Aspiring To Create Very Good Hardwood Floors

I want to document our whole work process on this basement restoration. This project involves a full glue trowel to anchor the 4”, rift/qtr’d white oak made by Graf Bros. When compeleted, this will be a simple yet stunning floor.

At West Coast Hardwood Floors, we believe the beauty of the wood will be?enhanced by the quality of the install, sanding, and finishing. Let's begin with that first aspect: the install. A good install starts with good subfloor preparation. So to begin, we assessed the concrete subfloor's condition. It had many valleys and high spots that would’ve affected the appearance of the floor, the flat feel of it, and the effectiveness of the glue as an anchor. After discussing the issues with the builder, we decided the best option was to grind the high seems and float the valleys. This presented 2 issues:?

??? 1. How do we grind the seams, some of which were up to 3/8" high? Hand grinding is slow and dusty, so that's ruled out. So do we hire a specialist? Most speciality grinding companies seem interested in large commercial work. A residential rush job could be hard to hire out and get quite pricey.

?? ?2. How do we stay on schedule? Even if we could find an interested and affordable grinding company, most are booked out at least a month, and their work would add at least 2 days to the job.?

This is where pressure points develop in a project. Often times, it is no one contractor’s fault that these issues arise. However, the friction caused by them often dictates a customer's opinion of a company, regardless of how beautiful the work comes out in the end.?

It’s here than any contracted company, facing such issue, must decide what they want their reputation to become. Will you be the company that reasons it’s not your problem, let someone else fix it and miss deadline? Or will you make the choice to be a problem solver?

Regardless of why the issues arose, you want to be remembered as a company that finds answers when they’re needed most.?With rising prices comes rising expectations. People are no longer solely concerned with objectivity, which in this case means, is the end product good or not. This is why the best company is not the company that delivers the best product. It’s the company that delivers a very good product combined with the best overall experience of getting it.

To apply this to the matter at hand, when faced with the afore mentioned pain point of a problem that arises in a floor installation, the best company is the one that consistently delivers solutions. This doesn’t mean you’re effortless to work with. A company that fits that description would likely never bring up an issue in order to avoid the possible displeasure of a customer. No, the best company addresses small issues that will turn into large issues if ignored. They offer the most concise, practical, and affordable solutions to fix such issues regardless of the difficult conversations needed to address them. Bringing this full circle, our company decided to confront the issues head on. Here's how we did it:

We decided to rent the proper equipment to grind the seams - I reached out to several connections with experience in concrete prep. They all agreed that 3/8" was a significant amount to grind, but they were divided on how to solve the issue. Fortunately, my third contact has past flooring experience and is affiliated with a concrete grinding machine manufacturer. He didn't have any demo machines available (par for the course during COVID-19), but suggested we rent them. Our employee Jim called 4 places and found the necessary equipment. This solved our first issue.

For our second, we used Sika 825 self leveling compound to fill the valleys. A few tips when using this product or other self leveling products:

1. Be sure to properly map out your pours. Pouring too much is worse than pouring too little, this stuff takes time to grind down.

2. To get sika 825 to properly adhere, you need to thoroughly vacuum the subfloor and roll on a layer of their primer. Also, Seal any possible leak zones, such as large cracks. We recommend spray foam insulation. Check it out:

3. Have a metal level handy to guide the product and check if you need to pour more material.

4. use a 6 inch (or similar size) putty knife to flatten the edges and avoid ridges.

Once the leveling compound dried, we finished out our surface prep process by coating the entire floor in Bona R540 liquid sealer (opening image). Since we opted for a full glue down, a traditional tar paper moisture barrier wouldn't cut it.

To conclude, I hope this article proves helpful for anyone trying to improve an aspect of their business, especially if that business happens to be hardwood floors. Our livelihoods help us achieve our aspirations in life; they may even be our aspirations. Therefore, it is my goal to help people succeed, in any way they can, to that end. If all else, hopefully this was an Stay tuned for the next part of this project!