Freds
Veteran Member
This seems to be the forum for general advice. And boy do I need it.
I have a small business and the VCT flooring was in need of a professional refinishing. I called up a cleaning place in town here and got a price. The owner of the business gave it to me and assured me of a professional job, tape this, block off that... there was to be no mess with his stripping and re-waxing of the floors (he still needs to come back and burnish them) and he was to be done by 4:00, as I had customers coming shortly after that.
So today, right at 8:30 when he said, he comes out with his crew, two young men. He introduces me, everything is good, his workers have been great all day, very polite when I've run into them, but I stayed out of the office area until 4:00, when the one worker came back to give me a hand moving the bigger items back into place. The floors are still wet in some areas. And it reeks. I was told there would be a mild smell, but the chemical smell was so bad it was loosening the grip of post-its and various items I had taped to the walls. Why they didn't crack some windows I don't know. And why they didn't leave the fans they brought going when the guy waxing left after the last coat, I don't know that either
But that's not the problem...
The problem is, whatever they were using, either the stripper or the wax, splashed onto a couple of my stained interior doors and the baseboard in quite a few area. I'm sure most of us here have stained wood before. You know that build up you get at corners that you have to wipe off or it runs and looks like crap? Yep. I got that all over the place. It looks like whoever did the trimwork and stained the doors on my building didn't know what he was doing. All because of whatever they were splashing around and not very careful with. So I said something to the workers.
They came back with Murphy's oil soap, but that didn't touch what they had done. And the one guy said he spoke with his boss and his boss will stop out to talk to me about it. He also said... and here's the smokescreen that most every contractor likes to put up, that it looks like whoever stained the wood didn't put a coat of varnish on it and this usually doesn't happen. Whatever. You saw what you were working with before you started. Don't try to put blame on someone else, IMO. I came back with, the boss told me that you guys were going to tape off everything. I also showed him a box of 8' fluorescent lights in the hallway that had been sitting on the floor. When they did the one room, they put down enough liquid to bleed under the wall and soak into the box, collapsing it. That's a lot of liquid seeping around. And I can only hope the drywaller didn't run the drywall all the way down to the floor or it's surely going to wick up all that moisture and bubble my paint. Don't you think?
So anyway, sorry so long but I wanted to provide all the details, IMO the contractor and his crew were nice enough and professional enough, but they screwed up. And can it be overlooked? Yes... but I'm going to have to see those splash marks and runs until the day I die. And so are my customers. They might not notice the baseboards so much, but the one door is right across from my entrance. That will get surely noticed. And everytime I walk into that building I'm going to see every little mark. That's just the way I am.
So is there a fix for this? I know we've got some woodworkers here. Is there something they can wipe down the stained surfaces and blend in these dark marks of whatever it was? I was thinking of telling him to vuy me a brass kickplate for the one door, but I've got five doors in this room, would I put it on all of them? Won't that looks stupid on a door that has a knob? And I don't think they go across the whole door anyway, or as high as the splashes are on the one door.
This is where you guys come in :thumbsup:
What do you think?
I have a small business and the VCT flooring was in need of a professional refinishing. I called up a cleaning place in town here and got a price. The owner of the business gave it to me and assured me of a professional job, tape this, block off that... there was to be no mess with his stripping and re-waxing of the floors (he still needs to come back and burnish them) and he was to be done by 4:00, as I had customers coming shortly after that.
So today, right at 8:30 when he said, he comes out with his crew, two young men. He introduces me, everything is good, his workers have been great all day, very polite when I've run into them, but I stayed out of the office area until 4:00, when the one worker came back to give me a hand moving the bigger items back into place. The floors are still wet in some areas. And it reeks. I was told there would be a mild smell, but the chemical smell was so bad it was loosening the grip of post-its and various items I had taped to the walls. Why they didn't crack some windows I don't know. And why they didn't leave the fans they brought going when the guy waxing left after the last coat, I don't know that either
But that's not the problem...
The problem is, whatever they were using, either the stripper or the wax, splashed onto a couple of my stained interior doors and the baseboard in quite a few area. I'm sure most of us here have stained wood before. You know that build up you get at corners that you have to wipe off or it runs and looks like crap? Yep. I got that all over the place. It looks like whoever did the trimwork and stained the doors on my building didn't know what he was doing. All because of whatever they were splashing around and not very careful with. So I said something to the workers.
They came back with Murphy's oil soap, but that didn't touch what they had done. And the one guy said he spoke with his boss and his boss will stop out to talk to me about it. He also said... and here's the smokescreen that most every contractor likes to put up, that it looks like whoever stained the wood didn't put a coat of varnish on it and this usually doesn't happen. Whatever. You saw what you were working with before you started. Don't try to put blame on someone else, IMO. I came back with, the boss told me that you guys were going to tape off everything. I also showed him a box of 8' fluorescent lights in the hallway that had been sitting on the floor. When they did the one room, they put down enough liquid to bleed under the wall and soak into the box, collapsing it. That's a lot of liquid seeping around. And I can only hope the drywaller didn't run the drywall all the way down to the floor or it's surely going to wick up all that moisture and bubble my paint. Don't you think?
So anyway, sorry so long but I wanted to provide all the details, IMO the contractor and his crew were nice enough and professional enough, but they screwed up. And can it be overlooked? Yes... but I'm going to have to see those splash marks and runs until the day I die. And so are my customers. They might not notice the baseboards so much, but the one door is right across from my entrance. That will get surely noticed. And everytime I walk into that building I'm going to see every little mark. That's just the way I am.
So is there a fix for this? I know we've got some woodworkers here. Is there something they can wipe down the stained surfaces and blend in these dark marks of whatever it was? I was thinking of telling him to vuy me a brass kickplate for the one door, but I've got five doors in this room, would I put it on all of them? Won't that looks stupid on a door that has a knob? And I don't think they go across the whole door anyway, or as high as the splashes are on the one door.
This is where you guys come in :thumbsup:
What do you think?
