Floor finishing

[surfdabbler]

We've just had our floors done, and the result is less than pleasing.

There are patches where the finish has not taken to the boards, so it is spotty. There are bits where the finish is soaked in, and every board crack and every nail hole stands out, and the 'gloss' finish is very much showing the full woodgrain through the surface, so it's not mirror gloss at all, but is more like satin, with reflections very much scattering across the grain. They also left a lot of little holes unfilled.

We've had the floors done about 10 years ago, and the result was much better. The new finish is a polyurethane. Is it possible or likely that the new finish is not co-existing with the old finish? The new finish is a polyurethane, not water based. I don't know if they used a 1 or 2 pack. The previous finish was much smoother, with more of a mirror finish result. Our floors are mixed hardwood.

The guy has gone on Easter holidays early, so we have no choice but to wait for Tuesday morning to get any sort of resolution here. I'm frustrated that we 'did the right thing' and paid them promptly at job completion. I will never do this again, until the whole job has been thoroughly completed and inspected. Now we have no leverage to get the job done properly, and we are at the mercy of their goodwill.

Anyway, I wanted to get people's thoughts.

What is the likely problem to cause the spotting?
What should have been done?
What are they going to suggest to fix it?
Are modern polyurethane finishes simply not able to produce a smooth mirror finish across board grain, joins and nail holes?

I don't really want them to sand the crap out of our floorboards again just to do it all again and 'hope' that it works this time. I feel like we're going to end up with concave floor! If we can find out what the likely finish was last time, maybe we should use the same finish instead of the 'gloss polyurethane' they used this time?

Any advice would be appreciated, so I'm a little better informed on Tuesday. Thanks!

[Dusty]

When you say you have just had your floors done, do you mean they were completly sanded back to raw timber and three new coats applied, or was it simply just cut back and a new top coat laid down?

[surfdabbler]

Hi Dusty, nice to have a reply from a pro. :) Our floors were sanded back to wood and 3 new coats applied. (I don't know how likely it is that there was still spots of the old finish that might be causing the spotty area.) Our kitchen had some old parquetry, so this is completely new work, as the parquetry was laid on top of masonite that was stapled to the floor. The timber was bare unfinished wood under the parquetry. The kitchen is the area where every board crack and nail hole is standing out.

The previously coated areas are slightly better in that regard, but the 'spotting' is occurring in sections of the previously coated area.