Cancork, or anyone else, can you please advise: Our contractor will be refinishing our floors in 2 weeks. They typically use Dura Seal oil based stain and poly (I believe this is the step up from Minwax.) They have worked with other products as well, including Rubio monocoat. After reading all of these posts, I am wondering if it is safer, and wiser to use a water based process? Or is there another alternative? I am not as concerned with odor as with safety from off gassing. Also, we have pets, and I am concerned that if it takes several weeks to fully cure, that the animals claws will scratch up the new finish before it has cured. We live in the northeast and I'm guessing it will be pretty humid here in July. Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Dear All Concerned,
I am a flooring contractor/retailer in the northeast and we work with all flooring types. We install new and refinish old. I have been working in the flooring industry for the better part of 30 years and I am also chemically sensitive. The fact is stains and oil based polyurethane contain isocyanates, as they cure they create tremendous off gassing. Some people are extremely adverse to this, others are not. As stated above it depends on the type of product they used as to how long it will last. If you are at all concerned about off gassing from your floors you should also be concerned about your (paint, furniture, synthetic rugs/carpeting, new car, and anything plastic)
All of these materials together can be overwhelmingly troublesome to our homes health. Where we spend most of our time.
There is a better way. I suggest to my customers FSC certified site finished northern white oak (mostly quarter and rift sawn) and Woca/Rubio oiled floors. These products do not contain V.O.C's are very durable and easy to maintain. They can be oiled without additional sanding for years. I also suggest Wool carpeting. Wool has the ability to absorb VOC's from the air within 30 minutes and do so for up to 30 years as well as being to dry for dust mites and self extinguishing. I also suggest air cleaners by Austin Air. They contain charcoal filters that absorb VOC's as well. Fresh air is also underrated and should not be overlooked.
Think twice before you use traditional stain and Poly. These products are not durable, bad for our health and the environment.

@oscaryoshi...Dura Seal and Minwax are made by the same company. The Oil Based finish from Dura Seal is almost as bad (for off gassing & VOC content) as Minwax. They come from the same chemistry lab...from the same chemists...from the same manufacturing facilities...you get the picture.

If you are worried about VOC content then the LAST thing you want to use = oil based polyurethane. The water based polyurethanes can be less than half the VOC content than the oil based. Compare:

Lacey Act: 275 g/L VOC content is the MAXIMUM allowable

Minwax: 350 g/L VOC

Dura Seal: 550 g/L VOC; 450 g/L VOC

Polywhey: 150 g/L VOC

Loba 2K Supra AT: 130 g/L VOC

Ohhhhh dear! Dura Seal is WORSE than Minwax. Hmmmmm.

If you switch to a water based, 2 part (2K) polyurethane, be prepared to change flooring companies/workers. Those who work oil based finishes are RARELY trained in water based finishes. They are TWO DIFFERENT ANIMALS. Beware the floor "guy" who says, "Sure. I'll give it a try. What's the name again?" Run...don't walk.

Good luck.

@HappyEmpire and @HouseFlip32 , I'm about to order air quality testing to assess the level of aliphatic hydrocarbons (VOCs) from the refinished floors. I asked the testing company what the reported levels would be compared to in order to establish whether they were hazardous or not, and they answered that the levels would be compared to ACGIH indices. Is this the same comparison point that your air quality reports provided? If not, what standard or index was your testing compared to?

I can't wait to move forward with the testing (to prove to the flooring contractor that there is a problem) and then have the floors pulled out. It's been nearly 4 months since the floors were refinished, and they still reek so much that I can't use half my house. In fact, with summer coming and temperatures going up, the offgassing has increased rather than decreased over the last month. For the first few months after the refinishing, I couldn't bear to be in that part of the house with the windows closed, but I could stand it if the windows were open. Now I can't stand to be in that part of the house even WITH the windows open.

@ra_ca - did you find a solution to your problem? What were the results of the testing company? I am in a very similar situation - Had our ENTIRE house refinished in February (bona stain with either duraseal or minwax oil based finish). Now, 13 weeks later, the house still smells. My sister won't come over because she gets a headache, and pretty much anyone who comes in asks where that smell is coming from (unless they're polite and don't say anything!) I have aired out the house a ton, and it makes zero impact. As soon as the windows are shut again, the smell is just as strong as before.

My flooring guy is blaming it on the painter, and the painter is blaming it on the flooring guy. (The whole house was painted at the same time the floors were being done...back and forth for a couple of weeks.)

I would love to have a definitive test so that I could prove to either of them that it is the floor or the paint (although I'm pretty sure it's the hard wood floors because the basement does not smell and we had it painted and new carpet placed).

Would love to hear any advice from people on what my options are, especially if there are companies that will test this for me. And also, what I can expect the flooring guy to do to fix the problem.

Hi Caroline,

well, it turned out to be complicated. I had an environmental engineering firm test the air in the rooms of interest. The way it works is that they need to know what to test for - they can't just test for anything and everything that might be a problem. Thinking that the flooring finish was the only problem, I gave them the MSDS for that finish, and they set up to test for the two substances shown on that MSDS. To my surprise and exasperation, the tests showed very low/negligible concentrations of those two substances. At that point I gave up on being able to prove to the original flooring contractor that there was a problem, and decided to just pay out of my own pocket to have the floors totally redone with prefinished wood.

I then chose new wood and a new flooring contractor, and paid thousands of dollars to have the old floors and baseboards totally removed, and new floors and baseboards installed. When they removed the old baseboards, they found gobs of finish that were still wet and tacky and off-gassing. That finish had been pushed under the baseboards during the refinishing process and had never dried.

Thinking that the undried finish had been the only problem, I expected immediate improvement once the new floors went in (since I used prefinished wood on the second go-round), but in fact what happened was that the odor was nearly as bad after the new floors went in. At that point I realized that a big part of the odor problem had been and continued to be from offgassing of the glue used to glue the flooring down - not the finish, or at least not just the finish. The second flooring contractor used a low-odor glue on the upstairs room where the new flooring was glued to a plywood subfloor, but the downstairs room has a concrete foundation that the flooring got glued to, and he couldn't use that low-odor glue over the concrete. The different glue used for the downstairs room has been a huge odor problem for me for months now. The odor upstairs was a problem at first, too, but that one improved faster than the downstairs room. The second set of floors was installed in November of last year, and now it's May, and it's just now getting to the point where I can stand to be in the downstairs room. For about 4 months after the new floors went in, I couldn't stand to be in that room at all. I am hopeful that in another 3-6 months, I'll be able to go back to using my house normally.

I don't know if my situation helps you at all, but at least if you pursue the idea of air testing, you will be aware of the limitations... meaning, if you don't know ahead of time exactly what the source of the problem is, you can end up testing for the wrong things, and then the test won't show anything even though there is a real problem. (In my case I was sure the problem was from the finish; but actually it turned out it was probably more from the glue than from the finish.) It's also possible that even if you *do* know exactly what the source of the problem is, the substances that are listed on that item's MSDS may not be the substances causing the odor, so that testing for those particular substances will show nothing even though the odor is unbearable.

Wishing you good luck!

Thanks ra_ca for your help. That's a very interesting situation with the stain getting down to the baseboards and never drying. I'm sorry you're having trouble even after replacing your floors. What a nightmare.
I'm not sure what to do now about testing the air, and if that will even help me get my flooring guy on board with a remedy.
Just curious did you ever consider an ionization machine to clean the air?

Caroline, no, I never considered an ionization machine. I thought that ionization machines only help with particulate matter (as opposed to gaseous substances diffused in the air). So I didn't think it could help remove gases from off-gassing.

So much information here. I don't think I would have done the floors if I had known how much smell it was going to be. We are getting ready to sell our home and thoujght it would help sell if they had been done. Here is the problem.... while the floors where being done in the living room and dinning room we lived on the 2 lower levels of a 4 level sidesplit. While living in the basement we decided to do the laundry...... bad idea. The gas dryer reaks of the poly and all the clothes need re done. I just don't know how to get the smell off the heating coil in the dryer??? Also the fumes made the sensor on the hot water tank guit as well. We had the repairman come in and he replaced the sensor but said it would continue to go each time they came to do each coat. With my husband being an electrician by trade he made sure that he took the sensor out and out it in a plastic bag in the garage while they were doing the coats, once the fans had run he replaced the sensor so we could shower and have hot water.

Is there anything we can but in the dryer to remove the smell before we start doing laundry again? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. :)

We're having our floors finished with three coats of oil-based Fabulon. I called the company, ARCAT (800.364.1359), and the rep said that off-gassing occurs as the floor cures and that the rate at which the VOC levels fall is correlated with the curing. So he said that 80% of curing typically occurs within 24 hours with an upward bound of 96 hours and at that time 80% of your VOC off-gassing is complete. He said that the remaining cure time could take up to 30 days from the time the last is applied and that when the floor is fully cured, the VOC off-gassing is fully complete. He said that as long as windows are open during the first 96 hours sonthat the house is well ventilated, there should be no danger of moving in after the 96 hours.

We tried Ionisation on our floor issue and it had very little affect. The owner of the company was surprised and disappointed and refunded 50% of cost.

@FloorsByTheShore. Thank you for your response. We had to move from our home because of the provoked sensitivity from the floors. Now, we are in a home of the same age and are postponing renovation because of pure fear. We moved and continued to notice symptoms and realised it was our mattresses and pillows and rugs. With a coil mattress and new pillows, comforters, etc we were finally able to sleep and recover. My husband was consulting with Simmons and we were able to purchase the best mattress on the market at an amazing discount. We were not able to tolerate the off gassing from the foam for over 6 months.
I will take all of your advice into consideration when we are finally courageous enough to renovate. The flooring is our biggest fear but new cabinets, doors, wainscoting, furniture? The list goes on.
Any further information you may have will be much appreciated-especially if you have first "nose"experience.
Thanks again.
Wish I could find someone who undetstands, first-hand, in the southeast.

@happyempire, I'm so sorry that you and your family have gone through such an ordeal. I wanted to say thank you for warning us about potential off-gassing issues with mattresses, pillows, and rugs. I will need to buy a new mattress very soon, and in fact already started shopping for one. In the showroom the one I liked best was a hybrid coil/foam design... but I wasn't accounting for the off-gassing problems I might encounter with a product that is even partially foam. After reading your comments I'm thinking I would do best to stay away from any mattress that is even partially foam. The last thing I need is to be breathing in off-gassed odors and chemicals all night, every night.

About renovating -- I have remodeled 3 bathrooms in my house, and have not had any problem with off-gassing from the cabinetry (each bathroom got a new vanity cabinet plus medicine cabinet). That was Dynasty series semi-custom cabinetry from Omega Cabinetry.

As far as standalone wood furniture, in the past when I have bought furniture that is "stock" premade furniture, I haven't had a problem with odors, because I guess by the time I took delivery, the furniture had finished off-gassing. However, recently I did purchase a piece of custom furniture that was built to my specs and then delivered to me immediately after being built, and that definitely did have an odor when I received it, presumably from the finishes used. But the odor was not overwhelming, and it decreased and became undetectable within about 6-8 weeks.

Re: doors, a few years ago I bought some unfinished red oak Feather River interior doors from Home Depot, and had a handyman finish them in the garage here at the house with polyurethane (no stain, just polyurethane sealer). That definitely did smell for a while, but I left the doors in the garage for a week or two after the polyurethane application before hanging them inside, and by the time I hung them, I didn't smell anything any more.

Re: flooring, I will never install a site-finished wood floor again, but I wouldn't hesitate to install a pre-finished wood floor if it could be nailed down instead of glued. The pre-finished wood flooring that I eventually put in didn't smell at all (although the glue used to adhere it on top of concrete was and continues to be a real problem). In the bathrooms that I renovated, I used porcelain tile from Crossville, and I don't recall any odor problems either from the tile or from the mortar/adhesive used to install it. I'm thinking I'm also going to put tile in my kitchen when I get around to renovating that.

Hope that helps!

YIKES!... hard to believe I was one of the original "commenters" on this thread on: July 22, 2013.

Hello !

To the point..

We had a concrete floor done on our bedroom and sealed with xylene. Doing the right thing with air etc., But still odor after week and a half. I'm concerned about being able to inhabit again.

Would an encapsulating sealer do the trick? Which one?

Same guy did the kitchen countertop and sealed with polyurethane.

Should I be worried there also.? Remedies there if needed ?? Oh boy...

Thanks for any help.

Just wanted to share my experience with everyone in case it spared someone my stress and cost. I had my wood floors refinished naively not knowing about all these issues nor all the options available. A month after moving my furniture in (but not yet moving in myself) I wondered why I was having asthma attacks and migraines. It took a couple weeks (and lung function testing and a consultation with a toxicoligist) to figure out it was exposure the oil-based poly after just spening an hour or two here or there finishing up some of the renovation, not even moved in. Masterline was the particular brand if I'm not mistaken.

Everyone told me I just needed time for it to finish off-gassing, but I needed a place to live, and made the very stressful and expensive decision to redo the floors again, and then spent another stressful week researching what to use. Bona was the winner (look for UL green- and gold-guard certifications). They were very helpful on the phone too. I nearly went with the Vermont whey-based finish but my floor guy had no experience with it. It's been another month and I've finally moved in and both asthma and migraines are improved. But I can assure you it was the flooring, because if I even spend a minute in the other unit I had refinished three months earlier my asthma flares for two days. Correctly noted above that polyurethane is produced from isocyanates, which apparately are known asthma triggers but you have to dig deep to find this information.

Take home point - if you have any respiratory disease (or children), avoid polyurethane like the plague, especially the oil-based ones. And that said, I can't imagine inhaling those chemicals is good for anyone, even if you can't immediately feel the effects.

Maybe I'd have been fine after a month if it had been water-based, but the oil-based ones truly can takes several months or longer to completely be safe. I had my trimwork redone in what I think was a water-based poly and that seems to be ok - but I am still having intermittent flares from my asthma. I think it's when I sit on any of the cushioned furniture that was moved in a month after the last coat of the oil-based poly was laid, and presumably because they absorbed all of the chemicals.

And one question for the pros/others - I've replaced my mattress, but am hopeful that I won't have to replace my sofa and armchairs. Any experience with whether the cushions will eventually release/off-gas what they absorbed or whether there is any way to speed up that process? I've been advised to vaccuum, to use charcoal, to fan - but presumably it's pretty deeply in there and I haven't found any solid evidence that any of that actually works. I welcome any advice.

TIA and good luck to all.

To @happyempire @Caroline E @ra_ca @nk_smith We are having a similar problem with our hardwood floors and fumes and are looking for possible solutions. I'm wondering if any of the folks who tried a solution and moved back into their homes have an update on how the floors and fumes are doing now.

Hi LH, my "solution" to my original fumes problem was to tear out and replace the very problematic site-finished hardwood flooring with pre-finished wood flooring. However, as I wrote about earlier, it turned out that the replacement pre-finished wood flooring had its own fume problems, which turned out to be from the glue used to install it. I don't recall exactly when I stopped smelling/having a problem with the glue fumes, but I don't notice it any more. That prefinished wood flooring was installed in November 2016... I wrote in an earlier post that the glue fumes were better but still noticeable in May 2017... and now it's October 2019 and I never notice any odor any more. If I had to guess, I'd say it was late 2017 when I stopped smelling the glue odor from the non-low-odor glue used over concrete -- so about a year after the flooring was installed. The fumes from the low odor glue used over plywood in the other room stopped being an issue much sooner.

I'm sorry to hear that you are in a similar boat and I wish you all the best in finding a solution that works for you.

I am having serious problems due to refinished wood flooring. I just recently signed a lease on a new apartment- a hard to find, perfect location apartment. The problem- when I first saw it I thought the fumes in the apartment were due to the new paint. I don't have any experience refinishing wood, so I had no idea. I shut the doors and when I arrived to actually move in almost 3 weeks later, the apartment smelled just as strong... maybe worse. That day I was having problems- nausea, headache, burning eyes and throat. The next morning my eyes were actually swollen. I soon found out it was the floors. I actually had a friend come over who was more sensitive than I am, and she could barely stand to be in there for 15 minutes. I opened the windows and went to stay at a hotel. The property company put a fan in the apartment. Fast forward- Now it's been two and a half weeks, and it was already bothering me significantly after being over there only a couple of hours yesterday. I'm currently in a corporate apartment, and I'm trying to decide what in the world to do. I've been trying to find out from the property management what was used on the floors, who completed the work, and when it was done. I've sent them three requests over the past two weeks, and I finally received a response- "satin floor finish" was applied two months ago. Those were the exact words! If I was the homeowner, it would be my fault, but I didn't know what was done before I moved in. I checked with a company that can do VOC testing, but it will cost $1000 and I've already spent a ton of money on the corporate apartment I'm staying in.....not to mention the rent I'm paying. I want to get the property company to replace the floors with (maybe) vinyl flooring. Any advice would be appreciated! I had a flooring company come look at the floors, and they said it's really unusual for the smell to be that strong after a month....but it's actually been two months!

MJ, I'm so sorry to hear of your predicament. If the odor is still that strong after two months, that suggests to me that something went wrong with the refinishing, in which case it's unlikely that the problem will go away by itself within the next few weeks or even next few months. As to what your options are, I'm guessing that depends on a whole host of factors -- is there a different apartment in the same complex they would let you have instead? How much negotiating power do you have? Do you have a rental mediation program in your city? Can you try to get out of the lease and then sue the landlords if they won't return your deposit and/or let you out of the lease? After all it seems to me there is an implied warranty in their agreement to lease the property that the property will be habitable and not a hazard to your health -- and if the floor is off-gassing hazardous or noxious chemicals, that would seem to me to be in breach of that implied warranty (but that's just a layman's perspective - I'm not a lawyer).

I feel for you and hope you can work out something that doesn't harm your health or your bank balance.

@m j Bluemel I’m sorry you are having these problems. But let’s talk reality. Instead of expending energy and angst over potentially many months arguing with the landlord I suggest you ask the landlord to let you out of the lease without penalty. This is not a solution that can be solved to your satisfaction in a timely manner. And no landlord who has gone to the effort to install or maintain hardwood floors is going to want to rip it out and install vinyl, a far inferior product. Vinyl flooring is also not any less likely to have these issues.

Hi @ra_ca Thanks so much for your update! I'm glad to hear ripping out the finished-in-place solid hardwood floors and replacing them with something else eventually worked for you. So glad to hear that the fumes eventually dissipated from your new prefinished wood floors and the glue. It's such a long ordeal to figure out how to solve a problem like that, and I applaud you for all the effort you put into it and am so glad it worked out. It is very kind of you to share your experience with other folks facing similar floor issues.

Can I ask if you think it is worth it to get environmental testing? And if you have any tips about the process of getting the floors ripped out and putting something else in? And the big question, how could you tell when it was safe for you to move into your house?

The other thing we're wondering is: What kinds of things in the house could have gotten fumes in them and would need to be replaced (I noticed the earlier comments in this thread about mattresses, upholstered furniture, and pillows)? Anything else? Do those fumes get into the walls?

We're thinking of getting our hardwood floors ripped out and put in something safer for us with no VOCs, like maybe tile or something. I'm wondering if it is worth doing the environmental testing just to see what the VOC levels are in there now and if they go away if we rip out the floors. Or if the testing isn't necessary, i.e. would we be able to tell from our reaction if there are no more fumes if we take out the wood floors.

We had solid hardwood red oak floors put in a year ago, and the installer used Bona Mega finish (water-based poly) and a Minwax stain. We wanted the lowest VOC option and were hopeful that the Bona Mega would work. We actually wanted him to use a Bona stain, but he insisted that he needed to use a Minwax stain (high VOCs) because it worked better, in his experience. We stayed away until the cure time was over. When we then went to check on the house, we smelled fumes and got those common symptoms of a reaction to offgassing (headaches, fatigue, etc.). Because the fumes are so bad, we have continued to stay away while we try to fix this problem. The floor installer said he'd never seen that problem and he didn't think it was the floor fumes. We tried but gave up on getting help from him.

In our efforts to solve the problem, we talked to a company that does things like mold remediation, and they had heard of this happening with floor fumes. They recommended trying to air out the house frequently and run an air scrubber with charcoal filters. They thought the fumes would dissipate with time. We've done that for a year. The fumes improved a lot but haven't gone away. Recently, someone who was airing out the house for us went in on a day the AC was off while being repaired, and the fumes were so bad when he walked in that he got nausea and lightheadedess.

At this point, we feel like we need to make a decision and move forward. I don't know how much longer it would take for the fumes to dissipate and for the house to be OK. We don't want to risk our health. So we're trying to figure out what to do and considering ripping out the floors and putting in something else. We're trying to figure out options that would be safer for us to put in, with no VOCs. Maybe wood-look porcelain tile. Were there any other flooring options that you looked into with no VOCs? We're scared of putting something else in there that could offgas. We're eager to get this ordeal over with and get to enjoy the house.

Thanks so much for any insights you could share! Very much appreciated.

@mainenell When the landlord is a property management company that is replacing the old Parquet wood floors with new more durable fake wood as tenants leave, redoing the floors might be an option. The new fake wood is not nearly as toxic as oil based polyurethane. @ra_ca thanks. The Apartment is really perfect other than the fumes, so I really want to try and work with the property company and I don’t want to break the lease.

But they don’t have the durability either. Landlords goal is to create tenant-proof rentals. Real hardwood generally takes more abuse than fake stuff. And your previous post you specifically said vinyl. Hardwood can last 100 years. Vinyl and other fake wood products will not. And since they refinished these floors I would say it was not their intent to replace them or they would have done it.

If it were me you would be offered “the happy clause”. I’ll let you out of the lease with no penalty if you leave it rent ready. It is obvious you won’t be happy here. Which it is obvious. I would not change the flooring to a less desirable product when I have a great there already. Now, if you want to approach it under ADA and say that you need accommodations for your medical issues it would have to be accommodated. On your dime. You pay to rip out the existing flooring, install whatever you want, and put into escrow the amount to return the floor to the original condition (hardwood). From my perspective, those are your two options.

@L H most of my update was in my initial post - asthma really cleared up largely after redoing with Bona. The only thing I was disappointed about was that I couldn't get that rich aged amber hue to match the trim, as the Bona products are much lighter (we did add a little bit of "amber tint" but not the same), but I'm much rather breath now and also not have diminished lung function down the line (discussed this at lenth with my allergist and an occupational medicine doctor) from 6-9 months of exposure to asthma-inducing chemicals.

The only update on my end is that the sofa and armchair do seem to have off-gassed from the exposure but I'd say 6-9 months before it fully cleared up.

Also there's still some fine dust circulating from the HVAC that was probably produced during the sanding (as hard as I tried to prevent this the floor guy ended up turning the system on grrr to "help it dry" because he was in a hurry to finish the project), I've had the ducts cleaned but doesn't get it all. I'd suspect at this point though it's just dust and is no longer releasing the chemicals.

Best of luck to everyone.

Hi @L H, I actually don't think it was worth it to get environmental testing. If I had to make the choice again, I would save my money and skip it. I was naive in thinking that the testing would surely show a very high level of one of the VOCs listed on the floor finish's MSDS (I was planning to use those test results to pressure the floor installer to fix the issue). In fact, environmental testing is pretty useless unless you know in advance exactly what to test for. But how can one know exactly what chemical(s) is/are in the horrible fumes, and so what to test for? I certainly guessed wrong, and wasted good money as a result.

As for what other flooring options to consider if you do rip out the existing problematic hardwood, that's a tough/complicated question. It depends on so many things, like the purpose/usage of the room(s), how hard of a floor your joints (knees, etc.) can tolerate, and so many other factors. For example, I have porcelain tile in all of my bathrooms, and I love it for that purposes, but I would never install it throughout the whole house, because it is so hard (which is more and more of a problem as I get older and more arthritic) and so cold (I installed heating coils under the tile in the bathroom, but that's not feasible for a whole house.) For me, pre-finished wood turned out to be a pretty good choice, although as I mentioned the glue fumes were problematic for a while. If your subfloor is suitable for a nailed-on installation of prefinished wood rather than glued-on, that might be ideal. Or if at least you are installing prefinished wood over plywood rather than over concrete, so that they can use low odor glue, that will help.

BTW on my second installation I ended up using prefinished wood flooring from Mirage, and I love the product. The flooring is beautiful, and the flooring material itself had no odor whatsoever. The only odors were from the installation glue. Here is Mirage's website: https://www.miragefloors.com/en-us/hardwood-flooring/

I didn't really have an option to move out of my house while the fumes were a problem, so I basically just avoided those parts of the house that were problematic as much as possible. I kept the doors closed between those rooms and the rest of the house as much as I could, and the windows open in those rooms as much as possible. The whole experience was very inconvenient and very expensive on the utility bills for a very long time :-(

Thankfully I didn't notice fumes off-gassing from my furniture/rugs/curtains after the point where I stopped noticing the fumes from the glue on the second installation.

All the best to you.

@L H, one more thing - on my second go-round I used Mirage's "Engineered" hardwood flooring, not the 100% hardwood product. I think I had to go with Engineered because one of the floors was being installed over concrete. I was somewhat worried that any glues or binders used to create the engineered product stack-up would give off some fumes - but as I mentioned above, the product itself had no offensive odor. Mirage is a very reputable (high'ish-end?) flooring company, though -- I have no idea if all (i.e. cheaper) engineered prefinished flooring is likely to also be free of harmful fumes.

I stayed in my apartment last night, and woke up this morning with a swollen eyes/face (mildly swollen-not ER type swollen) and having to use my asthma inhaler that I haven't had to use in months. A couple people have recommended putting a coat of water based poly over the oil based poly to get rid of the fumes. Has anyone tried it with success, or not? I'm thinking of offering that as a solution to the property management. It would be cheap and fast. Any thoughts?

It can't be normal for it to be doing this two months after they were sealed. Maybe they put it on too thick, or didn't wait long enough between coats? They did finally give me a brand name- Sherwin Williams- but no other information.

Thank you!

@MJ Bluemel, is it possible that your floor has one of the problems that mine did, which was that there were gobs of finish under the baseboards that were still wet and tacky and off-gassing, many months after the refinishing? That finish had been pushed under the baseboards during the refinishing process and had never dried. I think that can happen if the refinishers don't take off the baseboards while they refinish, and are not very careful about making sure the finish doesn't get pushed/sucked up behind the baseboards.

Unfortunately I don't know how you'd check for this without taking off one/some of the baseboards...

I think that would be worth a try. It is a sensitivity issue and it does absorb into fabrics, rugs, mattresses, etc. it was more noticeable at night as you sleep closer to the floor but also because the fumes have been absorbed into mattress and covers. Wash all of your bedding and get a new mattress pad and see if that helps. We actually moved after 9 months and when we were in the new house could not sleep. It was disheartening but we immediately purchased a new mattress and all was well. We did move a rug out as well.

Hope that helps and sorry you are experiencing this. i was in the house more than anybody and became seventy anemic. Just be aware if you are a person with sensitivity. Good luck.

@happyempire Do you mean that you got anemia from your exposure to the floor fumes? Did it go away after you moved? In your new house, did you have any trouble with the floors there? So sorry that you went through that! We're thinking of ripping out our hardwood floors because of the fumes. We're trying to figure out a better kind of flooring to get with no VOCs. If you have any tips on that, much appreciated.

@L H I'm having a similar situation. I refinished my floors in July. After 2 months my home was still uninhabitable. I hired a new company to refinish my floors again in Sept. As they were sanding they realize that they were sanding off oil based Polyurethane and not water. I specifically asked that company for waterbase. I wasn't there to witness what that company put down with the first coat of finish. I suspected something was not right though, so I made sure I witnessed the final Coats of poly. The final Coats were bona Mega. In my case they used oil poly urethane and covered it up with water poly without proper cure time for the oil. The 2nd company I hired, I purchased the products and everything has been fine until 30 days later. The old smell is coming back and I'm getting severely ill again. Since July I have not been able to move back into my home. In July and Aug. I had air scrubbers running, I had windows open for 40 days, carbon filters, etc. I never took the floorboards out and that may be the problem that the oil and the water that seeped in, in July, is still offgassing , because it's not cured. I'm going to try a sealer in the floorboards. If that does not work, I've looked into Bamboo flooring. I'm going to wait a couple more weeks before I decide to rip out my new wood floors. I'm 4 months into this. I can't even imagine waiting a year to move back into my home. Definitely I'm not going to spend a $1k for air quality test when I know what the problem is. You want use that money for your new floors.

Hi @mady nazario, I'm so sorry to hear that you are having a similar problem. I know it is a major ordeal. It definitely helps to compare notes on this kind of problem. What kind of sealer are you going to try?

The classic sealer for odors and stains is shellac. It does smell when applied but the odors don't linger like oil base finishes. The solvent is denatured alcohol so cures much faster. Most floor finishers are going to be familiar with using shellac but they likely don't realize that as universal floor sealant is shellac based.

Old shellac will dry slow and feel tacky so make sure the product is fresh.

@L H Safecoat out gassing sealer. I'm only going to squirt it in between the floorboard and the hardwood floor.

@mady nazario Good wishes for the Safecoat sealer! Let us know how it goes! When you had the floors refinished, what products did you use? Did you use a stain? For ours, we don't know if it was the Bona Mega causing the problem or the Minwax stain (or the combination of the two -- still wish the installer had used a Bona product for the stain, though we don't know if that would have helped).

@L H Just spoke to safe coat. They do not recommend what I want to do. He suggested that I seal the crack with a wood quarter round instead. We used Duraseal stain and bona mega one the 2nd time. I was fine though when all that was being applied.

Hi @mady nazario, Sounds like you might have an issue similar to the one that @ra_ca had, with the problematic finish getting under/into the baseboards. Keep us posted on what happens if you try the quarter round. Glad to hear you did OK with the Bona Mega and the Duraseal stain.

Wish I did more research before starting my project….

I had the garage floors done with an epoxy base and polyurethane topcoat. While it looks great 😊 the entire family is suffering from asthma. I’ve not had to use an inhaler in years and have been on/off it for the last past month. The floors were installed on 5/28 and while the smell has greatly diminished, the cough and shortness of breath have not. Does not help that this is happening during the Covid pandemic. Anyone have experience with this problem in their garage?

Those who have had this issue and did NOT decide to redo the floors, did the health issues associated with the polyurethane fumes eventually get better?

We are having a similar issue where our floors were stained with a high-VOC oil-based polyurethane finish during the winter time with the windows closed. It is now eight months later and still every time my wife or I go into the house we get a distinct group of symptoms - 1) pain at the bottom of the throat 2) a bad taste in the mouth and 3) secondary symptoms like chest pain, headache, and pain in the side of the abdomen. The first two symptoms are very reliable and happen every time and the throat pain generally takes days to resolve after leaving the house. I've also been told by an ENT that I have increased acid buildup in my throat since the exposure started. This seems to affect all adults who spend time in the house, and although the children don't notice it as much I'm obviously concerned for their health as well.

Is this ever going to go away on its own, or is that wishful thinking and we should just prepare for the inevitable moving everything out again and redoing all the floors?

Please provide details on what, if any, solutions have worked (other than redoing floors).

Best of health and good wishes to all.

@Floors by The Shore @Cancork Floor Inc. @Giacomo Garfieldiño

It's great to get clarification and advice from professionals! Hopefully I can offer some additional insight as I am currently in this situation :(

A quick side note, I am shocked that polyurethane brands, specifically Minwax, does not offer more of a warning about the longevity of "off-gassing." It is understandable to deal with a toxic smell during application and sometime after, but the lack of education/honesty about their product, to me is complete negligence. Especially when these brands are carried at DIY home improvement stores and are bought by "everyday homeowners" and not restricted to just professionals.

To sum up my situation... I bought my house in June 2021. I immediately sanded and refinished my floors in the Minwax stain and Minwax fast drying polyurethane for INTERIOR use. I did one coat stain, 2 coats poly. I aired out my house for an entire month before moving in July. As everyone can assume, the smell as intense, a 10/10! When we moved in a month later, I would rate it an 8/10. I cannot stress this enough for people thinking about using poly....DONT USE POLY! The off-gassing is very real!

All of your area rugs, your couch and soft fabrics will most definitely absorb the smell. And if you're like me, you will be washing/ cleaning constantly to get rid of it. I have always had a very fresh smelling home, and this "adventure" has consumed me for the past 6 months and has continued today.

Today, I would rate the smell a 2/10. I ask everyone that comes into my house to rate the poly smell...yes, I'm that person. For those dealing with this, here are the methods I used:

1) AIR OUT YOUR HOUSE EVERYDAY!

This is the most important. Create airflow by pulling air in and pushing air out using window box fans. I did this for 4 months straight. No Joke! Every room with 2 windows has an in and out fan.

2) I CLEANED MY FLOORS AT LEAST 4X A WEEK!

I used my Shark floor steamer. I would fill a bottle with vinegar water and pour it on the floor, then go over with my steamer. I would repeat this with bleach water. This definitely helped neutralize the smell. I started this 1 week after the last poly coat.

3) AIR PURIFIERS!

I used multiple methods, so not sure what has had the most effect.

I have 2 CARBON FIBER air purifiers, which I leave on every day and turn the setting up on high at night. Carbon fiber absorbs VOCs. I also bought Activated charcoal fiber pellets and put them in mesh bags in closets and under furniture. Be sure you activate the charcoal by laying them in the sun for a few hours. Not sure if it actually works, but that's what I read.

I have 2 Filtrete Smart Furnace filters which i taped to 2 box fans and let them run in the house as well. Air filters are expensive, and this does the same thing. This specific filter absorbs VOCs. These became very very black from absorbing the fine particles and worked awesome.

I use a Berger Lamp ever so often and also would put baking soda and water in a small crockpot to neutralize the air.

Please change your furnace filter often during this process. I went through 3 in 6 months.

4) WASH SOFT FABRICS AND FRESHEN AREA RUGS!

It's important to wash any fabrics taht have been exposed to the poly smell. I have consistently washed curtains, couch pillows/blankets, clothes and bedding during the "off-gassing" process. I have most of my clothes and off-season items in totes to avoid the exposure. I spray fabrics that i cannot wash with a backing soda/ vinegar/ eucalyptus mixture. The area rugs that I do have down, I have been freshening up every month or 2 with a similar backing soda/ vinegar mixture in my carpet cleaner. Even sprinkling backing soda on your rugs and let it sit before vacuuming can be helpful.

5) USE CANDLES, WALL SCENTS, ETC...

These can be helpful but the last thing you want to do is mask/mix these smells with poly. Your goal is to really purify and clean the air. Poly has a sort of "warm" smell so i stayed away from "warmer" smelling scents like vanilla or sugar. I found that fresh, minty smells did better. Eucalyptus, Spearmint, Solar Musk, Citrus, Herb and Floral smells worked best for me.

6) OZONE MACHINE

If you use one of these, definitely do your research on how to properly run one. Not sure if it helped much with neutralizing the floor smell, but it did help neutralize fabric smells. These machines work amazing and can make a dent in the "off-gassing" smell. I used it weekly the first couple months. FYI: don't put them directly on the floor, I set it on a stool. It can leave a mark, so I'm told. Again, these can be harmful so do your researched!

There may be other things I'm forgetting. I tried to simplify this while giving as much info as possible. I am glad to see the off gassing is coming to an end...hopefully and I can actually feel comfortable having people over. I will never use poly again on a project of this scale.

Hope this helped someone! :)

@dee_brown311@Giacomo Garfieldiño@ra_ca@Cancork Floor Inc.

We are at the 2 month mark after getting our floors done with an oil based polyurethane. We have done everything recomended with keeping the heat up and venting as much as possible . The smell is still too much to bear. It seemed to be improving slightly week to week for the first 6 weeks now almost seems to be getting worse. We removed the baseboard heater covers before the job was started so there is not gobs stuck underneath as others had experienced. Unfortunately our contractor will not provide us with an invoice so we dont know what brand was used but we believe it may be Bona. (nor will he return our calls).

My question is Can the fumes from off gassing attach to sawdust? we spent days cleaning sawdust after the job was done(it was lierally everywhere) but recently found a lot of it stuck to each of the pipes running through the heaters in every room. We have begun the tedious process to try to unstick this sawdust between the hundreds of metal slats that surround the pipe with a q-tip. Would love to know if anyone has had a similar experience and if this helped at all with the smell?

@Barbara L

Never a good sign when contractors don't respond back. My family is full of contractors and tradesman so I have been lucky to use their knowledge and have had to luxury to do jobs like these myself.

I can only speak to my experience, but I did not have a lot of saw dust left behind. I used a commercial belt sander and commercial oscillating hand sander with the attached bag to capture sawdust. There was maybe a sprinkle of sawdust left behind after doing a room.

Not sure how much sawdust you actually have. I would hope they used similar sanders...with the bag. If not, it would have completely coated the entire room (even walls) with saw dust. If you have duct work, which I'm assuming you don't, the furnace filter would be coated as well.

Because those baseboard radiators sit so low to the ground, they may have had to hand sand, or use a smaller oscillating sander to get in the small space, which would have caused the sawdust to travel in those small metal pieces. They should have protected them by turning the heat off and covering them before sanding.

But as far as them holding smell, I do not think this is the case. You are only 2 months in from having them finished and I will tell you, it is still the off-gassing from the oil based poly. I am 6 months in, and you can still smell hints of poly.

Not sure what your weather is like where you are or how often you are opening windows, but oddly enough I've noticed if I open windows, I smell poly more. Maybe its the humidity coming in? Maybe its because you're mixing fresh air with poly and you notice poly more? Not sure.

I think you're doing a good thing by cleaning them, it cant hurt. If you have an air compressor, it may be more time efficient to blow them out while holding a Shopvac hose close.

If I were you and the smell is too much to bear, buy an ozone machine. These machines are more amazing than people think. I bought mine a few years ago for $150. It is well worth the money. It can offer instant relief, but doesn't last long because the floors are still in the "off-gassing" phase.

But do your research on how to properly use them!! I

Please see my post above too on methods to use in addition.

Hope this was helpful! Good Luck!

Has anyone above lawyered-up and tried to recoup the cost of being dislpaced or having to refinish or replace floors? Our contractor applied oil based stain and poly without our conset or knowledge and I just can't figure out what to do next. We weren't consulted or asked what type to use, they just went ahead on their own. Do we have any recourse? Thanks.

@Meghan Hulver, highly doubtful UNLESS you had specified IN WRITING, signed by both parties, exactly what you & they agreed to use, and then they did something completely different.

Did you ask ahead of time what product(s) they would be using? And then do your own research BEFORE the job?

@dee_brown311 Thank you so much for the info!

we had tremendous amounts of sawdust to clean when they finished. They did not use any bag. The walls, light fixtures , everything was covered.

i’m in MA so it is a but chilly but we still have been venting as much as possible. Like you, we notice the smell gets worse while venting.

i guess we will keep doing what we are doing for a bit longer and keep our hopes up that it will clear. if not maybe the ozone machine will be the next step.

Thanks!!

@Barbara L

Wanted to check in to see how things are going.. any updates? :)

@dee_brown311 not much to update. Couldnt vent much during the cold winter days but now when we get warmer days we open everything up and vent as much as possible. it is slightly better than 2 months ago but still not good enough to be able to sleep. Thankfully we have an in-law that we have been staying in throughout this ordeal. We have tried multiple smell removers, air purifier, charcoal. Evetything helps to mask the smell but only temporarily.

The contractor did finally send us an invoice- said he used an oil based poly from Absco. I attempted to contact Absco but got no response.

We are optimistic that with warmer weather approaching we will soon br able to leave winfows open 24/7 and finally get our house back!!

Thanks so much for checking in and thanks again for your advice!

@Barbara L

Oh my! That's unfortunate the smell is still so bad you cannot even stay at your house!

I know when I did my floors last summer, I had the windows open and fans running for an entire month before we slowly moved things in.

I will say, no one smells the poly in my house anymore. It will get better, even though it may not seem that way. But it took 7/8 months to be completely gone.

One other thing you can try that I didn't and wished I did, is heating your home to well above normal range. Heat speeds up the curing process. I'd do this while you're still out of the home.

Like heat it for a day, then go back and air the house out. May help idk!

I'm not sure what temperature you'd do...maybe 80+

I would seriously look into getting an Ozone machine as well!

Here's the one I've used: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JAP7388/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Anyways, good luck!

@Barbara L

Did the smell from your floors go away yet? If so, how long did it take?

Our floors were refinished over a month ago and we are still dealing with the smell.