termites at several places in the fascia board and in the rafters. I had 2 different POCs inspect the house and they both concluded that the house has termite problem. The [...]

Q: The sticky pads we applied to the bottom of our furniture have come off and left a sticky residue on our hardwood floors. I have been unable to remove it. Is there anything other than hot water and elbow grease you can suggest to get the film off? A: Mineral spirits or polyurethane cleaner.

Q: When I top-nailed the prefinished wood floors, I used colored wood putty to fill the holes, but it left a residue around the application spot. How can I remove the residue and not the putty, without compromising the prefinished floor? A: A bit of mineral spirits on a cloth and some elbow work should [...]

Q: A floor man corrected our buckled oak floor- just a small part. Now that part is uneven. What do we do? A: When a repair on wood flooring is done, it still needs to be sanded flat. Depending on the age of the existing floor, this may involve the entire floor and not just [...]

Q: There a lot of small dents in our hardwood floor. I was told that finger nail polish would fill it in and harden. What you think? A: Finger nail polish is lacquer based. Lacquer would eat into a polyurethane coating. Lacquer is also not a very good finish. I would definitely not try this.

Q: Our hardwood floors are wavy, and in some places have humps in them. We have lived in this house only 5 yrs. It was a new home and had no problems until last summer. I called and got advice and installed a dehumidifier in the crawl space. This thing runs all the time. Last [...]

Q: Our white oak wood floors have a green color coming to the surface. It is getting our carpets stained too, from the foot traffic from the wood floor to the carpet. How can we repair our wood floor? A: It sounds like tannin, but how or why it would be able to bleed through [...]