Any Wood Floor Experts out there?

[durallymax]

We remodeled the majority of our first house this summer and with that we redid the original 80-100 year old floors in it. I ended up having an Amish guy do it. He was much cheaper than the other places but still had the latest and greatest tools and dust collection systems. I was pretty surprised seeing the Festool's and other high quality stuff. He knew his stuff and was very anal about the whole process. He used 1 coat of Bora sealer and 2 coats of Bora Heavy traffic finish.

The issues I think were the floor itself. It's ancient and its Douglas Fir. "poor mans wood" many called it I guess. It looks neat but it soaked up all of the stains over the years. It had cat piss stained carpet on it when we bought the house, underneath that was some sort of left over glue resin from a floor before the carpet and under that was layers of other finishes on the floor. He went through quite a few belts and pads before he was able to get it sanded down to the bare wood. There were a few stains that were prominant but we expected that and were just going to put rugs over them anyways. He advised against any kind of staining as he felt the floor would look very uneven and the bad spots more highlighted.

When it was drying there were a couple spots that didnt want to take the finish as readily as the rest. He said he had it happen on a couple other houses and was very concerned but when he talked to the owners later they said it turned out great. Keep in mind though he himself never was able to go back and see them as it's expensive to hire a driver just to go see it.


Some of the spots on ours dried okay, others dried with a hazy look to them. It seems that near the heavily stained spots in the wood was where this was most prominant.

The big issue though is the cracks. Right after he was finished it looked beautiful, now the cracks are drying and showing through. Some of them you can now feel but the most aggravating part is how they hold dirt and just look bad. I was going to try to get ahold of him to ask for his insight on it, but figured I'd see if anyone else had some ideas on what to do with the cracks. Am I stuck with them or can I fill them? I have heard puttys and other fillers don't work due to the constant flexing of the wood throughout the year, I saw some people using a flexible caulk that they said had been working good but no long term opinions on that either.

I'd have no issues rebuffing the floor and adding another coat of sealer but would prefer to not have to completely start over with sanding.

Ill get some picks up when I get back there in a few minutes.

Thanks.

 

[durallymax]

Heres some pictures.

 

[paint94979]

Yes that definitely needed to have been filed prior to staining it... Sorry to see that. Usually the floor is sanded down to bare wood and then all cracks and divots are filled generously and then sanded, then stained, then sealed, buffed, finished, buffed and then finished. Sometimes floors especially older floors need a final buff.

 

[Whitetail Addict]

I agree with what Nick is saying. The only problem with filling them with putty is the wood can and will darken with sun exposure. Some species are far worse than others, Cherry for example.

What we did on cracks in wood floors is to fill the cracks with the finish. Pour it into the cracks and sand it before applying the final coats.

 

[DBUSHLB7]

I am a custom hardwood floor guy by trade. I install, sand, and refinish custom hardwood floors every day. Glad you chose a craftsman commited to using the best as far as Dust containment and durable environmentally friendly low VOC finishes. Bona is a Swedish owned company and they make the best floor finishes hands down.

Here is something you seem to already understand. Wood is hygroscopic and will naturally react to changes in its environment. Relative humidity and temperature are key. The NWFA reccomends homes maintain a minimum of 30% RH indoors for your wood floors sake. In the summer months I can only assume your cracks get smaller as the wood swells and takes on moisture? Most floors do. If you live in a climate with high humidity you do NOT want to fill those cracks. You are correct, latex wood fillers have a tendency to shrink themselves and are not a long term solution to your issue. If cracks were to be filled during a wintertime refinish procedure, that filler is likely to push out once the humid summer comes. Sadly the root of your problem as far as the cracks go lies in the original acclimation of the flooring (improperly done) in your case. Wood flooring must reside in a home to acclimate prior to its initial installation. This allows the cells in the wood to come to an equilibrium if you will with its environment. The uninstalled wood reacts to its environment (expands if RH is high/shrinks if RH is low) and this reaction needs to take place prior to install. 100 years ago these guys didn't know these things or much care. An improperly acclimated floor will be problematic as far as seasonal expansion/contraction the rest of its life. Hardwood flooring nowadays is kiln dried after milling to help but in transit/storage/non climate controlled warehousing it takes on some moisture. Hope that helps explain your problem. Best suggestion is to add as much humidity to your indoor air as possible. FWIW all wood floors will have some slight seasonal expansion/contraction. If the crack is wider than or can fit a credit card, it's out of the realm of normal seasonal change. Also some wood species are more dimensionally stable than others, meaning some react worse than others to changes in RH.

Pet stains are horrible. Some sand out and some don't. I can't tell if that pic is indicitive of a urine stain but urine stains don't usually lead to adhesion issues. Sometimes we San old floors that will wick up oils after the initial sand 40-60 grit. If we encounter these situations we usually will reccomend an oil based sealer and urethane as it has a higher chance of good adhesion. Water based products may not be successful in these cases, just depends on what has contaminated those spots. Sounds like the sander may have not completely removed all the old finish or varnish or paste wax. God knows what they used back then. I'd have to see it in person to tell.

 

[DBUSHLB7]

If you can scratch off the finish with a .25 cent coin held vertical, the finish did not bond and you had better call Amish Meister back. If adhesion is just problematic in that spot, I wouldn't so much blame him. Old floors are soaked with ungodly products over and over. Once the surface of bare wood is exposed these things want to rise to the surface and dry. It takes a trained eye to spot. The guys who posted before me are somewhat correct. In a traditional process floors are trowel filled with latex wood fillers. It's not always a good choice to do so though as explained in the previous post. There are also stronger fillers (Glitsa or Precision wood flour cement) but these are for PERMANENTLY gapped floors.

The Amish man is correct about staining Doug Fir. It does not stain easily. Don't confuse this. It CAN be stained successfully just requires more effort and better technique to do so.
Also wood conditioners help by sealing off soft grain first. Then the soft grain won't take the stain so much darker than the hard grain. If you have any other questions please PM me is be happy to help you further on this. Wood floors are my specialty, it's what I do.

 

[DBUSHLB7]

If you decide to buff and recoat, make sure to buff out the bubbles he left. 220 grit screen or in between coat strips on a 3M maroon pad work well. The best for intercoat abrasion however are Norton Sand Dollars. They will leave NO scratch pattern visible in the new coat of floor finish. On and request Traffic HD by Bona. It has been formulated to outperform Traffic in durability, has a revised isocyanide catlyst, has improved flow and leveling, and has a lower VOC. oh and it cures faster!

 

[DBUSHLB7]

I agree with what Nick is saying. The only problem with filling them with putty is the wood can and will darken with sun exposure. Some species are far worse than others, Cherry for example.

What we did on cracks in wood floors is to fill the cracks with the finish. Pour it into the cracks and sand it before applying the final coats.

You are correct about Cherry, it is more UV sensitive than other species, however he has a water based finished floor. The Bona finish he has has UV inhibitors that will mostly negate this effect and if anything lead to a sun bleaching effect. That effect though is only in areas of EXTREME an prolonged direct sunlight exposure. Oil based products will accelerate the suns reaction and WILL most def darken with an ambered effect.

You DO NOT want to pour finish down the cracks. You will glue the boards where they sit and they will not have the room they need to expand/contract. Not to mention it would be out gassing for some time. The solvents underneath could "cloud" the appearance of the final coat. Don't mean to be rude but that is a horrible suggestion.

 

[durallymax]

Thanks for the replies.

I don't claim to know much about wood and quite frankly hated dealing with it until I bought this house. Still hate dealing with it, but got into it a little bit when doing the trim. Once I got better at it I didn't mind it but it still pisses me off. I'd much rather grind, heat and weld to form something that worry about how picky wood is.

I did research a lot though, and found Bona to be a very good brand. I'm not much for the whole "Made In USA" hype myself, and really like Euro stuff. So to see an Amish guy with German tools and Swedish finish, I liked haha. From reading through your posts it doesn't sound like it was really his fault in any way which I didn't really suspect either. He seemed to have a lot of knowledge on it. He builds cabinets during the week and does floors on the weekends as a side job. Cabinet making may describe his attention to detail. Him his wife a kid did all of the work. Their driver helped out some too. I didn't quite have all of the carpet staples out but he told me to not worry about it because he needed something for the boy to do. He quotes the jobs over the phone without looking and sticks to his price. He said he went through way more sanding belts/pads than he normally does but he wouldn't let me give him a little extra. He did the entire 350sqft ish, with all of the sanding, sealer, and two coats of finish for just over 1k. That included all of the extra douglas fir he bought to patch in an 8x8 corner in the room that was missing it. He also built all of the transistions to the various other floors as well. He did the sanding and sealer the first weekend and the two coats of finish the next weekend. Buffed and put the first one on early on, then gave him a tour of the farm, he gave me some tips on some of my trim, then he did the 2nd coat that afternoon.

IIRC it was actually the Traffic HD from Bora that he used. I could be wrong though. It does not scratch off and aside from a couple odd spots, the issues with the finish seem to be near stains.


He said that he hadn't had much success getting out old stains at other places either, but he said in his personal house we was bound and determined he was going to get them out. He said he tried everything, but you just have to live with them in the end. I don't mind them, its an old floor, I didn't expect much. Its better than carpet or a new wood floor.

Humidity is all we know in WI, although I don't know what it is inside the house during those months. I don't run a humidifier in the winter months.

Overall I like the way it looks, just wish I didn't have to live with the cracks haha. Some people like the perfect looks, I like the character this floor has with the light and dark variations. I also noticed everything is done in single length pieces. Its an odd size too by todays standards so when we patched the corner, he just did it at a 45* angle and put a border around it to make it look intentionally different. Turned out nice.

 

[TheBac]

You should see the 150 y/o pine floors in our house.

 

[durallymax]

:nopic:

You should see the 150 y/o pine floors in our house.

:nopic:

 

[DBUSHLB7]

Floors look good. Price was s'more than fair. FYI contractor price oh Traffic HD (green cap BTW) is around 117 a gallon!

Glad to see the pics of the floors and that he matched the species as well as grain. (Amateurs would not have noticed that floor is all vertical grain). He matched it as well as could be done. Another tip FWIW... Only use a PH neutral cleaner ie: Bona Hardwood floor cleaner. It will not leave dulling residues or in any way interfere with future recoat ing procedures. Water/vinegar mixture is NOT a good option for you. It's acidity works to remove unwanted material however breaks down the finish and is too harsh. Bona cleaner available @ Lowes, Depot, Bed bath and Beyond, Target etc. Murphy's oil soap and mop n glo are also bad choices. Hope I've helped you. I saw your thread and got excited to share what I know as most people are not interested in floors haha. If you need any work in the future I know a few Bona certified contractors in WI that are top notch.

 

[durallymax]

Floors look good. Price was s'more than fair. FYI contractor price oh Traffic HD (green cap BTW) is around 117 a gallon!

Glad to see the pics of the floors and that he matched the species as well as grain. (Amateurs would not have noticed that floor is all vertical grain). He matched it as well as could be done. Another tip FWIW... Only use a PH neutral cleaner ie: Bona Hardwood floor cleaner. It will not leave dulling residues or in any way interfere with future recoat ing procedures. Water/vinegar mixture is NOT a good option for you. It's acidity works to remove unwanted material however breaks down the finish and is too harsh. Bona cleaner available @ Lowes, Depot, Bed bath and Beyond, Target etc. Murphy's oil soap and mop n glo are also bad choices. Hope I've helped you. I saw your thread and got excited to share what I know as most people are not interested in floors haha. If you need any work in the future I know a few Bona certified contractors in WI that are top notch.

Alrighty thanks. I'm way ahead of you on the cleaner. Use their nice microfiber mop with the floor cleaner jug on it.

Green cap sounds right. I remembered it being over $100, he was saving the caps for a rebate I remember as well. I looked up the regular traffic and it shows a red cap. Don't know if that is just recent but I definitely know it was not that color.

His price included all of the supplies. Another local place quoted $1,500 without patching or building any transitions, and I would have to have it cleaned up perfectly before they started. I am pretty sure they would've been pissed or wanted more money if they would've had to spend so much extra time and use so many more pads to get the stuff off.


The stuff he matched I think he ordered before he even saw the floor, i just told him how old it was and the species. The company that looked at it before told me what species it was. I am thinking either the Amish guy lucked out or he had an idea of what he was getting into. He didn't personally select the wood though either as his supplier is nowhere near him. Although I am sure he was able to communicate what was needed. He said finding good douglas fir is tough since nobody uses it anymore.

He was fun to watch work, quick but anal. You could tell he wasn't just going through the motions. He spent a lot of time on problem areas. You could really tell how anal he was because in the end he still didn't think it was good enough and was pissed he couldn't make make it any better. I never heard him swear the entire time but I think that may have been what he was saying when he would switch to talking dutch haha. No time for chit chat either he's stop to show you a little something, ask about the farm, then back to work. I think I saw him drink a can of mountain dew one day and one water bottle the next day in 100* weather, I had the house set to 80 though since we weren't living there.


Even though I think you basically confirmed what I was thinking, it was a reassuring feeling getting another opinion on the job done and knowing I got a good product and good deal.

 

[Whitetail Addict]

DBush, I said cracks, not splices. I was talking about areas where the wood had checked.

 

[DBUSHLB7]

We got over 500$ in rebate cash for saving those green caps lol and yes regular Traffic has a red cap. Don't hold it against the other companies that were adamant about getting all the carpet pad staples up. Just one can ruin the drum on a 6k dollar floor sander and it ain't cheap to have a pro floor sander on his hands and knees with a halogen light cast over the floor looking lol. Truthfully being a hardwood floor guy isn't easy, be glad you got a picky guy. The sad majority of floor finishers are hacks and only interested in their next cigarette break. The Amish are great with wood. One BIG hardwood flooring manufacturer in Pennsylvania (Homerwood) hires the Amish to scrape/distress each board in one of their product lines. The hand scraped trend is big right now in hardwood flooring. Other manufacturers use machines and planers with specially shaped knives while Homerwood goes the authentic route. Each Amish person actually stamps his name on the back of each piece! Needless to say the product is horribly expensive. Around 9 bucks a foot!

 

[durallymax]

I guess I should post a before picture haha.

This is the picture the realtor had before we bought the house since I forgot to take before pictures. The nasty carpet through the entire house was ripped out as was the ugly linoleum. The only floor we left was an okay tile floor in the upstairs bathroom.

The downstairs was all still lath/plaster. They had the false ceiling installed to hide the cracking plaster and let them just throw the wiring up there. The walls were covered with wood panelin painted white to hide the cracked plaster and cheap wiring job. We completely gutted the downstairs. It had very little insulation in it, but it was actually built very tight and was suprisingly warm and draft free during the winter months when we ripped it apart. Reinsulated it and drywalled everything. Now we have the full 9' ceilings (well 8'10"). Redid the floors obviously as well. Also had to jack up the walkway you see in this picture as the 2nd floor joists were run lengthwise which put the upstairs loadbearing walls weight all down onto one joist. They took it up just under 2" and put in a microlam. We also made it a little bit larger and I chose to not put trim back around it. We did the same at the entry to the kitchen as it was just a small 30" opening. We knocked it out to 6' and will put a breakfast bar there someday.

The reason I didn't trim around the openings again was due to the fact we were not keeping the rustic look of the house. My neighbors houses are both beautiful old houses with elegant trim everywhere. This house just didn't have any of that. It was boring, so we went for more of a modernish look. Not too modern that we had pastel colors and white trim, but not old school either. I just plan to sell this house in a few years so I didn't want it too personalized.

There was some other rearranging of the floorplans and such I could elaborate on further if you want, but for this room thats about it.

Basically did everything but the floors, drywall and beams by myself. Can't say I have much interest in painting an entire house in 90-100* weather again (HVAC system wasn't cleaned out yet, we were waiting to be done making dust). I will say the paint dried fast though. The worst part was in the staircase where it was 2 stories, no air moving and a halogen spotlight on me.

There were a lot of things in this house that made me scratch me head with the layout of it. 8'10 ceilings downstairs but only 6'10 upstairs. would've helped if they would've vaulted them partially.

Anyways here's the pic of that room.

 

[durallymax]

We got over 500$ in rebate cash for saving those green caps lol and yes regular Traffic has a red cap. Don't hold it against the other companies that were adamant about getting all the carpet pad staples up. Just one can ruin the drum on a 6k dollar floor sander and it ain't cheap to have a pro floor sander on his hands and knees with a halogen light cast over the floor looking lol. Truthfully being a hardwood floor guy isn't easy, be glad you got a picky guy. The sad majority of floor finishers are hacks and only interested in their next cigarette break. The Amish are great with wood. One BIG hardwood flooring manufacturer in Pennsylvania (Homerwood) hires the Amish to scrape/distress each board in one of their product lines. The hand scraped trend is big right now in hardwood flooring. Other manufacturers use machines and planers with specially shaped knives while Homerwood goes the authentic route. Each Amish person actually stamps his name on the back of each piece! Needless to say the product is horribly expensive. Around 9 bucks a foot!

I am not holding it against them at all. I know how bad they can mess things up. That company just didn't really seem like they wanted to deal with the floor anyways though and they wanted nothing to do with doing that corner, they suggested tile. My neighbor had his done by them a few years back and they are not wearing well at all and need to be refinished. I felt bad I didn't have them out in time for the Amish guy and was dead set on getting them out while he worked on other sections, but he wanted something for his kid to do. His 10 year old kid was smarter and worked harder than many of the kids I graduated with.

He said he does a lot of distressed look floors. That's more of his specialty and why he gets called in. He was working on a 5,000 sq one just before he came and did my floor. He asked if the stains and blemishes bothered me and I said no. He laughed and said most people pay him extra for that look.

 

[DBUSHLB7]

Yikes! Shag! Boy I've torn out worse ill say that. One house where old people lived in particular. Their cats pissed everywhere at will. I had to wear a NIOSH respirator to even go in. I tore the first piece out and started to roll it up only to feel my hand get wet from fresh cat piss. I almost threw up.

 

[DBUSHLB7]

I am not holding it against them at all. I know how bad they can mess things up. That company just didn't really seem like they wanted to deal with the floor anyways though and they wanted nothing to do with doing that corner, they suggested tile. My neighbor had his done by them a few years back and they are not wearing well at all and need to be refinished. I felt bad I didn't have them out in time for the Amish guy and was dead set on getting them out while he worked on other sections, but he wanted something for his kid to do. His 10 year old kid was smarter and worked harder than many of the kids I graduated with.

He said he does a lot of distressed look floors. That's more of his specialty and why he gets called in. He was working on a 5,000 sq one just before he came and did my floor. He asked if the stains and blemishes bothered me and I said no. He laughed and said most people pay him extra for that look.

Funny story and again glad he did you right! That 10 year old kid was me a long time ago. Made me smile actually to read your post. I work for my family's business and have been helping on wood floors since original Nintendo games lol.

 

[arneson]

Dbushlb7, you sound like a guy i want to do my basement in my house when i finish it and get ready for floors. I Just built a new house. Do u travel? Hahahaha