[a&b home]

You know what was done. and you know what to do to resolve it.
The contractor probably shouldnt be doing floors if he can tell it is red oak.
He screwed up and you oked it.
Now you live with it or get a better flooring guy to fix it

 

[mknmike]

You know what was done. and you know what to do to resolve it.
The contractor probably shouldnt be doing floors if he can tell it is red oak.
He screwed up and you oked it.
Now you live with it or get a better flooring guy to fix it

I have year to make final payment. It was just finished Friday, and I wasn’t really able to get in after the first coat of poly went on (after the attempt at poly shading).

“He screwed up and you oked it.” Implies there was a better solution, and that I have also accepted the work. I don’t know that either is true (yet).

 

[firehawkmph]

Did they really do the test, they said it came back, why wouldn't they do it themselves
How To Know If You Have RED or WHITE Oak Hardwood Floors. - YouTube

Pretty interesting,
Mike Hawkins

 

[mark sr]

PolyShades [or any tinted poly] isn't recommended for floors as the colored finish can wear away. I might would try it if I knew there would be a couple of coats of clear applied over it to help prevent the color from wearing off. If the color difference wasn't noticed until after the first coat of poly I can understand them using. When the store bought tinted poly doesn't work you either get a different shade or make your own.

 

[mpnret]

You would think a guy who owns a flooring company would have some left over unused red oak or at least know where to source some. It would be interesting to put down a few boards to see how it matches your old floor. Maybe your flooring guy would rather not see that. I would at least find another place to get your old flooring tested to see if it really is white oak. If your flooring guy screwed up I doubt he is going to want to tear it all out but at least he should be willing to work with you on a resolution.

 

[TenTanToes]

It's not their fault someone or some thing pissed all over your floor and wrecked it.

If they said they tested the wood and it came back as the same type of boards as they replaced them with, who are we to second guess them?

I guess you could find an independent place to test the wood, and then might have a leg to stand on if your tests come back differently.

Otherwise as I see it your choices might be to either ask for a slight discount and accept it for what it is, or ask for some type of solution and be prepared for whatever extra cost might be involved to make it satisfactory.

You sound like a horse's @$$
Bet you're the overpriced floor guy!

The red oak could look pinkish, and the white oak could look tanish. But it has had a stain and finish applied. You got a hack job.

Time to email the BBBureau. And anyone else to warn others. And hopefully get a huge rebate for yourself.
Wood floors, so long as same species and tinted, stained, same gloss to match is fine. Perfect would only be if you painted it. Ugh. Also, biggest difference in red and white oak is the hardness. And price. White harder underfoot and on bank account! The color one to the other is subtle...and a mild yellowish stain until close to rest of floor. Then put down.
Start trying to get a huge rebate...not knowing where you live, Sq ft, etc ...but those prices are outrageous.

PolyShades [or any tinted poly] isn't recommended for floors as the colored finish can wear away. I might would try it if I knew there would be a couple of coats of clear applied over it to help prevent the color from wearing off. If the color difference wasn't noticed until after the first coat of poly I can understand them using. When the store bought tinted poly doesn't work you either get a different shade or make your own.

I'm not a professional. Just an eye for things and common sense. Yes, I've 'robbed' boards with same patina from closets, along inconspicuous wall areas. Used those where it did matter. Replaced 'robbed' areas with close matches. Some so-called floor guy is a predator in your area.

 

[TenTanToes]

It's not their fault someone or some thing pissed all over your floor and wrecked it.

If they said they tested the wood and it came back as the same type of boards as they replaced them with, who are we to second guess them?

I guess you could find an independent place to test the wood, and then might have a leg to stand on if your tests come back differently.

Otherwise as I see it your choices might be to either ask for a slight discount and accept it for what it is, or ask for some type of solution and be prepared for whatever extra cost might be involved to make it satisfactory.

You must be THAT FLOOR GUY.

 

[Half-fast eddie]

Also, biggest difference in red and white oak is the hardness.
I'm not a professional.

No kidding. And you don’t know what you’re talking about either. 70 point difference … not discernible.

 

[TenTanToes]

Ask for partial refund. Take to court and file complaint with BBB and local business agencies if no acceptable refund given. If he's a licensed contractor, he's out of his realm with floors. Don't let him do any redos or any other work on your home. Be nice. If nice doesn't work, get tough legally. Warn others in area about his overcharged mess up with your beautiful floors.

 

[mknmike]

Ask for partial refund. Take to court and file complaint with BBB and local business agencies if no acceptable refund given. If he's a licensed contractor, he's out of his realm with floors. Don't let him do any redos or any other work on your home. Be nice. If nice doesn't work, get tough legally. Warn others in area about his overcharged mess up with your beautiful floors.

1) it’s possible that they did everything right and the tannins in the old white oak soaked up the polyurethane in a different way that the new white oak which was clearly not grown in the same grove as the wood that is 100 years older.

2) how would someone identify the amount that should be withheld? To simplify, they let me know when they are entering add-on hours and that they are starting on “time and materials”, to which I agreed to. The owner immediately said that the new wood will not match the old. I asked them to do what they feel is best if we want light colored floors and don’t want to look at the floor and think “that’s dog piss from that damn lady I rented to” and get pissed off nearly every day for the rest of my life. My wife is still glad we did not use the dark walnut stain (used in the office and shown in the video) on the entire first floor which was really our only other option. The stain also doesn’t completely hide the urine. I can still see it through the walnut stain. So that makes replacing the wood the correct decision. Just because the new wood does not match (as the owner told me it would not) does not make it wrong. I believe they tried. So withholding any amount is difficult to justify. Furthermore, there is no delineation between wood replaced for various other reasons beyond the urine stains. Individual boards here and there aren’t as much of a bother to me as the big “patches” of white throughout the first floor. So let’s just say it was x/level of the houses. My bill originally was going to be a little less than 3x. I asked them to do a lot of “add ons” to the project, none of which were specifically detailed to me. My bill is a little more than 4x. I have not yet paid even 3x. I paid about 2.35x so far. They are due about another 1.7x.

Honestly, they haven’t bugged me for the check yet. They probably assume I put it in the mail. I do want them to do more work for me, up to about another 2x worth of work.

Just to throw another few things out there. One guy did the majority of the work, and I would like to give him a cash tip for all the work he put in, over almost 2 months worth of time. I think I was a good customer giving them complete access to the house for that long of a time. Yet I didn’t want to rush the job to assure it was done right. The guys that came in for the few days to do carpentry did a few things that had to be reversed. It’s possible I was double charged for doing that work, undoing that work, and then doing it right (by the one guy who did the majority of the work). The master carpenter that recommended the white oak was only on the job for maybe 3-4 days. Heck, it might have been 2. I think there was a lack of efficiency and communication between the crews, and I probably am paying for that.

I was going to throw out the value of x, and will just say it has two numbers in it, and one of those is a 5. The other is the most commonly used.

If the owner sends someone to pick up the check in person, preferably himself, I’d like to have him look at the work when he picks up the check. Perhaps an itemization of the add -ons would be nice.

I’m having cleaners try to remove all the sawdust tomorrow. That’s a big job. We should not have any new dust on the second and third floors. So even if we do end up having some work redone, we’d probably have to re-cover things and kind of start over. I’m not in the mood for that at this point.

I regret not putting plastic over every window, radiator etc. as the house is a very dusty mess.

 

[TenTanToes]

There are many easier, cheaper, and aesthetically better ways to replace stained boards. Period. With the aged patina needed.
There are MANY times I have turned the removed boards over, tongue cut off when removing, and they were fine to reuse with no cutting. Very little touch up before gluing in place. Dark side down.
Not perfect matches, but wood floors are normally random. That 'floor guy' wasted lots of time and effort to do it very badly. In several ways. I cannot IMAGINE you wanting him on your property again. Is there not anyone in your area with tools and common sense? ( BTW, t might have not even been pet urine stains. Water held on floor by carpet/padding will produce same dark blotches. Unpleasant surprises when you remove carpet.)
Good luck.

 

[touchstone]

In looking at the floor and the fireplace picture, The house looks to be pre 1920's? The flooring outside the patch has some gaps, probably from age. A 100 year old wood floor is the context- it will never look like a tight, new, smooth floor. The problem with bleaching stains in floors is you go from having obvious dark urine spots to obvious light bleached spots. It helps, but the results are not always subtle. As a diyer, I made the white oak/red oak mistake. It's in a bedroom- so big rugs. Floor still looks good, water based finish looks good, but loosening up after 20 years.

 

[mknmike]

I talked it over again with the owner. He gave me a small discount which I ended up just giving to his primary mechanic that spent nearly two months on the house and was a pleasure to work with, also the guy that didn’t do anything stupid, but worked with the decisions of the others. I honestly felt bad giving him such a small “tip” but figure most people probably wouldn’t have given him anything.

We will “deal with it” and know we got the lightest color floor possible, which was one of the objectives of this job.

I learned a bunch here, like the trick of flipping boards over. Yeah. More could have been done for a more perfect job. “Move on” is where I am right now. We have lots of other things to deal with.

Cleaners enter today to try to clean up all the dust that’s caked everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE. Seems almost hopeless to try and get all the dust out.

 

[mark sr]

flipping boards over

That doesn't always work as some flooring has relieve cuts/grooves on the bottom side to help prevent cupping.

 

[Half-fast eddie]

That doesn't always work as some flooring has relieve cuts/grooves on the bottom side to help prevent cupping.

Duh. Flipping boards is something that would be proposed by somebody who has never touched a floor board.

 

[mknmike]

That doesn't always work as some flooring has relieve cuts/grooves on the bottom side to help prevent cupping.

My assumption is that so much wood needs to be sanded off that this could still work. However, the old boards are so sanded that they’d need to be shimmed so they aren’t floating on the tongues.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[JohnWL]

White oak color can vary drastically from board-to-board as illustrated in the first pic. The 2nd pic illustrates bleaching the same stock w/sodium peroxide to even out the color which can often produce only marginally better results even after staining. The 3rd pic illustrates staining after bleaching.

 

[TenTanToes]

In looking at the floor and the fireplace picture, The house looks to be pre 1920's? The flooring outside the patch has some gaps, probably from age. A 100 year old wood floor is the context- it will never look like a tight, new, smooth floor. The problem with bleaching stains in floors is you go from having obvious dark urine spots to obvious light bleached spots. It helps, but the results are not always subtle. As a diyer, I made the white oak/red oak mistake. It's in a bedroom- so big rugs. Floor still looks good, water based finish looks good, but loosening up after 20 years.

Find old flooring in inconspicuous area(s) of house to take up to use.

 

[Mystriss]

What poly did they put on it? Like if it's MinWax you've got a chance of it yellowing, but like General company poly doesn't yellow hardly at all from my research (trying to do clear coat on birch & maple so I did a lot of looking for a non-yellowing finish) I don't understand why they couldn't mix up a matched poly though. I'm a housewife with no experience and I've been able to mix up different wood stain colors to match existing wood for fun...

I wish I had advice, but if it were my floor, I'd be on my hands & knees hand sanding the new wood and putting on a custom blend color finish. I'm a bit too OCD to deal with that kind of difference personally. This is kind of the reason I started DIY though, I'm too picky and particular to let other companies do stuff unless I really can't handle the job...

 

[mknmike]

Find old flooring in inconspicuous area(s) of house to take up to use.

Yep. That’s been suggested several times above. Unfortunately it wasn’t an option for me.

Thinking this over more, what I might have requested (or done myself which I believe I can do the replacement of boards now that I’ve watched them) would be to completely removed a symmetrical area in front of the fireplace to be replaced with new wood. The area would yield lots of original wood to be used in various spots around the house. I would save all the wood stored in the attic with a note of what it came from.

I might investigate whether it would be possible to flip some individual boards.

This is somewhat the dream house, but you never know. Maybe some day we will acquire another project and I will do the floor carpentry myself to know that when it gets messed up, I messed it up myself instead of paying someone else to mess it up.