Q: My builder was required to resand and recoat my timber floors with a full gloss epoxy coating. This is his third attempt due to what I believe are fish eyes appearing. I told the builder the biggest mistake he made was painting over silicone that was used around the base of the kitchen joinery.
With his third attempt at recoating he removed the silicone, but fish eyes reappeared and reappeared in different locations. He has now contaminated the entire floor area and cannot get a contaminate free finish. Do you agree with my assessment, and if so, what do you recommend he do to get a quality finish?
A: I’ve never used an epoxy coating on a wooden floor and can’t even imagine the nightmare of trying to do so. This is not a usual product to apply to a floor.
I agree with your assessment regarding the silicone. Nothing is going to adhere to that.
Fish eye bubbles are generally caused by air flow across the floor while applying the coating and not from contamination. This causes far too rapid evaporation of the solvent before the finish has even settled down. All windows and doors need to be closed initially.
Webmaster’s note: This reminds me of a question we got where the home owner had accidentally contaminated the floor job with over spray from the cleaners they used on the cabinets. This also involved fish eyes.
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