Hardwood floor problems

We had 650 sf of hardwood flooring installed last summer. The salesman ass ured us it would stand up to our two dogs. It didn?t. The scratch es are awful.

We are considering having the floor sanded and refinished. Is there a topc oat that will be more scratch resistant? What about epoxy?

Here?s what we had installed:

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-hardwood-942100010.html

Thanks,

Larry

Reply to
Gramps' shop
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Often flooring is coated with a silica based clear coat, which is supposed to resist scratching (and sanding ;-) but I think it's all UV set and can only be done in the mill. If the flooring is scratched now, I don't think there is anything you can do to prevent it from happening again (other than getting rid of the toenails). The dark stain makes scratches more apparent, too.

Reply to
krw

replying to Gramps' shop, Iggy wrote: Yes, the wood holds up, even if it's scratched. But, the paper-thin finish almost never does and why your situation isn't covered by Elegance's Warranty. The best finish out there is Bona Traffic HD (

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and you should talk to them before your next re-finishing. If you currently have a Gloss or Semi-gloss finish, you may fair far better with a Satin finish. In the end though, a Wax finish may be your only solution and would be very simply re-applied to problem areas by yourself in just minutes.

Reply to
Iggy

ssured us it would stand up to our two dogs. It didn?t. The scrat ches are awful.

pcoat that will be more scratch resistant? What about epoxy?

In 40+ years of doing repairs and maintenance, I have never seen any topcoa t stand up to an active dog, much less two. Sure, if you have one of the t oy breeds of dogs that are in the 5# range, you have a chance.

A few years ago one of my vendors was encouraged to try out a new flooring line they were carrying, and the factory rep gave him the flooring. All he had to do was have it installed.

He owned a small boxer dog, and it was well taken care of and his toenails were constantly clipped short. Still, the floor showed some real signs of w ear in less than a year. Anywhere the dog's claws might make a light scrat ch were compounded after days of being in the house. Soon the floor looked like one of those weathered wood signed where the grain rings stand out, a nd the softer area between them is eaten away. After a couple of years the floor looked like crap. The dog is gone, but the damage is still there. W hen trying to help him decide how to refinish, we came up with a "zero".

The manufacturer had some kind of ultra hard finish of their own recipe on it that would require it to be sanded off before reapplying a top coat. Bu t the veneer was too thin to sand out the deep scratches, so he is stuck wi th a damaged floor. We stained the floor to match, but in the end he put a rug over the worst areas.

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

Invite the bastard back, tell him you want some more flooring, then show him what an ass wipe he is. Continue to waste his time... He deserves it.

I don't know of anything that would guarantee that.

Reply to
woodchucker

All true. And nothing is harder than the specialized, factory set finishes . Somewhere there is a graphic of those types of finishes that show their abrasion resistance, and it is almost off the charts. You can't compete wi th a simple air dried application, and not even with the catalyzed stuff.

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

Seems the salesman mislead you... or was not informed. In the specifications it shows this flooring as Janka rated 1890 for durability with details of that saying "Wood flooring durability is measured by the Janka Scale with a rating from 830 (low durability) to a 4000 rating (most durable). This rating scale helps choose the right floor to suit your lifestyle." At best this was a low-middling durability flooring...

Perhaps it might be worth a talk with the store owner/manager with an eye towards upgrading to a suitably Janka rated floor for the cost difference or some other steep discount. Refinishing high silica based factory finishes would probably cost nearly as much as coming to some kind of a deal.

Reply to
John Grossbohlin

ssured us it would stand up to our two dogs. It didn?t. The scrat ches are awful.

pcoat that will be more scratch resistant? What about epoxy?

You never said how large your dogs are. Two little toy dogs is quite diffe rent than a couple of 20 pounders.

Regardless, if you can get the salesman to admit in front of his manager (p robably the above mentioned tactic of banging your pecker on the table for all to see wouldn't be good place to start) that you spoke to him specifica lly about your dogs, you might have a chance to negotiate something. If no t, you are probably stuck with a refinish of some sort. Since this type of work is in my purview, I can tell you none of my subs will warrant a refin ish on anything other than peeling, fisheyes, or anything that might be ass ociated with their efforts including the application of the product.

I would certainly follow up and try to snare the salesman. I read the warra nty of that product and it excludes pet damage. QUOTE for their exclusions to the warranty:

Reduction in gloss, scratches or indention due to sand, pebbles or other ab rasives, pets, insects, construction traffic, or failure to maintain the fl oor as required (see Care and Maintenance Guidelines). END QUOTE

Pretty comprehensive, and that's only part of it.

Good luck! No one likes to get screwed, so I hope you come out on this.

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

Thanks, folks. The store manager offered us $100. Much error on our part on this choice. It looked great for a week or so. BTW, our little dog is about 50 lbs. big gal is about 80.

Reply to
Gramps' shop

Your error wasn't so much in choice as in expectations. If you want dog nail scratch free floors, put down tile. Some looks like wood.

Reply to
dadiOH

Preach it, brother!

After seeing what happened to my buddies beautiful Brazilian Cherry floors under the feet of his 75 lb boxer, I tell anyone that has a dog (if they ask me!) to look at tile.

If I spy dogs or cats in the house when I'm doing why interview/sales pitch, I write a specific exclusion in my contract to keep me from any warranty on the new floor.

Not sure what cats have in their stomach, but when they cough up a big hair ball and it's on the wood floor all day before the client gets home, it will literally eat through the best factory finishes in a day.

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

On Wednesday, December 13, 2017 at 1:14:07 PM UTC-6, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

Gastric acid (hydrochloric acid), which is a little more potent (concentration) than human gastric acid, because of the differing and required type of diet (and differing pepsin/stomach "gland" in each animal).

Sonny

Reply to
Sonny

I think I just threw up a little in my mouth, after reading that.

Not to be contrary on all the comments. I totally don't suggest wood floors for large dogs but in our other home we had an engineered maple floor in our master bath. Our Great Dane walked on it from the time whe was a puppy until we moved 4 years later. Great Danes don't look like puppies after about 3 months. I never saw any scratches but I'm certain that was because the room was so small that she could not get up any speed, the color was very lite so it would be hard to see scratches, and it had that hard clear factory coating.

Reply to
Leon

Cat's are carnivores that can swallow much of their prey in similar fashion to a snake-- meaning, whole or mostly whole. This means they need a highly acidic stomach to digest all those body parts, which would explain the damage to the floor finish.

My cat used to bring in moles, which seemed to be her favorite. It was funny to see her chomping down real hard on the moles head until you'd hear a audible "crack!" followed by a crunching sound. She'd then proceed to swallow the whole thing. Gross. But not as gross as when shes vomit up the hair and a few internal organs the stomach rejected. :-)

Reply to
-MIKE-

Thank you for that. :-0

Reply to
Leon

If this was facebook, you'd see the pictures!

Reply to
-MIKE-

All Righty then. LOL

Reply to
Leon

get some leather and make booties for the dogs and put some vinyl coating on for a good grip

Reply to
Electric Comet

Yeah, like that's going to work.

Reply to
krw

LOL, Actually we bought some booties for our elderly Great Dane when she injured herself and had a hard time walking on tile floors. I was shocked that she allowed us to put them on her and equally shocked that she wore them. They worked well. The down side was that she got athletes foot on all 4..

Reply to
Leon

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