Hardwood Floor Installation & Maintenance

The mechanics of repairing deep wood gouges I once walked into a house where a $15,000 wide-plank walnut floor was cupping so bad it looked like a potato chip because the installer didn’t check the crawlspace humidity. That job taught me that wood is a living, breathing organism that reacts to every insult, whether it […]

I once walked into a house where a $15,000 wide-plank walnut floor was cupping so bad it looked like a potato chip because the installer didn’t check the crawlspace humidity, but that was just the start of the nightmare. The real disaster was the adhesive residue smeared across the surface like a toxic shadow. The […]

I once walked into a house where a $15,000 wide-plank walnut floor was cupping so bad it looked like a potato chip because the installer didn’t check the crawlspace humidity. The homeowner was devastated. The edges were splintering and the finish was literally shearing off the surface. This was not a product failure. It was […]

I spent three days grinding concrete on a job last month just so the floor wouldn’t click like a castanet. Most guys skip the leveling compound. They think the underlayment will hide the dip. It won’t. I walked into a house last spring where the homeowner had just laid down five thousand dollars worth of […]

I once walked into a house where a $15,000 wide-plank walnut floor was cupping so bad it looked like a potato chip because the installer didn’t check the crawlspace humidity, but even worse than the cupping was what the homeowner did next. They saw black scuff marks from their shoes and decided to use a […]

I smell like oak dust and WD-40. I have spent thirty years on my knees with a moisture meter and a level. I once walked into a house where a $15,000 wide-plank walnut floor was cupping so bad it looked like a potato chip because the installer did not check the crawlspace humidity. It was […]

I once walked into a house where a $15,000 wide-plank walnut floor was cupping so bad it looked like a potato chip because the installer didn’t check the crawlspace humidity. That was a tragedy of moisture. But what I saw last Tuesday was a tragedy of ignorance. A homeowner had been rubbing extra virgin olive […]

The moisture trap under your feet Cloudiness in a hardwood floor finish usually signifies trapped moisture or a chemical reaction known as blushing where water vapor gets caught beneath the protective topcoat. This optical distortion happens when the finish separates slightly from the wood fibers or when the microscopic structure of the polyurethane becomes porous […]

I once walked into a house where a $15,000 wide-plank walnut floor was cupping so bad it looked like a potato chip because the installer didn’t check the crawlspace humidity. It is a sickening feeling to see high-end lumber fail because someone ignored the physics of moisture. My hands usually smell like oak dust and […]

I have spent twenty five years on my knees with a moisture meter and a levels. I have the smell of WD-40 and oak dust permanently stuck in my nostrils. I view a floor as a performance surface, not a piece of decoration. I once walked into a house where a $15,000 wide-plank walnut floor […]