DH has ruined week old wood flooring

[Veraper]

I feel sick to my stomach.

We have splashed out on parquet flooring for all of downstairs (sick of renting a rug dr after every dog walk). Have been uber cautious with furniture pads etc.

DH saw ink-like black splodges on the floor last night and had to scrub very hard using the green side of the sponge to remove (still slightly visible tbh). And the floor now has white splodges the size of Xmas choc coins.

We are wooden floor newbies, can anyone save my floors? Has the varnish just come off? They are my dream floors and I didn’t even get to enjoy them yet (still doing up the rest of the house)

Ask your builder what they finished the floor with.

It's likely your builder finished it with a type of Liberon (linseed) oil. That's why you have white spots where it's been scrubbed.

A floor of this quality will be fine whatever you throw at it apart from Lemon or any products containing lemon or acid. Acid reacts with tannin and goes black.

I'd use some hot soapy water and try to remove some of the wax to get it to a more even state.

The let it dry.

Then apply Liberon floor oil with a soft cloth.

🤦🏻‍♀️🙄🙄🙄

Thats a wood grain pattern, not a shoe print. I think you’re getting a bit paranoid about the floor …

Thread is very long.

Is it an oak floor?

And have you got furniture with metal legs?

OP, I've had wooden floors all my life – this will be a pretty simple fix. Try not to let panic overcome you. You/builder just needs to sand it down and re-finish. However ... wooden floors, worktops etc are high maintenance – they will wear and tear more readily and absorb the life around them. Excluding major damage, I do not think it bodes well to be very precious about them – you will drive yourself crazy. I would try to fall in love with the way it wears.

Wood is wonderful as it can be continuously renewed (and solid wood is largely intended to be), however you need to realise that with engineered wood, you only have 3mm of actual solid wood on the surface, so it can only be sanded so many times across its lifetime. It's great that engineered wood is available at a lower cost, enabling people to get the look they want in their homes, but it does come with cons. Since you will be not able to sand and repair/renew many many times over, I'd hold out the big guns for when it's really required.

I hope you have apologized to your husband for blaming him for ruining yoru floors. It sounds like you are melting down over black spots and he was trying to fix it to keep you happy and in doing so took some varnish off. Now you have found another stain. Are you blaming him for this too?

Regardless of what happens with your floors, more respect in your relationship would be something to work on.

OP, before you do anything at all you need to find out from the installer what they finished the flooring with. Lacquer (or varnish) is like when you paint your nails, it's a hard surface that can scratch off. Oil is much easier to repair, you just put more oil on and buff it in.
If you put lacquer on top of oil you'll be in trouble.
We have oiled engineered boards and they're really tough, no black marks but plenty of grain. I wonder whether something has happened to yours before they were finished.

"A floor of this quality will be fine whatever you throw at it apart from Lemon or any products containing lemon or acid. Acid reacts with tannin and goes black."

Well I didn't know that. I've seen blue and black fungal stain, but that doesn't fit the description.

So you mean it could be a spilled drink?

Can i ask, what is the best sort of flooring to have with small kids/pets?

I’m keen to replace my living room carpet (I loathe the manky bastard) and put down some sort of wood or hard flooring but I don’t know where to start.

@HomeBird43

Vinyl will resist drips and splashes. If it gets damaged you can roll it up and buy a new one. The subfloor needs to be really, really flat and smooth and I recommend overboarding it with 4mm ply.

Don't drag cookers or heavy furniture over it.

We have had wooden flooring with dogs over 20 years in two houses, no issues.

Aw bless! Your DH knows how much your new floor means to you, so of course he wanted to make it all perfect for you That stopped him thinking things through logically. Plus he is a bloke. NAMALT [tongue, cheek).

Unintended consequences, aka Sod's Law.

To cheer you up:
When I was a student in the early 70s, me and my room-mate scraped a terrible gash in the parquet-type floor of our room in our beautiful recently built college. It was in June, at the end of our first year, and we were dragging my student trunk (bit like a seaman's trunk) into the corridor ready for it to go off by road to my home down South.

Being resourceful types, we used her brown shoe-polish (it was fairly common to polish shoes back then) to cover up the gash - it matched very well, nobody noticed, and thus we avoided the charges that would have ensued if they had

Hope you find a way of getting the floor looking its best again.

Is it real wood? Has he just scratched the varnish?

Over time it will fade as the floor is worn. Or you could re wax/varnish depending on whats on it now. What does the manufacturer say?

I wouldn't panic too much, wood is pretty hardy and with a bit of faff, you'll be able to bring it back x

If I spill vinegar on my oak kitchen worktop (danish oil finish) it turns into a black mark (never ever again getting an oak worktop).
Those newer marks look like part of the wood grain has been stained, it's very odd. This is the top of an oak chest that's had most of the old finish removed then waxed. You can see how different bits of wood pick up more or less stain.

We had an engineered wood floor fitted very similar colour to yours. I thought it was a "blonde" wood, turns out it has a layer of paint/ varnish on the surface which has worn off next to the sofa, where feet have rubbed it. I feel a bit conned as I thought they were just thin wood planks with a pale stain. I would go back to the company who sold it to you and complain.

Have you considered divorce to resolve this problem?

sick of renting a rug dr after every dog walk

You rent a Rug Doctor daily? Or you neglect your dog by not walking it often enough?

1. Ask the installers what they finished it with (the exact product) and how many coats
2. check with the manufacturers that what the installers used was a suitable product
3. if it wasn’t the correct product then contact the installer to resolve
4. if it was the correct then you might need more coats.

It looks like an oil and the installer hasn’t applied enough coats. A dark spot can happen where there isn’t enough oil and water draws out the tannic acid and makes a dark spot. Wood oiled floors are very durable, they just need the right product and quantity to finish them. Avoid varnish. Oil you can patch as it wears, varnish you have to sand the whole floor to re-do.

I've never had a problem with wood floors and always had them. Don't leave standing water on them for days, of course.

I'd say so too.

Wait for the fitters to say what finish they used. Don't be rubbing walnuts or whatever on it until you know whether it is an oil based finish or not (and the walnut thing isn't a great idea regardless).

rub a small amount of olive oil into it

I don't really think there is one, it's just finding the least worst option.
We've pretty much got a bit of everything in our house, the best are the antique boards- they are already a bit battered and easily touched up with hardwax oil, second are the black painted old boards - yes, they get scratched but easy to touch up (although they show dust).
Porcelain tiles have got cracked twice with kids knocking over the heavy high stools onto them and the grout is grotty. Carpet just gets stained. Vinyl is the utter, utter worst - anything dye based stains it. We have hair dye stains, pen stains, paint stains and it has faded in places. And then a leak in the porch has caused it to ripple horribly.

Devastated?!

It still looks fine. Real wood flooring will eventually get stains and water marks. It’s all part of the character. Don’t stress.

After trying to rub the first black mark off with no success, why on Earth did he keep on doing it so many times? I find that weird. We have wooden floors and the only way to get rid of marks is to sand it down and oil it.

I think he kept rubbing because the damage only revealed itself once the floor dried - he had used microfibres and water initially.

Yes a spilled acid drink. Or a product with lemon or vinegar in it.

If it's sealed well it's fairly ok. Oak, especially older oak goes black when in contact.