Floor finish problem

[brian lanning]

Our house has pre-finished tongue and groove maple floors. It's solid 3/4", not the 3/8" plywood stuff. There's a stain on top with some sort of clear finish, probably polyeurethane.

The problem is that the finish is coming off in some places. It starts from the edges of the boards. At first, I thought it was water damage because the finsh came off near a plunger that was wet in the bathroom. Then I remembered that our previous house had a similar floor (that one was oak instead of maple) but it was cheaper stuff, and the finish never came off.

Then I found a board nowhere near the bathroom that was doing the same thing. In all cases, the adjascent board is perfect.

Any ideas what's going on? I have plenty of extra boards so worst case, I could cut a board out with the circular saw, then rip off the back side of the tongue and replace it. One of the advantages of being a woodworker I guess.

I'm guessing that this is a manufacturing defect on some of the boards. Then again, maybe I just got it wet. Any ideas?

brian

[Sam Shank]

I don't like the prefinsihed floors, but many of them carry a waranty. It might be worth looking into in this case.

[Neil Bosdet]

If the timing works within a warranty preriod then I'd start with that route. You may have a problem batch of boards and if so, you may get your floor replaced. If there is no warranty then I would go with your solution of cutting out the problem boards and replacing. Before doing this though, I'd carefully check the rest of the floor. If other problems are showing up then you may be better off just having (or doing it yourself) the whole floor refinished.

Neil