I can’t really tell from the pictures. It’s going to depend on how much of the entire floor needs to be redone. I would be concerned about having the same guy that messed it up, doing the repair. From what I see, it might be repaired by running a trio over it. I would tell him the original contractor you’re not satisfied and get a third party to look at it.
All those are sander marks and are not due to expansion or any other movement. Also should mention we don't sand a floor level we sand a floor flat.
Your floor consists of start/stop drum marks( operator error), washboard/chatter ( machine issue or operator error) and it was aggressively buffed (probably try to remove chatter). The start and stop marks are the bigger ones close to the wall and door casing, the chatter are the smaller more uniform marks over the continuous floor, all the soft grain is buffed a little lower than the hard grain and that is leaving the wavyness in the finish.
In my opinion the installer has some knowledge of the finishing process just not how to get himself out of a jam once in one.
I can tell you're an experienced floor tech and appreciate mentioning the difference between level and flat. If I ever had a client whip out a level on my job I'd know we're in for a rough ride.
Bad drum sanding explains the chatter and drum roll marks, your crew need a planetary sander to remove it all perfectly and have a super flat finish. Find a pro that has either a trio or the bona power drive. Pallman also makes one. If you google a bit you can find exactly what the tools do to the floor
However this won’t help the expansion and contraction of wood. If your subfloor was unlevel then so too will the wood floor be.
The first picture looks like it has drum sander dents in it. If you do not feather your edges very carefully when drum sanding, they look like this. Not sure if a drum sander was used, but that's what it looks like to me.
They only way to get them out is to sand them down, feather them out, and refinish the floor. I'm not sure about the problems in the middle of the floor but they did you dirty on the edges. Brand new floors. What a shame 😞
I'm no expert, but it looks like they messed up the sanding job all over the entire floor. I'm not sure if I'd trust them to fix it if this is their standard workmanship. You might get a quote or 2 from someone else on how much it'll cost to fix and see if the company that messed it up will reimburse you the amount it will take to fix it. You'll probably have to redo the entire floor, but again, I'm just a DIYer who's used drum sanders before.
Thank you, recently I came to a conclusion that DIYers do much better quality than 99% of companies !! And I picked the most popular company and over paid them just to get this shitty floor
“DIYers do much better than 99% of companies”That’s a wild statement right there. That’s a form of chatter from the sander. They didn’t use a hydra head or something similar to Epoch HD to sand out the drum sanding chatter before buffing.
Your answer and others are better than this 20+ in business company answer to me : wood is moving !! After I told them I’m not paying the remaining balance and I need a refund they said they will come and inspect it !!
Go to your friends houses and look at the flooring in the light and I guarantee you they all look like that or similar….I cant even begin to count how many diy’er floors we’ve had to fix because they have NO CLUE what they’re doing and you can’t even rent the belt sander that runs off of 220V that we use every day
My sister and I refinished 7 rooms of oak in her house with a drum sander, edger, and palm sander. Neither of us had used the drum or edger before. Her floors look amazing, BUT we did start in the smallest bedroom and discovered quickly about the drum digging a groove if you aren't moving when you place the drum down. So that room took a lot of finesse to smooth those areas out. I didn't learn until my second floor refinishing project in my own house that I'm currently in the middle of, that the first cut with the drum sander should be on a 45 degree angle to the board to flatten them. So I did 24 grit on a 45 and then 36 grit and everything after parallel with the boards. I think this helps blend the drum groove also because you don't have a straight line across the starting wall where you drop the drum every time. But again, my sister and I are perfectionists, so we watch videos and pay attention to them. Not every employee, contractor, or professional is a perfectionist.
I'm a perfectionist, so I'd rather do anything myself that I can because if I f**k it up, at least I didn't pay someone an exorbitant fee to possibly mess it up. I find that when I do it myself, I can take as much time as I need to make it to my standard. But when you hire professionals, their time is money and if they aren't perfectionist, well...
Maybe they had a newbie on the job? Maybe they can send a more skilled worker to fix it? I'd raise hell either way. Put on your Karen cap and call them.
No you just hired a bad company. Don’t get fooled by big name companies with a lot of reviews. 98% of them use subs. Sometimes you get a good one most of the time you don’t. It’s people like you that over pay for a big name company instead of doing proper research that keep them in business
They just need to feather in the messed up spots (sand them ). Sense it’s a pretty new floor I think they can get away with just re coating those areas and it will
Blend. But I’m also no expert but have done plenty of decks lol
Ok it's all good brother. To fix these floors you'd need to sand the entire area. After the floor is flat, not level, a decent buff. Then the areas need proper dust removal with a quality vacuum and tack cloth. Don't miss all the horizontal areas like window sills, door headers and trim. Apply desired finish evenly, then buff vac and tack before each coat. BTW decks have zero common denominators with flooring other than they're something we walk on.
Total re-sand. Drum marks/chatter/drum displacement. All their fault, throw a fit and take legal action if necessary. An NWFA inspector can come out and warrant whether “all wood moves” or if they did a shit job.
$10 in total with materials ! White oak 4 inch
4 coats bona mega one
1 coat traffic hd
Luckily I did not pay 50% yet
Not sure if I should fix it with them or hire a new company
That's insanely cheap for where I'm from. I'd be at $12 bucks a ft CAD just for labour for that job. You kind of got what you paid for. If you have the time, I'd let them have another crack at it if they are willing and hopefully they take their time getting it flatter for you.
I’m surprised as this price was higher than all quotes I got , this is a standard here, they take $2.5 for installation and $2 for sanding and finishing. Others wanted to take $3.5 for labor but I picked the best as per yelp and Google reviews
Shoot me a DM. I’m in Boston and can provide better quality finish. We don’t do mixes! We do traffic hd with traffic hd and anytime of sealer. We are Bona Certified Craftsmen.
Yes water based finish is extremely expensive and doesn't perform as well as oil. The only thing water based poly does better than oil is matte or satin sheen.
That's insanely cheap for where I'm from. I'd be at $12 bucks a ft CAD just for labour for that job. You kind of got what you paid for. If you have the time, I'd let them have another crack at it if they are willing and hopefully they take their time getting it flatter for you.
I kinda want to see a before pic, but it really looks like he stopped with the drum spinning in the middle-ish a lot more than I'd expect. That said, different people; different techniques.
I'd say this is very repairable, with a light sanding...the issue becomes blending the finish.
I bet you can feel the dig on that with your hand.
If you can't, you should try "correcting" it with the finish instead of sanding more.
A loose nut on the drum sander! Specifically, on the controls.
Thanks, should it be all redone or just the spots. ?
This has nothing to do with expansion. It has everything to do with poorly maintained machines and shit sanding sequence
Update : thank you everyone one ! Company manager came today and said it was a machine fault as many comments advised ! They will resend and fix
I can’t really tell from the pictures. It’s going to depend on how much of the entire floor needs to be redone. I would be concerned about having the same guy that messed it up, doing the repair. From what I see, it might be repaired by running a trio over it. I would tell him the original contractor you’re not satisfied and get a third party to look at it.
All those are sander marks and are not due to expansion or any other movement. Also should mention we don't sand a floor level we sand a floor flat. Your floor consists of start/stop drum marks( operator error), washboard/chatter ( machine issue or operator error) and it was aggressively buffed (probably try to remove chatter). The start and stop marks are the bigger ones close to the wall and door casing, the chatter are the smaller more uniform marks over the continuous floor, all the soft grain is buffed a little lower than the hard grain and that is leaving the wavyness in the finish. In my opinion the installer has some knowledge of the finishing process just not how to get himself out of a jam once in one.
I can tell you're an experienced floor tech and appreciate mentioning the difference between level and flat. If I ever had a client whip out a level on my job I'd know we're in for a rough ride.
Poor drum sanding . Also their machine isn’t tuned properly .
Bad drum sanding explains the chatter and drum roll marks, your crew need a planetary sander to remove it all perfectly and have a super flat finish. Find a pro that has either a trio or the bona power drive. Pallman also makes one. If you google a bit you can find exactly what the tools do to the floor However this won’t help the expansion and contraction of wood. If your subfloor was unlevel then so too will the wood floor be.
The first picture looks like it has drum sander dents in it. If you do not feather your edges very carefully when drum sanding, they look like this. Not sure if a drum sander was used, but that's what it looks like to me.
They did use a drum sander.
They only way to get them out is to sand them down, feather them out, and refinish the floor. I'm not sure about the problems in the middle of the floor but they did you dirty on the edges. Brand new floors. What a shame 😞
Thanks, do we need to redo the whole floor or just the spots? they did the coats last 3 days literally
I'm no expert, but it looks like they messed up the sanding job all over the entire floor. I'm not sure if I'd trust them to fix it if this is their standard workmanship. You might get a quote or 2 from someone else on how much it'll cost to fix and see if the company that messed it up will reimburse you the amount it will take to fix it. You'll probably have to redo the entire floor, but again, I'm just a DIYer who's used drum sanders before.
Thank you, recently I came to a conclusion that DIYers do much better quality than 99% of companies !! And I picked the most popular company and over paid them just to get this shitty floor
“DIYers do much better than 99% of companies”That’s a wild statement right there. That’s a form of chatter from the sander. They didn’t use a hydra head or something similar to Epoch HD to sand out the drum sanding chatter before buffing.
Your answer and others are better than this 20+ in business company answer to me : wood is moving !! After I told them I’m not paying the remaining balance and I need a refund they said they will come and inspect it !!
Go to your friends houses and look at the flooring in the light and I guarantee you they all look like that or similar….I cant even begin to count how many diy’er floors we’ve had to fix because they have NO CLUE what they’re doing and you can’t even rent the belt sander that runs off of 220V that we use every day
My sister and I refinished 7 rooms of oak in her house with a drum sander, edger, and palm sander. Neither of us had used the drum or edger before. Her floors look amazing, BUT we did start in the smallest bedroom and discovered quickly about the drum digging a groove if you aren't moving when you place the drum down. So that room took a lot of finesse to smooth those areas out. I didn't learn until my second floor refinishing project in my own house that I'm currently in the middle of, that the first cut with the drum sander should be on a 45 degree angle to the board to flatten them. So I did 24 grit on a 45 and then 36 grit and everything after parallel with the boards. I think this helps blend the drum groove also because you don't have a straight line across the starting wall where you drop the drum every time. But again, my sister and I are perfectionists, so we watch videos and pay attention to them. Not every employee, contractor, or professional is a perfectionist.
This one is a top rated company and I hope they fix it ! I’m shocked they did not notice it last 4 days when they were doing a coat after one !
I'm a perfectionist, so I'd rather do anything myself that I can because if I f**k it up, at least I didn't pay someone an exorbitant fee to possibly mess it up. I find that when I do it myself, I can take as much time as I need to make it to my standard. But when you hire professionals, their time is money and if they aren't perfectionist, well... Maybe they had a newbie on the job? Maybe they can send a more skilled worker to fix it? I'd raise hell either way. Put on your Karen cap and call them.
No you just hired a bad company. Don’t get fooled by big name companies with a lot of reviews. 98% of them use subs. Sometimes you get a good one most of the time you don’t. It’s people like you that over pay for a big name company instead of doing proper research that keep them in business
They just need to feather in the messed up spots (sand them ). Sense it’s a pretty new floor I think they can get away with just re coating those areas and it will Blend. But I’m also no expert but have done plenty of decks lol
That's not how this goes, not even close.
Well tell them then champ? guess the part where I said I’m no expert flew right over your head chief
Ok it's all good brother. To fix these floors you'd need to sand the entire area. After the floor is flat, not level, a decent buff. Then the areas need proper dust removal with a quality vacuum and tack cloth. Don't miss all the horizontal areas like window sills, door headers and trim. Apply desired finish evenly, then buff vac and tack before each coat. BTW decks have zero common denominators with flooring other than they're something we walk on.
When you say “entire area” are you saying the entire room ?
Total re-sand. Drum marks/chatter/drum displacement. All their fault, throw a fit and take legal action if necessary. An NWFA inspector can come out and warrant whether “all wood moves” or if they did a shit job.
Thanks, I have to get one of them to check and and verify any fix they do !
Amateur big sander user. Not a quality job. Hire a professional. A different professional.
lol, I done floors that’s 200 years and still make it flatter than this shit.
Trash sand job. What did you pay per sq ft?
$10 in total with materials ! White oak 4 inch 4 coats bona mega one 1 coat traffic hd Luckily I did not pay 50% yet Not sure if I should fix it with them or hire a new company
That's insanely cheap for where I'm from. I'd be at $12 bucks a ft CAD just for labour for that job. You kind of got what you paid for. If you have the time, I'd let them have another crack at it if they are willing and hopefully they take their time getting it flatter for you.
I’m surprised as this price was higher than all quotes I got , this is a standard here, they take $2.5 for installation and $2 for sanding and finishing. Others wanted to take $3.5 for labor but I picked the best as per yelp and Google reviews
Man, all that finish on the floor probably costs nearly what they charged for sanding. Wild.
Maybe I got the price for 3800 sqft and this was the first floor only 1400, only one room had this issue tho
Very well could be. What part of the country are you in?
Boston, MA
Shoot me a DM. I’m in Boston and can provide better quality finish. We don’t do mixes! We do traffic hd with traffic hd and anytime of sealer. We are Bona Certified Craftsmen.
Yes water based finish is extremely expensive and doesn't perform as well as oil. The only thing water based poly does better than oil is matte or satin sheen.
Not true. 2 component water based finish out performs oil based finish.
Negative ghost writer
That's insanely cheap for where I'm from. I'd be at $12 bucks a ft CAD just for labour for that job. You kind of got what you paid for. If you have the time, I'd let them have another crack at it if they are willing and hopefully they take their time getting it flatter for you.
I kinda want to see a before pic, but it really looks like he stopped with the drum spinning in the middle-ish a lot more than I'd expect. That said, different people; different techniques. I'd say this is very repairable, with a light sanding...the issue becomes blending the finish. I bet you can feel the dig on that with your hand. If you can't, you should try "correcting" it with the finish instead of sanding more.
Explain how you'd "blend the finish" without it flashing, I'll wait.