Posts Tagged ‘hardwood refinishing’
What lies beneath
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
This week I pulled the carpet from the house of my neighbors while they are on vacation and refinished the hardwood floors underneath. I am not certain but it looked like the carpets had been down for at least ten years. We have been their neighbors since 2005 and I know they are from at least that year. I took a few pictures to illustrate what was beneath the carpet.
The real consideration is that this stuff is basically degraded carpet pad mixed with ten years of dirt that the vacuum left behind. As you step on the carpet and compress it, this stuff puffs through the carpet in a very fine airborne dust. You don’t really see it, but you’re breathing it for sure. So the next time you wonder why you have allergies, just pull up your carpet and look at what is below the pad.
Tags: hardwood refinishing, indoor air quality
Posted in Floor Finishing | No Comments »
Dustless refinishing myths
Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
Whether people like it or not I’m a pretty straight shooter when it comes to evaluating products and procedures in the industry. It’s my job to provide the best to my customers. Better products are synonymous with better service. Marketing gimmicks are pretty useless in my eyes.
Last week we refinished a floor for a customer who had been the victim of a well-marketed franchise. Specifically they swore up and down that the job would be done on time and would be dustless. The opposite was true when they returned from their vacation in Mexico. There was apparently enough dust from the sanding that they dust traveled through a closed door and covered everything in one of their closets. We own a “dustless” vacuum and we found that our Lagler sanders actually do a better job at collection than adding a vacuum can do. Our dustless system has now been relinquished to the duty of dust vacuum in the shop when we use planers and saws. A big part of why “dustless” vacuums do very little is that good floor sanding machines capture dust and send it back to collection at a rate that exceeds the vacuum capacity of every “dustless” vacuum we’ve used. We have used “dustless” machines by Bona (including the trailer mounted vacuum), Clark, and Oneida and found that the extra setup time and equipment yielded minimal benefit in comparison to our fleet of sanding machines by Lagler.
I took this photo really quickly while in traffic. The advertising promises 99% dust free. How exactly do you measure that? This phrase allows 1% of the dust to escape into your house. If you have two trash bags of dust from an average sanding job that weigh approximately 100lbs total, then that is one pound of dust that is allowable. Dust is not dense. 1 lb of dust would occupy roughly one large gallon Ziploc bag. What if I threw that in front of a box fan and told you it was acceptable? Remember, the refinish is still 99% dustless according to the marketing. Yes, this is where the homeowners who seek out information keep reading. The rest will click away and say that I’m a cynic.
It’s not my duty to make gimmicks and sales pitches as an NWFA certified professional. I have a duty to honor what I say. So here’s my take on the hardwood floor refinishing that we do: When we leave your house will be clean. Whatever methods we use to end up at a clean house is our decision but the end result should be a clean house. Hire your contractor based on the quality of their craftsmanship, knowledge, and enthusiasm. Gimmicks lack value and you may end up wasting time hiring companies with a slick salesman who has never sanded or installed a floor and simply passes work orders to the first guy who is available who owns a sander.
Tags: hardwood refinishing
Posted in Contractor Perspectives | No Comments »
Adding hardwood to an existing hardwood floor
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
Here is a video of our latest project. We added hardwood flooring to an existing floor by lacing everything in and sanding and finishing the floor.
Tags: hardwood floor contractor, hardwood refinishing
Posted in Project Videos | No Comments »
Evaluating refinishing estimates
Sunday, December 11th, 2011
Tags: Hardwood floor durability, hardwood floor finish, hardwood refinishing
Posted in Project Videos | No Comments »
Cure time, dry time, when to move back home
Wednesday, October 26th, 2011
A frequent discussion I have during estimates is regarding when people can have their home back. When can they walk on the floor? When can they put back area rugs? I’ll dive into this as best as possible.
Cure time- A finish is technically cured when 100% of the solvents have left the coating. This is quite variable between the types of finishes. A general rule follows:
- Waterborne finishes-(7-10 days)
- Oil modified polyurethane- (30 days)
- Conversion varnish-(30-60 days)
- Allow 24 hours following the application of a final coat until you return and walk on the floor
- Allow one week until you put down area rugs.
- Replace the felt on your moving furniture and allow 2-3 days before using chairs that move or slide.
Tags: hardwood floor finish, hardwood refinishing, low-VOC hardwood floor finish, Swedish finish, waterbased finish
Posted in Floor Finishing | No Comments »
Fixing time’s impact
Friday, October 7th, 2011
We have been working on a floor in the Laurelhurst neighborhood and restoring it back to it’s original state. One issue we’ve noticed is that the time effects of the floor being ambered from finish for so long has created a dilemma. The original feature strip stood out in color and over time has faded to match the original flooring.
To fix this problem, we taped off the area and applied a tinted sealer to pronounce the color.
The impact is pretty amazing and should last for a long time until the next refinish when the color will need to be re-applied.
Tags: hardwood refinishing
Posted in Floor Projects | No Comments »
A world tour…All in the name of better a floor
Monday, August 1st, 2011
Recently I had the opportunity to visit Fraunzimmern, Germany for a Lagler PST (Professional Sanding Training) July 22-27th. Lagler is a company located in Fraunzimmern that makes the world’s best floor sanding machines. The factory is state of the art and Lagler has decided to extend their tradition of quality beyond manufacturing and train selected professionals on technique as well.
Only ten people were selected for the trip from the United States. The tour included one day of a factory tour/machine maintenance. State of the art machinery used in production enables Lagler to maintain a consistency of product far beyond all other manufacturers in the industry. Following the factory tour all professionals on the trip were trained on even the finest details regarding proper machine maintenance and operating specifications.
It is important to consider that reproducible quality and workmanship is most likely when machines are running optimally. The other component of producing quality floors resides within efficient and reproducible methods of sanding. Lagler has spent the last ten years in conjunction with various engineers validating their methods for producing floors that are flat and free of error. The students at the July training were all taught and judged on performance afterwards by competing teams.
Beyond the technical aspects of the trip I was really impressed by the dynamics of our group of contractors on the trip. We had contractors represented from nearly every region of the United States, all with varying beliefs in method but a common bond of passion for a perfect floor. I now feel that my network of knowledge and access to the best in the business just jumped an order of magnitude because of this opportunity. I’m certain that with the knowledge from the training and the coming line of products for floor sanding from Lagler that our abilities will advance.
Thanks to Karl Lagler and Jeff Fairbanks for this opportunity. In our next related post I will discuss the real story behind dust collection and validity of endorsements for various “dustless” systems in the industry.
Tags: hardwood floor contractor, hardwood refinishing
Posted in Company Life | No Comments »
Hawthorne painted wood floor refinish
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
Here is the video for our latest fir floor refinish. The job was a painted floor that was located in the Hawthorne area of southeast Portland.
Tags: Fir flooring, hardwood refinishing
Posted in Project Videos | 5 Comments »
What’s all that chattering about?
Monday, April 18th, 2011
I’m not talking about the latest Justin Bieber album at the high school girls locker room.
This post is about something a majority of homeowners and surprisingly 8 out of 10 “floor guys” don’t see as a problem with floor sanding…. Chatter from the floor sander. Look closely at this picture and you should see what I’m talking about
A contractor’s belt sander or drum sander is the cause of this problem. Typically it is because the machine has not been regularly maintained. It is possible to remove chatter, but this requires a methodical hardplating process with either a buffer or a three disc random orbit sander like the Lagler Trio.
The above photo is a before picture from a recent project we completed in the Alameda neighborhood around Portland. We sanded the floor flat with our belt machine and did a final hardplating using the Lagler Trio. The end result is below.
The point of this post is simply to inform you that if you see this phenomenon in your hardwood floors that it is a real sanding error and you’re not being a picky homeowner. To hide chatter, a number of companies use very low sheen finishes, particularly waterborne finishes because the more plasticized resins do a great job of obscuring the clarity of the floor.
Be informed, be bold in demanding great service, and be a better consumer. You should love your floors, not think they’re just OK when you move back into your home.
Tags: hardwood refinishing
Posted in Contractor Perspectives, Wood Floor FAQ | 2 Comments »
Be very selective when hiring a hardwood floor refinisher… Here’s why:
Thursday, April 7th, 2011
This week in my business has been very busy looking at mistakes from a couple of hasty wood flooring companies. I’m not a certified wood floor inspector, but I try to look objectively at problems and be empathetic to the homeowner. It is not ethical for me to bash companies in an attempt to gain work for the company. Read on because I want to explain a few things:
When you hire someone to refinish your hardwood floors, particularly on a large project with a dark stain color there are a number of things you should know:
- If you provide a company with a 50% deposit to begin a project, then the cost to hire another company to fix and refinish an improperly stained or refinished floor WILL exceed the remaining balance you owe to the company at fault.
- If your state has a contractors board, then it will take generally four to six months by the time the problem is resolved and you are awarded any monies to remedy the faulty work. Usually this is paid from the bond of the company at fault. If you hire an unlicensed contractor, then you are pretty much out of luck.
- Most states have a “right to fix” clause that allows the contractor at fault to fix the problem. Usually this is 10 days. If you hire someone else to fix the work without following this procedure then you will pretty much lose your case against the contractor at fault.
I’ve witnessed a number of pretty defective floors lately. One floor project was a $9000 refinish that was pretty poorly done. It would not be possible for a quality contractor to fix the work for the remaining $4500. Who wants to lose $4500? Not me and I hope you don’t either.
My advice to you is to get references and thoroughly research your contractor’s background in doing similar projects to yours. I used dark stain refinishing in this example because it can be very high risk for failure, but this post applies to any project out there.
If you have any experiences, please share your thoughts.
Tags: hardwood floor contractor, hardwood refinishing
Posted in Contractor Perspectives, Floor Finishing | No Comments »
