Q: A floor contractor sanded our oak floors to the bare wood and finished them, leaving a lot of small grit and hairs under the finish, so he redid the floor, and it looked even worse after. On the third try his job satisfied us. He used an oil coat of some type and a water based poly for the final coat. I am not sure what his exact process was. However, after three months the finish started to blister, mostly starting in the cracks between the planks.
This is happening throughout a very large area in several places. What would be the correct way to fix this problem? Our General Contractor wants to have it buffed and one coat applied. Does this make sense?
A: I suspect the first coat he applied went between the boards and didn’t dry. Is this blistering or tiny beads of polyurethane? If the latter, this condition is known as poly beads or poly balls. You may have to keep scraping it off until it finally dries and stops.
If it is actual blistering, you likely have a reaction between the incompatible solvent in the initial coat (mineral spirits) and the water borne poly. In that case you may have to sand yet again. A clean environment and clean finishes are imperative to provide a good looking floor.
Related Questions
Swedish finish smell two months laterQ: I have a Swedish finished hardwood floor. It's been almost two months since it was finished, but it still smells if we close the windows. It's not so bad that the Swedish finish smell is burning ours eyes or throat. The product used to finish is Berger Seidle (or Gerber…
Finish peeling after one and a half monthsOur house is only new-one and a half years. We just had the top coat of our wood floors sanded and refinished. After only one and a half months the floors are starting to peel. What could be causing this and how do we fix it?
Poly wore off after 6 monthsWe removed old linoleum and found very nice pine flooring underneath. We had it sanded, stained and polyurethaned. It was beautiful-- for about 6 months. All the stain has worn off. Now it's an ugly, grey, worn floor. We were told that this was to be expected with a soft…
Flashing/streaking in finishWhen my new bar was installed, the installer damaged our new cedar floor. The GC used Scotch Brite to finely sand off the problem. When it was time to put the final coating over the damaged area he got what he described as "flashing" (streaking). How can this be fixed?
Finish repelled in spotsQ: I had my hardwood sanded and refinished and high-gloss put on. It had little round spots all over it that the polyurethane did not cover. So I had it buffed and recoated with the polyurethane and still the spots are popping up everywhere, where the polyurethane did not stick.…