Hallway renovations - sloppy job?
Hi. We are looking for a community point of view on construction work that was done in our brownstone hallway. Among other things the contractor was asked to pull out the carpet from the wooden hallway (4 floors), repair cracked steps, exchange wood if needed and then stain and seal the stairs. After they had miscalculated the time the stain would take to dry and because of that only painted only one half of each step before finishing the other half, it turned out that we had a clearly visible line on every single step and different shades of staining. We asked him to fix the staining discrepancies. He then sanded the middle of each step and restained all of them. He also asked us to pay extra for a day’s worth of work to restain. I am attaching some pictures from the “final” work product after the second staining. Our question to this group is whether this would be considered a final work product that should be fully paid for. We feel this is a very sloppy job. [ FB_IMG_1568803522725](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s3/:brownstoner:AG6f:fb_img_1568803522725.jpg.jpg) [FB_IMG_1568803507294](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s3/:brownstoner:Qu6g:fb_img_1568803507294.jpg.jpg) [FB_IMG_1568803512375](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s3/:brownstoner:1O2d:fb_img_1568803512375.jpg.jpg) [FB_IMG_1568803518213](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s3/:brownstoner:l4JV:fb_img_1568803518213.jpg.jpg)
Guest User | 5 years and 8 months ago
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stevecym | 5 years and 8 months ago
i did some stairs right after super storm sandy using basic coatings water base with the cross link catalyst. i periodically get to visit that house and the finish looks as though it was applied yesterday. very hard. Being a traditionalist, i am loath to admit this but the water base finishes are much better than the oil for interior work; as i said above, i have to put a coat of poly on every other year or so; that is oil base product and it is much softer than the modern water base finishes. the water base products have come a long way since the 1990’s. i still hate water base stains though.
cate | 5 years and 8 months ago
Before we moved in we had the floors along with the stairs sanded, sealed, stained and polyurethaned by floor refinishers with years of experience. They tested the color before proceeding. They used four coats of highest quality water based satin finish polyurethane. Our stairs are not covered by carpet and they look as good now, 10 years later, as they did when they were first refinished. Pine is tricky and needs an experienced hand.
stevecym | 5 years and 8 months ago
this is what i have to do to mine: i put a coat of poly on every other year so the wood does not wear away and i do it before it wears through to the stain.
GreenThinker | 5 years and 8 months ago
In a years time you’ll get considerable wear from foot traffic anyway, you might even go back to carpet once you notice how much louder it is when people come up and down the stairs. Could have it been done better, yes, but depending on how much you’ve already paid, the guy could just walk away and you’ll either have to live with it or find another guy to redo it.
stevecym | 5 years and 8 months ago
and no one should need dye stain on pine, oak, ash, mahogany. any open grain woods do not need dye stain, though in truth, pine is the most closed of those i just listed and the steps look like pine.
stevecym | 5 years and 8 months ago
back to sanding. here’s what happens here. i come on here and write and then go to work and in this case i was sanding a pair of doors and thinking about this post and thought about not only my experiences sanding but the experiences i have had teaching people how to sand (and still make money at it).
here is the problem beginners have with sanding and i still have this problem sometimes myself; we are not always sure at what grit to start the project. when in doubt, if there is no chance of damaging something such as a veneer, go a little heavier (one grit heavier). we try not to do that because, once you go heavy, say to 40, you have to then go 60, 80, 100, and as i said, i stop at 120. this is not always true, i can spot with 40 but then when i do the entire project with 60, i will pay particular attention to where i hit it with 40 to be sure to get the damage (and keep in mind, sanding is a destructive process; we are damaging the fibers of the wood) from the 40 out before i move to 80 and so on….. this concern is particularly true in restoration work w here the condition of the wood might very well be inconsistent. when we miss this by a grade of paper, it costs money.
the other thing that beginners do not always understand is that you must stop at the same grit throughout the project when you finish. this is not always true with painting as primer will fill the grain so long as it is all reasonably close, but with staining, the stain will go in heavy in spots and become dark and go in lighter in other spots. as i said, no matter what, i stop at 120. but if we break during a job or i do any job at other than 120, i note it. on the last pair of doors i did “in situ”, when i broke for the weekend, i wrote the grit i stopped at in black marker on the glass. i am sure it looks odd to the customer to come home and see that, but i can have him come on here right now and talk about the job on those doors.
the job in the photos should have been sanded with a heavier paper. if people are trying to follow the proper sanding sequence as i laid out above, they may be reluctant to go to heavy due to time and budget.
sometimes i come on here and tell people things i heard from someone else. this time, 43 years of experience is talking.
stevecym | 5 years and 8 months ago
let me add another point here to the OP and others and i have wanted to say this for some time. as a contractor, we don’t always know how some things will proceed. i bet it is almost easier for the big guys who do full guts (maybe, maybe not) to just take measurements and enter numbers and go. but with your steps, and i have sanded more wood than anyone reading this right now, we don’t always know exactly how it will proceed; we have an idea. this is what i think happen with your steps: the spots that did not take the stain are where a hundreds years of foot traffic pressed down on the grain of the wood. if i go on a quote like your job, should i see this? maybe or maybe not but if i have done a lot of stair cases maybe i know this will happen or maybe past experience is we just sand heavy anyway (that would be my approach to get the nicks out; I would assume i am starting with 40 and working to 120 as if we were doing a floor so this would not have even come into play). but when i write that quote, i should write it to cover a few unknowns. this is wha t happens if a contractor fails to anticipate a possibility; if he covered himself and left a little bit, he will come out making less money; i made $20 an hour on a job a while back. did i get mad at the customer or ask him for more money, no; it was my responsibility and 20 an hour is not horrible (after my business expenses are covered its not); its not a loss and i can live with it. can that happen often? no, my wife will make me get a job if it does (experienced workers will leave the market and have; that’s a bad thing for all of us). if this guy felt he had to ask you for more money, he really under quoted the job. while the responsibility to keep this from happening rests on the shoulder of the contractor as the professional, we consumers (and i pay people to work on my house) have to be aware that their are people who will under quote and may not be able to finish a job; i have been there, in the past, and it is not funny and money will not magically start appearing in that contractors hands. in the end, everybody ends up unhappy.
in the past, as i wrote quotes, i would let customers know i am building in a few unknowns. this is what some people did to me when i said that: “why not leave them out of the quote and when we hit them, we’ll talk about them”. contractors cannot do that. when we leave them out and then try to talk about them when they come up, the problem then becomes the contractor’s and getting the additional money is like pulling teeth. the contractor has to cover himself from the get go. something always comes up and this one did not cover himself. that i know because he asked you for more money.
it is easier for a contractor to build some unknowns into the quote and then if something comes up and the customer sees it (the contractor might have already spotted it and is not saying anything as he sees it as part of his job), he can say to the customer “that is my problem” or “or don’t worry, i covered it”; customers love hearing those words.
ideally, the relationship between the homeowner and contractor is a partnership. and if both the contractor and consumer are reasonable with one another, both should be pleased at the end of the job. and it is not that the contractor might have made more money, maybe he didn’t but everything went well: from the conversations, to parking out front, the dog didn’t pee on his leg and the job came out like it should.
in the event a job goes so well that the contractor feels as though he made the money he needed to make, he should be willing to give something back. i just gave a customer a pair of door trim plates and door knobs because things went well (i won’t purchase something like this to give someone; it was in my back stock for customers). we can’t give away the sun, moon, and stars and people should not expect that. but if it went well, we should give something back (sometimes i also stay behind and work hourly to take care of unrelated things for a customer, especially if they were so nice that i’d rather keep working there than move on; i am doing that now for someone and she realizes things went well; i feel obligated; one guy asked me to adjust his kitchen cabinet doors not long ago and i did and i honestly attempted to refuse the tip he gave me).
i’ve wanted to explain this on here for a long time. i hope it is beneficial.
stevecym | 5 years and 8 months ago
and someone might come on here and say that when staining, wood should be sanded to 150 or finer, not 120 as i suggest. i go to 120 and if i am worried about the swirls showing up from the orbital, i go back over it with a “straight line” sander starting at 60 right through 120; no more swirls. i only sand to 120 as it gives the varnish something to bite; “mechanical bond”. also, straight line sanders had not been made for some time and until Festtool came out with one 3 years ago, i was ordering old ones from the 1960’s and 70’s on ebay. no matter what, you have to sand.
stevecym | 5 years and 8 months ago
i can tell by some things you say that he used minwax stain, the yellow can, am i correct? i do a lot of staining and sometime stop and pick up again even though i was taught to never do that. i have never had a problem because i use Mohawk stains and for some reason if you go too heavy or let it sit to long you can go back over it and it will blend.
stevecym | 5 years and 8 months ago
i can tell you what happen. the wood grain is closed in those spots and should have been sanded off more and down to 120 grit to open the grain and the stain would have penetrated better in those spots. sanding is a key step in staining. if we still have trouble getting a stain to penetrate (it happens on maple and birch; pine is usually easy), we use a dye stain first and then over it with an oil stain. if the contractor does not know what your are talking about if you mention dye stain or a two step staining process he is not a pro. i have stained many, many staircases and no, i would not have passed that off as done. anyone should know how to get through this situation. sometimes we have colors come out a little off or they vary between two pieces of wood and we can tone off later by adding dye to the top coat, but this is beyond that, i think. these should be sanded out and restained. if they do not yet have poly on them, he may be able to spot treat them but if they have a finish on them, it may “burnish” with a ring around it as he sands.
the wa y to keep something like this from happening is find three people who are fully experienced in a trade and get three quotes and pick the higher one (so long as it is not more than say 30% higher; if it is get a 4th quote). the guy who gives the higher quote will not get annoyed at himself when he finds out things are not going as he expected and he will not come back and ask for more money; he is a pro. he will still do the job right and will make less on the job but can still feed his kid that week. if you go with the lower quote, the guy may literally not have enough money to get through the job and still do it right; he may have cut his margins too close from the get go; been there; done that and not afraid to admit to it.