I want to start by saying, it's really easy to say "just talk to the contractor - they'll be reasonable". But this isn't always the case.
When you look at our newly finished floors, they look FANTASTIC!! They are super flat and this was not the case before this finish. There was lots of areas where the softer wood was sanded out and the harder parts of a board were left "high". Not sure what you call this, but I do know it's a 'thing' - and we had a lot of it from the original finish 25 years ago when the house was built.
The work looks beautiful! But when you get down, some things become noticeable. I'm a "scrub my floor on my hands and knees" kind of person. Our hardwood is our entire first floor and I know it was a lot of work to get a good finish on this much space.
Our initial estimate listed 3 coats of ceramic finish. "D" came over when they were installing the new wood in two rooms, and sanded a spot, put down some finishes to take the red out of red oak, and show me the "satin/matte-ish" finish he recommended. We loved it. We didn't discuss finish because it looked so good, and the estimate said "ceramic" and we saw the place he buys his wood and they sell Berger-Seidle so we assumed we were good.
Day they are doing the first coat of finish, I see they have many gallons of American Sanders finish. "D" was working inside and I wasn't supposed to be there (but had honest reason for doing so) so I asked one of his workers if that was a ceramic finish as noted on my estimate. He said he didn't know but knew it's what "D" always uses. I asked him to have "D" call me. "D" calls me furious that I talked to "his guys", says "everything has to go through me and don't ever talk to my guys". I apologized and explained. I asked him why his finish was changed from the estimate. He says that was a mistake on the estimate and he no longer does ceramic finish because he had been having a problem with the products that were shipped from Germany and had to redo several floors and stopped using it. He also said ceramic was more hype that performance. He did do Loba 2k duo topcoat after two coats of the American Sander (he says, we weren't in the house, but he left an empty Loba jug behind at our request).
He was gone the next week. Told my husband he was being flown in to do a 6k sqft house of white oak in California. We didn't move anything more into the house before we left on a trip ourselves. So floor had some time to cure. This week we've started moving stuff back in and here's what we notice:
There are some areas where there is (for lack of a better word) some dappled finish. It looks like the topcoat was put down thin (this would be the Loba). I'm worried it's going to wear poorly over time. We only wear socks, but some of the highest traffic areas in the kitchen and back hallway are like this. Does it likely need more finish? I think we're going to get a great deal of pushback from him and assurances that it's fine. But he's off to his next jobs and has already collected full payment from him (we agreed to this in the beginning - three payments, final payment day of last coat). We could see the floors and they looked wonderful! Not so up really close in the right light.
There were a couple places where he did some re-finishing. A few particles and one big drip in visible locations (top of stairs, right inside the front door). I think it must be really hard to do a whole house and not have a few inclusions...he told me the "fixed spots" would be a little bit glossier due to a little sanding. Well, I can see where he sanded and where he put down additional finish. I suspect that he didn't use the two part Loba finish on these spots, but rather a quick coat of the American Sander finish and this is the reason for the sheen change.
Our stair rails are all brand new and I don't think they got all the coats and I don't think they got sanded in between. They're a bit rough AND the underside and sides of the handrail to the basement has NO FINISH. Our custom/expensive floor registers have no finish on the underside or inside the register opening.
"D" is super nice - after the phone call where he got mad, he called and apologized. Said he was stressed and having problems with a machine (not sure I believe it, they were putting finish down at the time-I do think he was mad at me). I need to text this guy tomorrow. There are lots of little things in the finish but I'm not even going to bring that up - not stuff you see from standing and I keep seeing on here that that is the benchmark. I want to focus on what feels like the big issues:
The dappled (seems thin) finish is obvious whenever the light hits it right (from standing) and I'm worried about it holding up over time. I don't want to do this again in 5 years.
I want to know if he skipped the more difficult two part finish in the spots where he did some little repairs (repairs are all about 6" x 12" of shinier top coat now - maybe 5 of them. If he did skip the Loba, how big of an ask is it that he use this product everywhere he repaired (and in a few places I'm keeping track where he simply missed getting finish). He mentioned once to my husband that the Loba is harder to blend in fixes.
I want the handrails finished better. Do they need the Loba finish too? Maybe a quick sand and one coat of the Loba?? Also we paid $1k for 9 custom made floor registers - he said the premade ones are horrible and he gets them custom made - they are pretty! But there's no finish on the underside or the inside of the registers - just the top. If anything gets spilled or there's a spider web to clean up (it happens), the bare wood is rough and could give us slivers.
Am I being a difficult customer? I think he's going to say I am and that these things are no big deal and he won't fix them. But I have to live with this floor and he's off to other jobs and his life. Original estimate (we did not hire him based on the estimate, but the recommendation of others) was $10k and all in, we're just over $16k now. Partly because the wood was more expensive (he said he forgot to include the upstairs hallway on the estimate even though he measured it all - his estimate detailed a price for new wood, laying new wood, sanding everything, finishing everything - but it's not detailed enough to say "new wood in living room and upstairs hallway", and he charged us more for lacing in than he estimated. Wood was $2k more, custom registers were $1k, lacing in additional cost was almost $2k - it added up. Until we looked at the final work - now that the floor is being lived with, we were thrilled. We're less thrilled up close...
Sorry so long. Please help me. It's not always as easy to deal with contractors as many of you might think. I'm expecting serious pushback and I'd like to have my ducks in a row (if I actually have any beefs with this finish) before I get in touch with him. Mucho TIA!