Help Please

Tom Hoffman

Member
Messages
145
When we built our new home, I installed Brazilian Cherry real 3/4" t&g hardwood floors, pre finished.

A year or so later, my wife wanted a product to clean them, we happended to be in the Woodsmith Store, and were told to use MinWax Wood Floor Cleaner.

Big mistake. It left a film on the floor, that we can't get off. When you walk on the floor, it leaves smudges from the foot prints, we never had that on the new floor.

We cleaned it as good as we could, and then me like a dummy believed the TV commercial for "Orange Glo Wood Floor Cleaner and Polisher" another colosal mistake. It looked great, except in a couple of places where she hadn't been smooth in the application, and of course they were in obvious places, so I though what the heck, lets put it on again. Big mistake #3.

Now we have a real mess. We went to Home Depot, and the lady in the floor dept. told me that she had taken all of their products home and used them and all left residue even the most expensive one. She said that the only one that did not was the Bruce Hardwood cleaner system. She also said that we just needed to find the correct product to get rid of the survace applications, as the floor was most likely Aluminum Oxide Coated, rather that Polyurethane like I thought.

We have not yet used the Bruce System.

Do any of you have any thoughts short of Sanding.

Here is a pic of the floor.
7DiningRoom.jpg


8Kitchen.jpg


5FirstView.jpg


Thanks for any help in advance.:dunno::dunno::dunno:
 
Sanding a floor is a major project. It can definitely be done, but I think that is pretty severe for your floors. Besides the aluminum oxide coating on the floor is MUCH more durable than a poly would be. I would start by contacting the mfg of the Orange Glo and ask them how to get their product stripped off the floor! You would probably be well served by talking to a true flooring company that includes refinishing in their portfolio instead of HD or any other company that does not specialize in floors. Where did you get the flooring? That may be a good place to start.
 
Ed, That is the problem, I got it from a flooring dealer in Dalton Georgia over the Internet. I think they are out of business, or have gotten bought up. I believe the flooring is fine. Just have to get down to the original finish, get all the gunk off it.
 
Is the company in Georgia the ones that manufacters the floor? If not I would try to get hold of the ones that made it. On our hardwood floors we only use bruces hardwood cleaner, which really sticks(migth just be the stuff we have). Make you have the windows open when using it. Most of the time on prefinished floors a damp mop is all that is needed.
 
try cleaning a small area with mineral spirits, let it dry for at least a day and apply plain ol` wax.
do this in an out of the way place first just to check the effectiveness.
 
I will be contacting orange glo, I tried mineral spirits, I also tried denatured alcohol. All to no effect.

I have thought about using Zip Guard a water based polyurethane over all, scuffing up the surface with 120-150 grit paper on a ROS and then applying Zip Guard. It is a really nice product. Self levels and really goes on smooth and clean. We used it on all of the wood trim that I manufactured for the house.

I am not quite to that stage yet.
 
Tom,
I don't have any advice as to removing the stuff already on there. Once you get your problem solved, I can tell you that we only clean our hardwood floors with a swiffer wet jet and have never had a problem. They are solid white oak with some cherry, maple and walnut mixed in in some places. Sanded smooth and the 3 coats of poly. Hope this helps!

Lee
 
That's a real bummer. I would second the recommendation to get a flooring guy involved. Pick an inconspicuous spot in the corner of the room and tell you wife that's where the potted plant (or stand) goes and then let the flooring guy work there.
If the chemicals in the cleaner clouded the finish nothing will remove it short of sanding the old finish off. My wife did the same thing to our kitchen floor using the swiffer wet jet... go figure. If it's a film you would be well advised not to put a top coat (poly) on it until it's really clean and 120 grit sandpaper in an ROS will not remove it.
If it were me I would go back to the people at woodmaster and minwax, tell them what happened and ask them what they intend to do about it... a formal letter might get better results than a phone call.
The more I think about floor finish the more I dislike poly or factory applied finishes...they all fail and then you have a mess with no easy fix. I've told my wife next time I'm going back to a straight oil finish and a wax top coat...I can scrape wax once a year and fix scratches with a little elbow grease. Of course I don't have little kids that are going to spill grape juice on my wood floors. Good luck on your floors
 
I have thought about using Zip Guard a water based polyurethane over all, scuffing up the surface with 120-150 grit paper on a ROS and then applying Zip Guard. It is a really nice product. Self levels and really goes on smooth and clean. We used it on all of the wood trim that I manufactured for the house.

:eek: Sounds like another potential disaster! Talk to a flooring Professional.
 
Tom you really don't want to keep putting things overtop of these "cleaners" because the problem will still be there.

If you've tryed denatured alcohol, most likly your talking about some form of polyurethan finish which won't come off with very many types of solvent. Rough sanding is usually the best way to get it all off.

It sounds like the "cleaners" have changed the structure of the original finish in some way and untill that finish is fully restored or removed you'll always have problems with it.

Many finishes do not adhere to other finishes and untill you know what the original finish is, I wouldn't put anything else on it.

Honestly, I think your best bet is to bring it all down to bare wood and just apply a new finish on the floor.

Sorry to say but if you just add something on top, you'll never fix your problem.
 
Hi, everyone, thanks for your contributions. I did a search today for Orange Glo, seems I am not the only one to have experienced this problem. Two of the reviews gave Orange Glo a resounding failure, just for the problems I out lined, luckily enough, one of them did have some 18 years of flooring experience, seems Orange Glo is an Acrylic, when I called Orange Glo, they said that their product is specifically not to be used over Aluminum Oxide finshed floors.

Any way, the advice of the two posters on the Orange Glo review site were in agreement. Use Windex, seems that it will disolve Acrylic surface coatings, use a buffer and lots of clean clothes, and keep the surface wet and it will clean all the residues off and get it down to the original finish.

Do I love the internet or what.

Here is the link for the Epinions site:

http://www.epinions.com/pr-Housewares-Orange_Glo_Wood_Floor_Polish_Cleaner/display_~reviews
 
Glad you found a solution. Make sure the read all of the instructions before putting anything else on the floor! Hope it cleans up ok for you. You really don't want to go to the hassle of refinishing the floors!
 
Here's what we use to clean our Maple hardwood floors. 1 cup of distilled vinegar to 1gallon of water. Mop on, let set, sponge mop up the best you can, and use a terry/cotton towel to dry. Works great, and leaves the floor looking and feeling very nice. I am not sure if it will remove the residue that is already on your floor though. My wife's friend told us about it when we first moved into our house six years ago, and have not bought a commercial floor cleaner since. Good Luck, Bill
 
Don't even consider Sanding. Prefinished flooring is far superior to anything you can add later. Do you know the manufacturer? If so Write/ e-mail/ surf the net for info from them as to how to clean up your mess. They have seen it all and have an answer. Just ask the source and follow their direction. Forget the removal thopughts as that is the last thing ever to do. Besides the mess it invalves, the prefinish is far better than anything even the pros can provide.
 
Eureka, It worked....

:D:D:D

We got the mess cleaned up. The advise on the Orange Glo Epinions site was to use Windex and a commercial floor buffer with a white abrasive scotch pad and it worked like a charm. One other post advised using Simple Green and another said to use Ammonia, So we got some of each.

The Windex worked some what, we changed to full strength commercial lemon sented ammonia from Home Depot, kept the floor wet a head of the buffer and went back and forth overlapping 50% on each trip and it came up like magic. Wipe the floor up with clean terry rags or towels before it drys and then Swiffer Wet Jet clean up for the final pass and it is back to looking like it did when it was new.

Thanks for all the help

Tom...:D:D:D
 
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