Water Damage From Dishwasher Leaking
Dishwashers leak, it is inevitable. You hear about this all the time when you are in the flooring industry. This client had a dishwasher leak and caused damage to their pre-finish hardwood floors. Water on wood floors causes what we call in the industry “cupping”. Cupping causes the wood to buckle and ripple. Sometimes if you catch it soon enough, you can reverse the cupping. By having fans or dehumidifiers running in the damaged area, sometimes you can reverse the damage all together. However, there are many times where the damage is too far gone, and your only option is to rip out and install new or sometimes just a refinish will do the trick.
The Consultation
With this client, we were called in to consult. The verdict; refinish! They had pre-finish floors which had a shiny finish and a bevel. This was a hip downtown KC loft with lots of windows and a great view of the city. Windows are great for aesthetics, but we were looking at some major discoloration of the wood floors.
Can You Refinish Pre-Finished Floors?
There are lots of inquiries about whether you can refinish pre-finished floors and the answer is YES! Pre-finish floors are wood floors that have been refinished off-site. This means that when the product is installed, it is completely sanded, stained and finished, you just need to nail it in and walk away. Pre-finished floors have their pros and cons, you can read about those here in another article we’ve written:
Why Water-Based Finish?
When we came in to refinish these floors, we sanded the bevel completely out, evened all the water damaged floors in the kitchen and unveiled the wood’s original form. We used water-based finish for two main reasons; 1. In order to achieve the natural, very light look of these red oak floors, you can only do that with water-based finish. Oil based finish will amber over time. 2. This was an apartment complex and using oil-based finish would have impacted all other residents with the polyurethane fumes. You do not want to be THAT neighbor!
Kansas City Proud
When everything was done, the floors looked BEAUTIFUL! You could never tell that these floors were previously pre-finished. They looked like all one floor, no bevel! We used a satin finish to add a little bit of “new floor” look without being too shiny. The client’s serene décor looked so nice with the natural wood floors too. Overall this was a very successful, cool apartment to refinish! KC Proud!
Project Overview
- Water Damage
- Wood Floor Refinishing
- The Consultation
- Refinishing Pre-Finished Wood Flooring
- Water Based Finish On Wood Floors