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I water damaged my wood floor simply by dripping some water on it. OK I actually had a lot of water that accidentally got on to the floor thru a minor disaster. Everyone I've talked to says the whole floor will have to be refinished. Why isn't it possible to sand down a little of it and restain it. People keep telling me because the wood stain won't match. Why is this? There are several small areas of about 1 or 2 square feet that I would want to sand down and redo. Is this even possible?
1. Do you know exactly what the floor stain used was (even if it was strained) by product number / name. If so, you might have a chance of matching it enough to make it possible.
2. Without the exact stain it becomes far more difficult. Wood always looks different between the stain coat and finish coat. How to you know it matches or how do you attempt to "Feather" the edges where the old meets new.
Also consider in today's world, even the same floor may appear different in different areas. To get the color / appearance to be very uniform, the same wood, that reacts the same to stain must be used. Today the wood's have much more variations within the same batch.
You might try a feathering technique where the initial sanding uses a feathering technique to sand into the old work, trying not to create a "Work Line" that can be seen, then restain, refinish and try to bluff / blend in the area best possible. All finished woods tend to age a bit, so if the refinished spot sticks out, time may help.
You may be able to hide the damage by cleaning the entire floor with full strentgh straight ammonia. Then letting it dry completely and apply a coat or two of polyurethane. either gloss or semi-gloss.
The ammonia will take off the finish but not the stain. the poly, when applied, will restain the floor and the damaged area and may or may not make the colors match, or very close so that it is not noticable. If it does not work, you will have to sand the entire floor and restain it, then add a finish coat.
Thanks for the unique advice. I have not heard anyone say this so far.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ShaneSA
You may be able to hide the damage by cleaning the entire floor with full strentgh straight ammonia. Then letting it dry completely and apply a coat or two of polyurethane. either gloss or semi-gloss.
The ammonia will take off the finish but not the stain. the poly, when applied, will restain the floor and the damaged area and may or may not make the colors match, or very close so that it is not noticable. If it does not work, you will have to sand the entire floor and restain it, then add a finish coat.
The problem with water damaged wood is the water changes the wood so to speak. It raises the grain. Once that is done, even the original stain already used will color it differently. Same goes for sanding just spots. That changes the grain and it will still stain differently. The object is to get the surface grain consistent. When we used to finish homes and got water spots on wood for any reason, we would wipe the whole piece of wood down with a damp rag to get everything equal with the surface grain so it would color equally without spots. Same goes for the floor.
You have two option... sand and refinish the whole floor ! OR ShaneSA has an idea that I have never heard of but sounds like it might work. It's worth a shot as it will more or less get the wood floor surface somewhat consistent prior to finish being applied to it and may just finish the same color consistently or blend better without overly obvious bloches where the damage is already present. Won't know until you try it. Worst case scenario... You sand and refinish the whole floor !
Shanes trick may just save you the messy experience of having to go through a floor sanding !
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cosmic
Wood always looks different between the stain coat and finish coat. How to you know it matches or how do you attempt to "Feather" the edges where the old meets new.
Cosmic is exactly right. The problem with just doing one spot is getting the new work to blend with the old finish around it. I'm not as optimistic that you can even achieve "inconspicuous" doing spot refinishing.
If you manage to achieve a satisfactory result, get a patent.
I happened across this thread and I have a problem too. Well, I guess it's my landlord's problem since we're renting, but we are considering buying this house in the future. Prior to leasing this house, the landlord told my husband to please fix a leak in the kitchen sink. It turned out to be a leaky faucet that had been leaking for a day or so. When we came in the kitchen floor was sopping wet all the way to the dining room. My DH put a big fan to dry it out and take the damp smell out. The cabinets under the sink still smell damp and over the year we have been here, the boards in the kitchen and especially dining room have been raising up and now we have "valleys" in certain spots. We have told the landlord about this but I guess he figures if we buy it, it will be our problem. How do you fix a problem like this?? My DH said if we buy it we will just tear up the floor and put in tile, but we would want leverage to lower the price for the damaged floors that we did not cause. Any ideas?
Can be very inconsistent, totally unpredictable in some cases. I've had my share of boo-boo's in this last project. In some the color matches, shades, apperance was lovely in the stain coat. When a finish was applied, I either got sploughes or other strange markings. No rhyme or reason. Certain formulations would give strange results.
Trying to do some color matching might be very tricky. I might try not sanding the floor as normal. Try going over it with a drywall sanding screen. The sanding screen will cut the finish and remove it but not the wood, also tends to leave the stain color intact if you do not get too aggressive in the final stages. Then just refinish, that might be your best bet to get a reasonable color match, plus will have a foggy chance of blending the finish by rolling it out thin to feather out a "Work Line".
If you have had rather extreme water damage to a wood floor, it can be tricky to correct it. First understand in some cases, the wood has bowed up and sprung the nails. Can be a giggle correcting that. There is not many ways to convince the nails to find their old spots. Usually some method of renailing is required. Then you can sand the high spots level.
You can try very heavy weight loading over like plywood sheeting once the floor has been very well dried out. Stacks of bricks or whatever, works to some degree. From experience, usually the best option was to renail or use screws to attempt to level it out as much as possible. Then it was sanded a bit. Then recovered with something. Luan followed by carpet was a favorite. Ripping it out usually is not all that good an option, lot of work, increases the final cost. I never did a floor that ever got back to its former glory as a plain wood floor with the original wood intact and recovered. It always got converted into some other form of floor covering by some means.
You always run into that problem how to get it renailed so every thing is down tight. Usually means breaking out the nail gun and after that all bets are off. It gets covered with something else.
You may be able to hide the damage by cleaning the entire floor with full strentgh straight ammonia. Then letting it dry completely and apply a coat or two of polyurethane. either gloss or semi-gloss.
The ammonia will take off the finish but not the stain. the poly, when applied, will restain the floor and the damaged area and may or may not make the colors match, or very close so that it is not noticable. If it does not work, you will have to sand the entire floor and restain it, then add a finish coat.
"Household ammonia" or "ammonium hydroxide" is a solution of NH3 in water. Now, why on earth would you put more water on a water damaged wood floor?
"Full strength straight ammonia"- would actually be a gas! And no amount of ammonia is going to remove a poly-urethane finish. But it would probably remove a wax finish, and any intelligent mammal with a working nose.
Putting the ammonia (full strength) is an aques solution, hence a solution of a chemical in water. I am referring to full strength ammonia as what you buy in the store. You use the solution you buy from the store labeled as ammonia. it is not diluted with water in a bucket. It is not poured onto a wood floor. it is applied with a srub pad to clean, remove and or melt old wax, dirt and old finish. I did not say it would remove polyurethane. It will not remove polyurethane. the polyurethane is applied after the ammonia cleaning and rinsing. the wood floor will be clean and minus the old finish, not the old color.
I have 25 houses with old wood floors that I have refinshed each time. Some had old paint, some had just plain dirt from being covered by carpet for 30 years. Some had paint, plaster, dirt, dog pee and unknown elements. I have done it many times and it beats sanding and removing the old stain color. I preserve the stain color, remove the old finish, and recoat the floors with polyurethane to shine and protect from future tenants.
For some reason I feel the need to get defensive, sorry.
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Yep, it can be tricky..........
