Floors were just "finished" in my gf's house on Friday and after not being in the house for almost two days we came home to this crap (pics below) the guy who did the floors is coming tomorrow to look at them but I would like to know what caused the imperfections, they are all over the floor with some areas much worse than others. I'm assuming he's going to have to completely re do the floors but I would like to know what cause this. It is an oil based polyurethane and that was the second coat.

any advice would be appreciated, thanks in advance.

Heat?

Not sure what would cause without knowing what exact materials were used. I've never seen a coat of urethane look that messed up before. But suffice it to say that the coats didn't adhere to each other.

how long did he wait between coats? it looks like the 1st coat wasnt dry and he coated too soon. the first coat's solvents pretty much eat/melt the next coat if not all the way dry. Might be incompatible finish and sealer. hard to say more than what you already know the bottom line is it's not going to fly.

Looks like orange peel to me. Pic number 3 is classic orange peel, caused by to thick an application, then theres the big spot where it was not evenly applied and soaked in.

my vote...forced air heat...dried coating too quick on first coat...dried thru top, but not bottom if that makes sense..then released into 2nd coat or and i favor this more..2nd coat dried too quick before it could level off..
but i bet you have forced air heat..=)

i actually had this same issue about 2 months ago believe it or not..cool weather used heat to dry and voila...f'd up job..

problem now is same may happen due cold and heat..

may be better of waiting a week..then coating with waterbase..oil most likely will have same result

But but but James, second pic with the bald spot that soaked in, could not be 2 coats. I think they tried to get away with a thick single coat.

thats what i would call alligatoring. you can get it from 3-4 diffrent things.
1.way too cold
2.top coating before the base is dry
3.contamination
4.too heavy of a coat.
5.too much thinner will do it as well.

i wonder if the floors were just recoated and not fully stripped...??

guy says he was out "for ALMOST 2 days"

any basic job would be at least 2 days..even 1 room is..with poly of course.

if it were just a recoat,then there is serious contamination issues..pledge, ..silicone etc..windex

Thanks for the input everyone, I showed the pics to someone else that does floors and they said the same thing, the first coat wasn't completely dry before the second application.

update now that douche-bag floor guy came and "fixed" them. He (his helper) sanded them down and re applied another coat, I could tell from his sanding before he coated it that there we're probably going to be problems, it didn't look like he sanded the first coat all the way off. So after another two days the floors look better but most of the spots are still there, they just have another layer of poly over them and are recessed instead of sticking up.

So...again he's coming back next week. But to answer some questions in your posts: 1. The floors were ground down. 2. First coat was applied and after a day second coat was applied which resulted in above pics. 3. The house does have forced air heat.

I told my girlfriend that this floor guy can not "fix" them without stripping all of the poly off and starting from scratch again, but I'm sure she is going to let him try and rig it best he can.

Just to confirm some things, 1. What is the best way to fix this issue? (I'm assuming stripping all the way back to the wood and starting over) and 2. What should we do about heat in the house? it is forced air and the temp has been at 75-80 with a heater in the basement to help as well, this guy says oil based needs heat to dry so what are your suggestions for how to correctly heat the house when he tries again?

Thanks again for your input.

here is a pic of the re coated floor, you can see the imperfections are still there but now they are recessed.

I'd get someone else. He doesn't know what he's doing. Maybe let him fix it to the point of sanding the surface down again for refinishing, but I might be afraid to trust him with that too.

finish issues happen to the nest of us..does't make him a douchebag because he had a problem.. what he didt do , was foresee and environment that may cause him an issue working as a creature of habit..
he has also been responsive to your concerns.

i had a similar issue a couple months back and banged my head against the wall trying to fix it.

i suspect the temperature you are keeping the home is TOO hot,

the floors are becoming warm, and with a heater underneath is compounding the issue.

try keeping it at 68..lose the heater below..
he may want to use a new fresh poly, acclimated to the home a day or so.

i suspect he is working with a can right form hi s truck which is cold..it then gets applied over a room temperature(too warm floor)...and it is reacting.

From what i see here..the floors need to be redone in all honestly to correct..
screening, unless done aggressively, will not take this down enough.
and if done, will now probably make rings and swirls in the floor, which will more than likely be apparent in finish coat.

for the record...when it happened to us.. i recoated and got same issue.
recoated again, used waterbase..had swirls in floor.

offered guy total redo, or keep the balance and get someone else..whatever he wanted to do..
never heard back..i suspect he accepted the floors at half cost.

"things" happen to all of us.

I like the idea of letting the poly acclimate to temp that may be an issue. This is the issue I dont get, what is the temp for the house? you say too hot, the guy who is doing the floors says need heat and there are conflicting comments in the posts above? So does an oil based poly need heat to dry or not? or does it just need moderate temp and more time?

Also I call him a douchebag for other reasons during this project as well, not just because he had an issue. I will say with this re coating issue that I am not a floor guy but I could have foresaw that there was going to be a problem when he tried to rig the floors, you cannot fix a coat of anything by lightly sanding and re coating when the imperfections are through that layer, he should have known that, not tried to cut corners and just started over, it would have saved him time, money and less aggravation on both ends had he stripped the floors all the way back and start over.

I told you, keep at 68 and let the heat cycle..dont leave it steady on hold..


make sure vents point upwards away from floor


use some thinner in coating.....no heat underneath..

acclimate poly.. should hopefully yield better results.

poly need heat, but dont need an oven..