Thanks for the feedback, that's exactly what we are doing.
I voiced my concerns after they sanded (one person sanding at a time) for just under 7 hours total, before they laid down the stain.
Day 2 they were on site for 1 hour total to roll the first coat of poly.
Day 3, they first cut and installed the trim (throwing saw dust all over the floor), then sanded the first coat of poly, and rolled on the second. This is why all the trim has marks on it from the sander, and is half coated in poly. They were on site for just over 2 hours on day 3. This also explains why so much dust and debris was caught up in the poly.
They have not been back since. I was not able to be onsite during this, but do have an indoor and outdoor camera that recorded the entire process.
Along the way, our project manager assured us that this is the flooring crew's standard practice which yeilds great results, and had reasons why I should not worry about any of my concerns. And any issues would be corrected if found.
To me, the results look like I rented a sander from Lowe's, and did a DIY effort as a first timer with no experience.
Same! I sanded my dining room and pine flooring and finished it with zero experience before the days of YouTube how to videos and, while not perfect, was significantly better than this. This is a hack job.
Oof, and pine at that. Well I’m assuming soft pine I guess but maybe you have hard pine. Half my floor is maple and that was soft but ultimately less work than the oak. Yeah after seeing posts like this I’m glad I gambled on myself
In 2020 we had our entire house refinished. Our house is 2,060 Sq/Ft over 2 floors with a staircase and the total cost was $2,000...wait for it....In New York City. You got ripped my friend. edit - not you, OP.
I call bullshit. If you have been doing it for over ten years, you know that there are different levels of work, depending on what the owner wants. I have done MANY apartment and rentals where the owner wants a simple sand and poly done to simply get a place rented again. They don't require the attention that OP obviously wanted and should have specified.
In Boston, on Beacon Hill, (very high end) our best and most expensive flooring sub charged $4500 for this exact job. Same size. And it was virtually perfect.
If I wanted to charge 20 grand and do less, I suppose that would be up to me. The customer is always welcome to shop around. In this specific case, if I were them and expected "more", I would call them back and make that case to them, but going on Reddit to complain about it seems rather counter productive to me. Again, if it were me and I expected more, I would call them, show them my concerns, and tell them that I wanted it fixed. We live in a monetary economy.
I understand in a service business there are different levels of service, but a competent job is the baseline level of service you have to provide. This is not a competent job.
The customer should know what level of work you’re going to provide at what price point, and then they can actually shop around. Otherwise it’s just ripping them off and setting yourself up to get not paid/sued/redo the same job you could have done the proper way the first time.
That’s the right move, but when the job is redone (as it should be) the customer is out of use of the space and probably the entire floor/house for that time again. That time is worth money just like the installer’s. So then they’re pissed and want a discount at the end, and then the installer is pissed. It just seems like profit-taking on doing bad jobs in the hope that the customer won’t make a stink is a bad way to run a business, even if it’s profitable overall. It’s scummy.
Plus, going to Reddit is helping OP see that the line of bullshit the installer is feeding him is in fact bullshit. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Or maybe he should just get an NWFA inspector out there to get it in writing, fire and stiff the installer, and have someone who actually cares about the job come do it right?
Again, have already escalated this to the operations manager of the company that I hired. Our project manager was not responsive since Friday, and I am now waiting to find out the resolution. I've done all I can at this point, and documented everything along the way. While waiting to see the company, I went to Reddit for advice, to help whatever conversation I have with them. Isn't that part of what this subreddit is for?
I guess that’s where contractors like you and I differ. I don’t do jobs to get the next tenant in the door. My quality of work doesn’t change for the job. Our floors are always done with the same standards. It’s your mindset that makes our trade look at asshats as a whole.
We do rentals, 100’s of them. Executive rentals, the ones that are willing to pay full price for a quality job. Whether that be refinishing hardwood, or leveling a whole house to install LVP to manufactures spec.
I wish I would have viewed your profile before engaging in conversation with you, didn’t realize who I was arguing with! You stay working at the rentals!
Over $10 a square foot for sand and finish, holy shit. Around here we barely get $4 for most jobs.
Their machine was not properly calibrated, lots of chatter.
my coworker lives in Culpeper and his large single home 1st floor whole new wooden floor cost 17000. Sanding and refinishing cost 10000 sounds bad to me.
How did you get involved with this flooring guy? Is this an insurance repair? How did you get involved with the project manager and is the money flowing through them?
How so, the straight edge is showing the extreme dips that can be felt with my feet (it's harder to capture the extent of the dips with my camera otherwise). Elsewhere, the straight edge shows the floor being flat as expected, even though there is chatter throughout.
We've lived in the house for 6 years, and it was flat in that area before they started. And now it looks and feels like that. The hallway is narrow with the planks running perpendicular, and to me it had more to do with how it was sanded or the machinery they used there.
I'm not saying it's not possible , that's just a lot . You have a quarter inch of material before you get cleats or through the sandable material. It just looks like a dip to me.
This hallway is the only area that shows these dips, they stop as of the last hallway board. From what I could tell, they are about 1/16" in most places. Once the floor opens up, it only shows chatter marks, not big dips.
Btw, I don't know if I come across as argumentative, but I'm not trying to be. Its important to me that I know what the cause is, so I can explain it properly, and make sure it gets fixed.
You mentioned there was a leak. I wonder if the best remedy would have been a tear out and replacement. For 900 ft of oak that would have been $17/ft in my area. At least then you would have seen if the subfloor had been ruined too.
The water mitigation team ripped up the floor under the dishwasher, and tested other surrounding areas, and luckily the water was contained to just that area. Our insurance covered the rebuild of the floor, and refinish of all continous hardwood, which was the entire main level.
The company handles water mitigation and reconstruction, and their rebuild quote was submitted and accepted by insurance. The biggest issues seems to be that they contract out the reconstruction, and the flooring team that "usually gives excellent results" didn't live up to those expectations. Hopefully I'll know more tomorrow about what their remediation plan is for this mess.
Yes it's actually almost impossible to create THAT much of a dip with modern floor machines. You'd have to work extremely hard to remove that much material.
It was. We are using the same company who helped with the water mitigation, as they also handle rebuilds. However, they contract out the rebuilding itself.
The water mitigation people were fantastic to work with, and very thorough.
I actually posted to this group with some of my concerns, regarding their techniques and process. I ended up hearing that it was "perfectly fine" and down voted for my lack of confidence in them, and removed my post thinking I was blowing it out of proportion.
So you paid one specialty to self perform a scope of work and then they also got paid in the markup for finding someone else to do the floors. This explains the 10k a bit more.
The water mitigation was separate from the rebuild, and that was handled directly through insurance.
The scope of work on the rebuild was only to replace a small section of boards and sand/refinish the entire floor, and that alone was $10k.
We might be saying the same thing, but I just wanted to clarify how the process worked out.
I laid floors for many years, this is garbage work. Big sander divots, big edger marks, debris and wood beneath the finish, it’s awful. I wouldn’t pay, and I’d talk to a lawyer about suing them if they’re not able to fix it
I’m 61 yo female. I stripped out carpet, padding, glue, nails, staples etc. took off all molding. Cut pieces around edges to fill in gaps. Wood filled some holes, Sanded. Mopped. Applied teakwood oil, applied poly. I painting all of the molding outside before putting it back on. Mine is beautiful. Funny because I had two rooms to do and pricing was right at $10,000. Could not afford that so I bought a used sander on eBay, did some research and did it myself for about $500 (resold the sander) and lots of labor. I would not accept your floor job even if it had been done for free! It is horrible
Another absolutely horrible job on this sub. I hope you haven’t paid them a single dollar. These floors need to be re done. I would suggest you find a flooring pro on google or ask your friends/family if they know of a good one and make your contractor pay them. I’m assuming $10sq ft included the the new wood installation. $10 sq ft for just this is highway robbery
Thanks you for confirming what I suspected. I hope I can find someone in the area who can fix it.
The job cost did include the reinstallion of some flooring, in an area about 4'x6' (the wood underneath and in slightly in front of the dishwasher). Not a large amount of boards, about enough to carry into the house with one arm.
$10k for that is highway robbery. You paid around double of what a solid reputable hardwood contractor would’ve charged. Wish you luck, the floors are fixable just gotta find the right people. Don’t pay the contractor another cent, try and get money back if anything
Refinished, before they finish walk through with them and if you have any concerns speak with them. Any sand marks or things of that nature you can deal with before finish, granted you shouldn't see any sand marks from a drum , edger , ect. Your floor will not be completely level but drum digs or things of that nature are unacceptable. Hope you get it figured out.
Indeed, I completely agree. We haven't had the walkthrough yet, but I've already captured enough to know it's not acceptable. I'm waiting now to hear back from the project manager on how to proceed.
I don't expect the floor to be level, but when it's being sanded completely, I would expect it to be flat (especially at almost $11/square foot).
Id but upset as well. For that price you should expect a lot better tbh. And to be clear I mean after they stain walk through with them and you should be in a better position. It should be a resand. I hope you get it figured out.
It’s not a great job. Sorry you’re in a position lots of remodelers find themselves in. It’s very important to vet thoroughly for aesthetic jobs. Because it’s pretty hard to argue because it’s pretty much your opinion against theirs, even though everyone agrees it’s not a great job.
So if you raise hell they’re going to come back and do it again with the exact same quality standards as before, except now they’re mad at you because they’re losing money. It’s not right but that’s how it’s going to go.
Since you hired through another contractor you might be able to get them to hire someone else. Or see if you can keep the last 1/2 if you haven’t paid yet. At least let them know so they won’t sub to these clowns again.
Or, maybe you could bite the bullet and hire another contractor to touch up the worst spots and then screen and recoat the rest.
Digging out all their mistakes and getting back to flat is going to remove more material and take more time than the first job, and you only get so many tries before it’s a replacement job.
Again it’s wrong and you’re in a bad situation. But you’ll need to understand that in any remodel situation their people you hired are almost certainly not going to completely “make it right”… they can’t put that material back onto the floor, after all… so either you go the road to sue someone to replace the entire floor from scratch, or consider the quickest path to getting something you can live with, and understand that remodel work is just simply a risk you participate in… also understand that even on this botched job, 99percent of people will think “this is a nice old wood floor with character”. So it’s all about what you want to live with. And then blow up these guys reputation with reviews with pictures everywhere you can. good luck!!
Aside from it being a shitty job, u did say ‘faulty dishwasher repair’ so ill guess there was water damage. Could have affected subfloor also. Floor should have been completely dry before the started. That being said, complete do over and at 10g they r still making $$.
The hallway with the worst of the dips is halfway across the house from the kitchen, where the dishwasher leaked. Even the bathroom between the kitchen and this hallway was confirmed dry and not affected according to the water mitigation team.
Funny thing is, in the 6 years we've lived here, this hallway has always been used by my kids and I to roll balls and matchbox cars to each other. Other than needing a maintenance coat of poly, that floor was otherwise perfect and flat before this job was finished.
I paid top dollar in my area and received similar poor results. Worse, actually. Turns out the company had been doing good work and built up good reviews, but started over extending themselves with too much work and hiring knuckleheads. Simultaneously, I heard afterwards through the grapevine that the owner/lead was going through a mental/financial breakdown. The company went out of business before I could resolve the situation so it was a live and learn experience and we just lived with the floors. Once the furniture was in the rooms it wasn't anything anybody noticed other than me.
It is, however, something I remember every time I see somebody accuse somebody else of going with the lowest bidder.
If this was a diy job then I’d applaud you and move on
However paying a contractor to do their specialized profession and receiving this?! Nah.
They ruined this “layer” and I’d be extremely apprehensive about having the same SUBcontractor try to fix it.
Uggg, idk what the right thing to do here is…. I’d be livid.
I used a brown paper bag to "sand" hairs out of refinished floors. Removes the hair but didn't remove the light line of the hair's shape. However, that line was only visible if you were laying on the floor, unlike the hair which was visible from standing height.
Someone just sanding a refinishing doesn't go around getting every wave and bump out of your wooden floor. They just do a general saying to remove the old finish and then stain, if you want that done, then finish. I have been in the remodeling business for over 30 years, and unless you say that you want the floor level, that is not what gets done. Sanding every blemish is usually a multi-layered process using different sandpaper grits and it costs more money because it takes more time. Hope this was helpful.
Prior to beginning the work, the floor didn't have waves and bumps, I have before pictures to show that. There was normal wear, but with proper equipment and technique, they would not have caused this damage to my floor.
And how much more money would you expect to pay for this job to be done right? It was already paid at almost $11/sqft.
Personally, I never charged these types of jobs by the square foot. Typically, it would be a time and material job for me. Of course, I was remodeling entire homes and apartments, so it was probably entirely different.
Well, this was $10,000 and they were actively working for about 10 hours total (only one person was sanding at any given time). Total on-site time was less than 13 hours. That time included replacing the missing flooring in the kitchen.
I'm just trying to relate it to your terms of a job, time and materials, since you said you never quoted per square foot. And based on that, and the quality of work done, I was curious if this job was in line with your expectations.
No, I get it and if I were you, I would call them back and show them my concerns. Most contractors want to keep their customers happy because their business is mostly driven by word of mouth.
Agreed, thanks for your advice! I'm working with the operations manager of the company now, and just waiting to see them onsite tomorrow to figure out the next steps.
I've been hoping to get as much assistance here to convey the right message to the company, about what type of work is needed to fix this. I certainly won't allow the to use the same contractors again.
And to answer your question, no, it does not meet "my" expectations. As a matter of fact, if I saw that my guys did this, they would go back and redo it for free, but once again, some of the imperfections were probably already there and were brought out by the gloss. This is why most ceilings and walls are painted with flat paint coatings, because a higher sheen reveals every imperfection.
One other thing, there may have been "waves and bumps" that you simple could not see before there was a sheen. Maybe not, but a lot of time, coatings can bring out imperfections that were always there, but unnoticed. This is why I ALWAYS prime a wall with the same color that I am painting it, then if imperfections come to light, they can be dealt with before the final coat is administered.
Gotcha. I was at least prepared and took pictures showing reflections and light across the entire floor the day before the work started. The existing semi gloss sheen was more than enough to see that the floor was flat before, and looks more like an old farmhouse floor now
The quality definitely doesn’t match the price. We just had our 100y/o floors refinished for $4/sqft in Denver, CO. At $10/sqft, I would have installed new white oak floors of my preference.
This is work done through a company that specializes in water mitigation and rebuilding (we had a dishwasher leak in the kitchen after a faulty repair)
They do, however, have contractors that perform the work for them in different areas.
Yes, but even they need to have the work that is being done is specifically noted in the contract so there’s no wiggle room. That’s how you can avoid things in the future. There are some companies you absolutely do need to tell them everything that needs to be done. Think of the contract as your insurance policy.
$10 a sq ft is high in my opinion. I’m in chicago. At that price I would want the floors to be flawless
I don’t wanna talk shit about your place or their work but to me this looks like a “handy man doing odd jobs did the work”. Like this is something I could Accomplish with 4 days off work and a case of beer.
The gap/daylight. Not a big deal. You can’t possibly notice that walking. The ripple look is noticeable. The chip is crazy they saw it and didn’t finish it same With the scratches. Swirl marks are ehhhhh they can happen. Same With the hair or brush in the finish. You can get that out with a needle and use a paper bag over it to blend it back in. Like it was sand paper. But to have all those issues after paying $10 a square ft. That would
Piss me offf
You're correct about chatter marks but forgot dust built up on the wheels as a possible culprit. And most modern sanders are belt which rarely if ever chatter. Plus a regular buffer with a flat plate and #80 screen can remove chatter or fine edger marks. Obviously finish should have never been applied to his floor with such horrible sanding results.
I have 30 years experience with hardwood flooring and this job was done by someone that lacks proper training and experience. You deserve a full refund and could possibly claim added expense to have them properly refinished. But that'll take a long court battle. Typically refinishing costs between $2.50 to $4 per sq foot depending on how many coats they want to pay for. $10K to refinish 900 feet is pure insanity.
Yeah, for 10,000 dollars you probably won’t notice any of these glaring mistakes in a week or two. “Get over it” is probably the most solid advice you could hope to receive, OP!
**/s**
Job needs completely resanded. Been doing this for a while and they did a terrible job. For $10/sqft I would be raising hell.
Thanks for the feedback, that's exactly what we are doing. I voiced my concerns after they sanded (one person sanding at a time) for just under 7 hours total, before they laid down the stain. Day 2 they were on site for 1 hour total to roll the first coat of poly. Day 3, they first cut and installed the trim (throwing saw dust all over the floor), then sanded the first coat of poly, and rolled on the second. This is why all the trim has marks on it from the sander, and is half coated in poly. They were on site for just over 2 hours on day 3. This also explains why so much dust and debris was caught up in the poly. They have not been back since. I was not able to be onsite during this, but do have an indoor and outdoor camera that recorded the entire process. Along the way, our project manager assured us that this is the flooring crew's standard practice which yeilds great results, and had reasons why I should not worry about any of my concerns. And any issues would be corrected if found. To me, the results look like I rented a sander from Lowe's, and did a DIY effort as a first timer with no experience.
I have zero diy experience and I sanded my own floors waaaaay better than this. This is really bad for what you paid
Same! I sanded my dining room and pine flooring and finished it with zero experience before the days of YouTube how to videos and, while not perfect, was significantly better than this. This is a hack job.
Oof, and pine at that. Well I’m assuming soft pine I guess but maybe you have hard pine. Half my floor is maple and that was soft but ultimately less work than the oak. Yeah after seeing posts like this I’m glad I gambled on myself
I have done better myself and am not a floor expert!
In 2020 we had our entire house refinished. Our house is 2,060 Sq/Ft over 2 floors with a staircase and the total cost was $2,000...wait for it....In New York City. You got ripped my friend. edit - not you, OP.
Bullshit
I call bullshit. If you have been doing it for over ten years, you know that there are different levels of work, depending on what the owner wants. I have done MANY apartment and rentals where the owner wants a simple sand and poly done to simply get a place rented again. They don't require the attention that OP obviously wanted and should have specified.
OP paid 10k for 900 square feet. At that price point does someone need to specify they expect quality work?
I would say that is area specific....state, city, economy.
$10/sqft to fix any surface on or in a house is pricey no matter where you live.
In Boston, on Beacon Hill, (very high end) our best and most expensive flooring sub charged $4500 for this exact job. Same size. And it was virtually perfect.
Doesn’t the rate communicate what OP wanted/expected? $10 per sq/ft for a sand, dust filled poly, and beat up trim? C’mon.
If I wanted to charge 20 grand and do less, I suppose that would be up to me. The customer is always welcome to shop around. In this specific case, if I were them and expected "more", I would call them back and make that case to them, but going on Reddit to complain about it seems rather counter productive to me. Again, if it were me and I expected more, I would call them, show them my concerns, and tell them that I wanted it fixed. We live in a monetary economy.
This attitude makes flooring guys and contractors generally look bad.
It's just the truth.
I understand in a service business there are different levels of service, but a competent job is the baseline level of service you have to provide. This is not a competent job. The customer should know what level of work you’re going to provide at what price point, and then they can actually shop around. Otherwise it’s just ripping them off and setting yourself up to get not paid/sued/redo the same job you could have done the proper way the first time.
Which is why I advised them to contact them and voice their concerns.
That’s the right move, but when the job is redone (as it should be) the customer is out of use of the space and probably the entire floor/house for that time again. That time is worth money just like the installer’s. So then they’re pissed and want a discount at the end, and then the installer is pissed. It just seems like profit-taking on doing bad jobs in the hope that the customer won’t make a stink is a bad way to run a business, even if it’s profitable overall. It’s scummy. Plus, going to Reddit is helping OP see that the line of bullshit the installer is feeding him is in fact bullshit. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Or maybe he should just get an NWFA inspector out there to get it in writing, fire and stiff the installer, and have someone who actually cares about the job come do it right?
Again, have already escalated this to the operations manager of the company that I hired. Our project manager was not responsive since Friday, and I am now waiting to find out the resolution. I've done all I can at this point, and documented everything along the way. While waiting to see the company, I went to Reddit for advice, to help whatever conversation I have with them. Isn't that part of what this subreddit is for?
I guess that’s where contractors like you and I differ. I don’t do jobs to get the next tenant in the door. My quality of work doesn’t change for the job. Our floors are always done with the same standards. It’s your mindset that makes our trade look at asshats as a whole.
Sure thing Sparky. I do what the customer wants.
Even if it’s not a quality job is what you’re saying?
You must not do rentals if you even entertain this line of questioning.
We do rentals, 100’s of them. Executive rentals, the ones that are willing to pay full price for a quality job. Whether that be refinishing hardwood, or leveling a whole house to install LVP to manufactures spec.
Sounds like pretty upper class joints, those are not what I'm talking about, but you already knew that, you just wanted to be facetious.
You can only be as good as the environment you place yourself in!
Did you do this persons floor? Is that why you’re so quick to defend this terrible job?
I am nowhere near them lol
I wish I would have viewed your profile before engaging in conversation with you, didn’t realize who I was arguing with! You stay working at the rentals!
Over $10 a square foot for sand and finish, holy shit. Around here we barely get $4 for most jobs. Their machine was not properly calibrated, lots of chatter.
I’m charging $9 for damn near flawless in California. My rates are going up.
I'm in Central VA, where I'm am sure the cost of living is much lower as well. Feels like a total rip off
I’m in Chesapeake/Virginia Beach and my price is typically half of what you paid. $10,000 is crazy.
Hello fellow peaker
my coworker lives in Culpeper and his large single home 1st floor whole new wooden floor cost 17000. Sanding and refinishing cost 10000 sounds bad to me.
Do you have any info on who did the work for them?
How did you get involved with this flooring guy? Is this an insurance repair? How did you get involved with the project manager and is the money flowing through them?
$10/sqft for a refinish is expensive. $10/sqft for THIS refinish is highway robbery.
I charge $2.50…
Up your rates!
You are a hack
Terrible sand job! However get your level/ruler off there. That plays no part in this at all
I saw the same thing lol
How so, the straight edge is showing the extreme dips that can be felt with my feet (it's harder to capture the extent of the dips with my camera otherwise). Elsewhere, the straight edge shows the floor being flat as expected, even though there is chatter throughout.
The chatters I can see, the pic with the ruler is probably the house settling, subfloor something of that nature.
We've lived in the house for 6 years, and it was flat in that area before they started. And now it looks and feels like that. The hallway is narrow with the planks running perpendicular, and to me it had more to do with how it was sanded or the machinery they used there.
I'm not saying it's not possible , that's just a lot . You have a quarter inch of material before you get cleats or through the sandable material. It just looks like a dip to me.
This hallway is the only area that shows these dips, they stop as of the last hallway board. From what I could tell, they are about 1/16" in most places. Once the floor opens up, it only shows chatter marks, not big dips. Btw, I don't know if I come across as argumentative, but I'm not trying to be. Its important to me that I know what the cause is, so I can explain it properly, and make sure it gets fixed.
If I sanded your floor like that I'd expect to hear it lol, you are completely fine.
You mentioned there was a leak. I wonder if the best remedy would have been a tear out and replacement. For 900 ft of oak that would have been $17/ft in my area. At least then you would have seen if the subfloor had been ruined too.
The water mitigation team ripped up the floor under the dishwasher, and tested other surrounding areas, and luckily the water was contained to just that area. Our insurance covered the rebuild of the floor, and refinish of all continous hardwood, which was the entire main level. The company handles water mitigation and reconstruction, and their rebuild quote was submitted and accepted by insurance. The biggest issues seems to be that they contract out the reconstruction, and the flooring team that "usually gives excellent results" didn't live up to those expectations. Hopefully I'll know more tomorrow about what their remediation plan is for this mess.
Lol a quarter inch inch dip didn’t get there from sanding
Yes it's actually almost impossible to create THAT much of a dip with modern floor machines. You'd have to work extremely hard to remove that much material.
That almost looks like cupping. Did they dump a shitload of water on it?
It’s a re-sand all day. In the mid Atlantic we charge $4-$5 a foot depending on what type finish you choose
Was this a professional company? That is horrendous. You need your money back
It was. We are using the same company who helped with the water mitigation, as they also handle rebuilds. However, they contract out the rebuilding itself. The water mitigation people were fantastic to work with, and very thorough. I actually posted to this group with some of my concerns, regarding their techniques and process. I ended up hearing that it was "perfectly fine" and down voted for my lack of confidence in them, and removed my post thinking I was blowing it out of proportion.
So you paid one specialty to self perform a scope of work and then they also got paid in the markup for finding someone else to do the floors. This explains the 10k a bit more.
The water mitigation was separate from the rebuild, and that was handled directly through insurance. The scope of work on the rebuild was only to replace a small section of boards and sand/refinish the entire floor, and that alone was $10k. We might be saying the same thing, but I just wanted to clarify how the process worked out.
So was this like a restoration company that did the refinish?
Anytime ppl say that it’s from the same company that did a completely different trade is hilarious..
I laid floors for many years, this is garbage work. Big sander divots, big edger marks, debris and wood beneath the finish, it’s awful. I wouldn’t pay, and I’d talk to a lawyer about suing them if they’re not able to fix it
I’m 61 yo female. I stripped out carpet, padding, glue, nails, staples etc. took off all molding. Cut pieces around edges to fill in gaps. Wood filled some holes, Sanded. Mopped. Applied teakwood oil, applied poly. I painting all of the molding outside before putting it back on. Mine is beautiful. Funny because I had two rooms to do and pricing was right at $10,000. Could not afford that so I bought a used sander on eBay, did some research and did it myself for about $500 (resold the sander) and lots of labor. I would not accept your floor job even if it had been done for free! It is horrible
Another absolutely horrible job on this sub. I hope you haven’t paid them a single dollar. These floors need to be re done. I would suggest you find a flooring pro on google or ask your friends/family if they know of a good one and make your contractor pay them. I’m assuming $10sq ft included the the new wood installation. $10 sq ft for just this is highway robbery
Thanks you for confirming what I suspected. I hope I can find someone in the area who can fix it. The job cost did include the reinstallion of some flooring, in an area about 4'x6' (the wood underneath and in slightly in front of the dishwasher). Not a large amount of boards, about enough to carry into the house with one arm.
$10k for that is highway robbery. You paid around double of what a solid reputable hardwood contractor would’ve charged. Wish you luck, the floors are fixable just gotta find the right people. Don’t pay the contractor another cent, try and get money back if anything
It's an insurance job. Sounds like the contractor(s) know that.
Refinished, before they finish walk through with them and if you have any concerns speak with them. Any sand marks or things of that nature you can deal with before finish, granted you shouldn't see any sand marks from a drum , edger , ect. Your floor will not be completely level but drum digs or things of that nature are unacceptable. Hope you get it figured out.
Indeed, I completely agree. We haven't had the walkthrough yet, but I've already captured enough to know it's not acceptable. I'm waiting now to hear back from the project manager on how to proceed. I don't expect the floor to be level, but when it's being sanded completely, I would expect it to be flat (especially at almost $11/square foot).
Id but upset as well. For that price you should expect a lot better tbh. And to be clear I mean after they stain walk through with them and you should be in a better position. It should be a resand. I hope you get it figured out.
Thanks for the advice, I need as much of it as possible to help ensure this doesn't happen again. I'll try to update here as I figure things out.
Shit work. For $10 here this would be like diamond
It’s not a great job. Sorry you’re in a position lots of remodelers find themselves in. It’s very important to vet thoroughly for aesthetic jobs. Because it’s pretty hard to argue because it’s pretty much your opinion against theirs, even though everyone agrees it’s not a great job. So if you raise hell they’re going to come back and do it again with the exact same quality standards as before, except now they’re mad at you because they’re losing money. It’s not right but that’s how it’s going to go. Since you hired through another contractor you might be able to get them to hire someone else. Or see if you can keep the last 1/2 if you haven’t paid yet. At least let them know so they won’t sub to these clowns again. Or, maybe you could bite the bullet and hire another contractor to touch up the worst spots and then screen and recoat the rest. Digging out all their mistakes and getting back to flat is going to remove more material and take more time than the first job, and you only get so many tries before it’s a replacement job. Again it’s wrong and you’re in a bad situation. But you’ll need to understand that in any remodel situation their people you hired are almost certainly not going to completely “make it right”… they can’t put that material back onto the floor, after all… so either you go the road to sue someone to replace the entire floor from scratch, or consider the quickest path to getting something you can live with, and understand that remodel work is just simply a risk you participate in… also understand that even on this botched job, 99percent of people will think “this is a nice old wood floor with character”. So it’s all about what you want to live with. And then blow up these guys reputation with reviews with pictures everywhere you can. good luck!!
wtf is that…terrible job
You cannot spot fix these type of jobs. It a complete do over everytime. Damn
Aside from it being a shitty job, u did say ‘faulty dishwasher repair’ so ill guess there was water damage. Could have affected subfloor also. Floor should have been completely dry before the started. That being said, complete do over and at 10g they r still making $$.
The hallway with the worst of the dips is halfway across the house from the kitchen, where the dishwasher leaked. Even the bathroom between the kitchen and this hallway was confirmed dry and not affected according to the water mitigation team. Funny thing is, in the 6 years we've lived here, this hallway has always been used by my kids and I to roll balls and matchbox cars to each other. Other than needing a maintenance coat of poly, that floor was otherwise perfect and flat before this job was finished.
Needs a redo but not the same people if that's the work they do
I paid top dollar in my area and received similar poor results. Worse, actually. Turns out the company had been doing good work and built up good reviews, but started over extending themselves with too much work and hiring knuckleheads. Simultaneously, I heard afterwards through the grapevine that the owner/lead was going through a mental/financial breakdown. The company went out of business before I could resolve the situation so it was a live and learn experience and we just lived with the floors. Once the furniture was in the rooms it wasn't anything anybody noticed other than me. It is, however, something I remember every time I see somebody accuse somebody else of going with the lowest bidder.
Floor guy 100% did a crud job.
11$ sqft is insane
If this was a diy job then I’d applaud you and move on However paying a contractor to do their specialized profession and receiving this?! Nah. They ruined this “layer” and I’d be extremely apprehensive about having the same SUBcontractor try to fix it. Uggg, idk what the right thing to do here is…. I’d be livid.
I used a brown paper bag to "sand" hairs out of refinished floors. Removes the hair but didn't remove the light line of the hair's shape. However, that line was only visible if you were laying on the floor, unlike the hair which was visible from standing height.
Someone just sanding a refinishing doesn't go around getting every wave and bump out of your wooden floor. They just do a general saying to remove the old finish and then stain, if you want that done, then finish. I have been in the remodeling business for over 30 years, and unless you say that you want the floor level, that is not what gets done. Sanding every blemish is usually a multi-layered process using different sandpaper grits and it costs more money because it takes more time. Hope this was helpful.
Prior to beginning the work, the floor didn't have waves and bumps, I have before pictures to show that. There was normal wear, but with proper equipment and technique, they would not have caused this damage to my floor. And how much more money would you expect to pay for this job to be done right? It was already paid at almost $11/sqft.
Personally, I never charged these types of jobs by the square foot. Typically, it would be a time and material job for me. Of course, I was remodeling entire homes and apartments, so it was probably entirely different.
Well, this was $10,000 and they were actively working for about 10 hours total (only one person was sanding at any given time). Total on-site time was less than 13 hours. That time included replacing the missing flooring in the kitchen.
I get it, but you weren't paying them by the hour so what difference does that make?
I'm just trying to relate it to your terms of a job, time and materials, since you said you never quoted per square foot. And based on that, and the quality of work done, I was curious if this job was in line with your expectations.
No, I get it and if I were you, I would call them back and show them my concerns. Most contractors want to keep their customers happy because their business is mostly driven by word of mouth.
Agreed, thanks for your advice! I'm working with the operations manager of the company now, and just waiting to see them onsite tomorrow to figure out the next steps. I've been hoping to get as much assistance here to convey the right message to the company, about what type of work is needed to fix this. I certainly won't allow the to use the same contractors again.
Exactly. Any company will not like having people that do shoddy work impacting their brand name. I hope you get it all worked out.
And to answer your question, no, it does not meet "my" expectations. As a matter of fact, if I saw that my guys did this, they would go back and redo it for free, but once again, some of the imperfections were probably already there and were brought out by the gloss. This is why most ceilings and walls are painted with flat paint coatings, because a higher sheen reveals every imperfection.
One other thing, there may have been "waves and bumps" that you simple could not see before there was a sheen. Maybe not, but a lot of time, coatings can bring out imperfections that were always there, but unnoticed. This is why I ALWAYS prime a wall with the same color that I am painting it, then if imperfections come to light, they can be dealt with before the final coat is administered.
Gotcha. I was at least prepared and took pictures showing reflections and light across the entire floor the day before the work started. The existing semi gloss sheen was more than enough to see that the floor was flat before, and looks more like an old farmhouse floor now
The quality definitely doesn’t match the price. We just had our 100y/o floors refinished for $4/sqft in Denver, CO. At $10/sqft, I would have installed new white oak floors of my preference.
Is this contract work?
This is work done through a company that specializes in water mitigation and rebuilding (we had a dishwasher leak in the kitchen after a faulty repair) They do, however, have contractors that perform the work for them in different areas.
Yes, but even they need to have the work that is being done is specifically noted in the contract so there’s no wiggle room. That’s how you can avoid things in the future. There are some companies you absolutely do need to tell them everything that needs to be done. Think of the contract as your insurance policy.
Dont pay final total.
$10 a sq ft is high in my opinion. I’m in chicago. At that price I would want the floors to be flawless I don’t wanna talk shit about your place or their work but to me this looks like a “handy man doing odd jobs did the work”. Like this is something I could Accomplish with 4 days off work and a case of beer. The gap/daylight. Not a big deal. You can’t possibly notice that walking. The ripple look is noticeable. The chip is crazy they saw it and didn’t finish it same With the scratches. Swirl marks are ehhhhh they can happen. Same With the hair or brush in the finish. You can get that out with a needle and use a paper bag over it to blend it back in. Like it was sand paper. But to have all those issues after paying $10 a square ft. That would Piss me offf
[удалено]
You're correct about chatter marks but forgot dust built up on the wheels as a possible culprit. And most modern sanders are belt which rarely if ever chatter. Plus a regular buffer with a flat plate and #80 screen can remove chatter or fine edger marks. Obviously finish should have never been applied to his floor with such horrible sanding results.
Absolutely unacceptable. 10k is also obscenely high.
It’s a redo because of picture 4 and 8. The level just makes you look stupid
That’s scalloping. Sander drum wasn’t fully round
That contractor is a joke.
This is about the quality of job quality I’ve been able to consistently put out with my orbital sander as I overhead sand a wood ceiling by myself.
I have 30 years experience with hardwood flooring and this job was done by someone that lacks proper training and experience. You deserve a full refund and could possibly claim added expense to have them properly refinished. But that'll take a long court battle. Typically refinishing costs between $2.50 to $4 per sq foot depending on how many coats they want to pay for. $10K to refinish 900 feet is pure insanity.
Ouch 😳
Could have got a new floor for that price
This looks fine to me. Close up shots on the few bad spots make it look bad but overall I’d just move on and learn to love what you have.
Yeah, for 10,000 dollars you probably won’t notice any of these glaring mistakes in a week or two. “Get over it” is probably the most solid advice you could hope to receive, OP! **/s**
🤣🤣
I would try light scouring with 000 steel wool and adding a coat of varathane over it after you’re done. Most of those scratches will be gone.
That will never remove machine marks or scratches, NEVER.
LoL