Red Oak Floor Project – San Pablo CA

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Our job was to add Red Oak floors in the dining living areas. The owner moved a wall to open up the main floor, and so we laced new floor boards into the existing. That is instead of going the easy way and butting it against the old floor. We started out by preparing the sub floor. That meant fixing any squeaks, repairing soft areas and sanding down the high spots. Afte that we vacuumed and put in a vapor retarder to slow down the moisture coming from the crawl space.

Matching the existing floor lines we then added floor row after row. Some had to be cut to fit into some areas, but most of the boards just slid into place with no problem. After nailing the entire floor we then let it acclimate in place, which means letting the floor reach its’ optimal moisture content for that area. While waiting for that to happen we then started refinishing the rest of the floors in the home. Using dust containment systems we virtually have no dust in the home while we are sanding. This leads to a clean job site, which then leads to a better sanded wood floor and a cleaner finish coat. After about a week of the new wood floor acclimating we then proceeded to finish the sanding on the new areas as well. We spend time setting any nail heads that were exposed and filling the floor with wood filler. The filler is applied as a continuous coat throughout the floor. We then sand it off until we are happy with the surface condition.

At the very end we use our hand scrapers and clean up corners and areas hard to reach. A thorough vacuum and mop and the floor was ready for the finish. This floor was coated with three coats of water base satin urethane by Bona. As you can see and to the delight of the home owner, the new floors blended in beautifully into the old.

Every floor is different and so every job is different. With most phases of the sanding process being the same, each floor dictates what we do or don’t do to make it look better. Even thought we’ve been in business since 2002 we never get bored with making floor look so pretty, especially when seeing the smiles on people’s faces.

Refinish and repair old oak floors or replace with new?

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Save your money and restore your old hardwood floors

The question always arises: should I reuse what I have or buy a new floor? Right? New is exciting and fun because we get to shop around, make choices and get something that is – well; new! The thought of this is much more exciting than looking at what we have had for years, thinking how to make it better and more interesting. Hardwood floors are an asset and as such, should be looked at as a long term investment and not a temporary floor covering. These floors had been in service for more than a 100 years in a lot of homes.

Unfortunately, the craft of working with wood floors is slowly disappearing. The number of floor contractors who can tackle a really good sanding job is going down every year. If you have an old wood floor that has some blemishes, or even some boards are buckling – this floor can be sanded, repaired and finished to last you years to come. Then, you could use the money your saved on other things.

Let’s take this floor for example, an old top nail white oak floor. This floor was covered with different carpets over the years, had been urinated on by dogs, had carpet shampoo flood some areas and that’s just some of it. Well, most contractors that came to quote on that floor suggested a new floor instead of repairing and sanding the old. That is because they were not qualified to do such work.

We came in, repaired the floor where needed, added some new at the entry way and did our usual stain and finish to the highest standards.

The home owner was thrilled with the outcome, and was even happier to be able to spend his money on new furniture, instead of a new floor.

We mainly work in our immediate area which includes the 80 corridor from Oakland to Pinole, with more areas served like Lamorinda and walnut creek. We had spent the last 20 years restoring old floor, and installing new hardwood floors. Be certain that we will recommend the best option for you, not to our pocket.

Before Refinish White Oak San Pablo
Before Refinish White Oak San Pablo

Before Refinish White Oak San Pablo

After Refinish White Oak San Pablo
After Refinish White Oak San Pablo

After Refinish White Oak San Pablo

Coronavirus: How Avi’s Hardwood Floors Makes Your Life Safer

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Top Three Reasons for Hiring Us Post COVID 19 Outbreak

At Avi’s Hardwood Floors we take your health and ours very seriously. While over the years we invested in top of the line machinery to keep your house free from dust, now we take extreme measure to leave your house as sanitized as possible. Read more

Top Three Mistakes Consumers Make When Hiring a Floor Contractor

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white oak refinish Berkeley bona ambersealWhen hiring someone to refinish your wood floors, or to install new hardwood floors there are many things you should do and don’t. From asking the right questions to checking the experience and quality of the company, this process of interviewing and hiring can be long and agonizing.

Here are my top three mistakes most of us do in the process of hiring a floor contractor. It could be for a refinish and repairs, or installation of new wood floors. The mistakes cover both avenues, and are mainly things I see here in the Bay Area, CA.

  1. Calculating a price by the square foot:
    A lot of consumers get stuck on this. Understand that this price per square foot didn’t come from contractors, it was created by someone along the way to put a price tag on something that isn’t a product – it’s a service. Professionals give you a quote for the work you ask them to do. They calculate in their quote things from payroll expenses to how much filler they need to use on your floor. A professional cannot simply take a number like $4 and multiply it by any size job to get them to a reasonable gross sale. When a professional gives you a quote, don’t automatically compare it to others just by dividing the number by the square feet you have. A lot more goes into your floors than you know, and even more than the professional has time to explain to you. I always refer to the dentist example. Understand that a tooth specialist could possibly charge thousands of dollars for 30 minutes of work. Compare that to when you get a crew of experienced craftsmen to work on your floors for a week, and it costs you only around 8K or 9K, it does seem cheap in comparison. To me, what society has determined is unquestionable as far as prices go, is beyond logical. It is unfair and makes no sense who gets to “get away” with their prices, and needs to negotiate, accommodate and follow.
  2. Asking google if whatever the contractor told you is actually true.
    Anything from what finish is to be used, or floor product. Understand that the information online is usually wrong, and doesn’t apply to your scenario. Trust in your reputable professional to provide you with the right answers, and recommend the right product. On the same token, don’t go to online forums seeking others opinions on your situation. They didn’t take the time to drive to your home, and give you their time. Finally, they don’t even know what the full scope of work is, and most likely they would like to look like they know better when in fact they usually don’t.
  3. Relying only on review websites
    It’s become a norm to check and judge companies based on their presence on review sites like Yelp or Angie’s List. Understand that as much as it is a good resource to read about other people’s experiences, those sites could also have bad information. These days it is easy for a new company to create a profile that looks like they had been around for decades, served hundreds of customers – when in fact – they have been in business for a few months. Writing fake reviews, and posting stolen pictures from social media is common among those companies. Unless you are in the trade of floors, you couldn’t tell just by looking at their profile. Beware, as to how you should take those sites with a grain of salt.

Hardwood Floor Installation Disaster

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We got a call from a reputable contractor to fix a newly installed white oak floor in Berkeley, CA. When I showed up to look at the floor, it was already cupping and separating from the sub floor. There were multiple humps a couple of inches high, and this oak floor needed to be replaced. The hardwood floor was in place for less than a month, and was part of a kitchen remodel.

I checked the moisture content in the floor and the sub floor, visually inspected the crawl space and tested the floor for proper nailing schedule. All of my tests came at a big fail for each category. The moisture level was too high in both the floor and the sub floor, the heat was off in the house, the fasteners were the wrong gauge and the floor was the wrong type. Evidently, the owner and the contractor knew of the moisture issues and flooded crawl space, and didn’t think it would have any effect on the new floor, since there are wood floors throughout the home already.

Everyone wants to save money, and it is just fine and perfectly understood. Saving money on installation of new wood floors isn’t smart. Wood moves at all times. Every time the relative humidity changes – wood moves. It is only in the hands of a true floor professional to decide which floor is best suited for your home. Read more

No Dust Wood Floor Refinishing

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White Oak Refinish El Cerrito Dark Oak OilYou want to refinish your wood floors, but without the dust and the dangerous fumes. Most hardwood floor contractors don’t have the equipment and experience to achieve the floor of your needs. Over the years we managed to perfect the art of sanding, while keeping dust and debris to an absolute minimum.

Our hardwood floor sanding equipment is top notch with dust collection in mind. While achieving a flat floor, the machines contain all the dust within a closed bag, or immediately send it into a HEPA filtered vacuums. That way, all the dust stays in the machines and doesn’t go air borne.

If you or your loved ones have allergies, asthma or respiratory concerns – our company is the way to go when refinishing your floors. We’ve had clients with severe conditions who hired us to sand their floors, and they were absolutely happy with the results. Nobody wants wood dust to end up in every part of their home. Read more

A Floor Replacement Done Right

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Our clients trust us to recommend the best solution for their floor issues. In this case, the home owner called us for advice on how to fix his squeaky floor. He already spent endless hours under the house, using squeak repair kits from the box store. Days in and out, the squeaks kept coming back and he didn’t know what to do. The hardwood floors were 5/16” x 2” red oak floors – a common top nail floor in the Bay Area. I don’t know how many other contractors he had met with before I walked through his front door, but they were many. We discussed the floor issues in length. I suggested a complete replacement, including proper sub floor fix and a full glue and nail of the new floor.

Evidently I was the first and only hardwood contractor to recommend this option. He hired us to do the work. Sure enough, as we started pulling the floor boards up we realized how thin the floor was. In some areas the wood floors was so thin, you could bend it for wood lamination. The hardwood floor in most areas were 1/8” thick which is absolutely outrageous for a top nail oak floor. Read more

Piedmont Remodel – Adding New Floors and Refinishing Existing

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We work a lot in the Piedmont area refinishing 100 year old oak floors and repairing them. This time the clients wanted us to add white oak floors to their addition, and refinish their old floors so that in the end everything matched.

After a quick visit to the site, inspecting the construction of the new sub floors and moisture conditions I advised my clients to use an unfinished engineered white oak. That was of course of great quality with a thick layer of veneer on top that can be sanded several times.

The conditions inside the addition didn’t permit installing solid floors without them buckling. There was too much concrete poured around and under the sub floors, and the addition was cut into the hill so we treated it as below grade install.

After acclimating the new white oak floors, we installed the floors throughout the addition. The design was a classy look for this old Piedmont home; big spaces with plenty details in the finish carpentry.

Read more

Can You Put Hardwood Floors in The Bathroom?

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We all love wood floors. Wood is warmer and better than other flooring options. We can find wood floors in almost every home, from entryways to living rooms to every bedroom and closet. We often get questions like: “can we put hardwood floors in the bathroom”? Yes of course, but it is not that black and white. We don’t recommend solid wood floors in bathrooms with full showers or bathtubs, just because wood and water don’t mix. Wood will react to extreme changes in relative humidity and that is exactly what a steamy shower does. Despite my last statement, we did install solid wood floors in the past in full bathrooms with showers.

A successful wood floor install depends on how well balanced you keep the temperature and humidity conditions inside the bathroom. If the ventilation is poor and there is standing water over the floor every day, eventually the wood floor will discolor or cup.

If you have small children like I do, you know better than to let them have a bath with wood floors just inches away. Families with small children should probably consider something other than wood for a bathroom floors, well at least until the kids grow a little older.

If you keep the bathroom well ventilated and place a mat over the floor, the wood will last longer.

Using white or red oak floors, preferably vertical grain for stability reasons is the way to go.

Design your bathroom with wood floors in mind and enjoy the warmth and beauty of it for years to come.

Top Five Complaints and how to Avoid Them

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If you are a professional hardwood flooring contractor like me, installing wood floors becomes a second nature. From the preparation to the final product – it is a careful step by step process. Done right, it can yield a floor that can last more than a 100 years. It sounds so easy just reading about floor installation or watching a video on YouTube. So why are there so many problems in reality? Because installing a wood floor is not that easy. Every day home owners pay a good amount of money for so called professionals to install their floors, only to have a problem floor shortly after.

The most common complaints are:

  1. Cupping – that is when the edges of each floor plank are raised. A Simple solution to that is knowing your moisture content and relative humidity levels inside the home and the wood before, during and after installation. Many installers skip this step or don’t understand it. The fact is that any wood can be installed successfully in most situations. A simple check with a moisture meter and allowing time in the schedule for acclimation can prevent most of the cupping complaints.
  1. Gaps – whereas cupping is the result of the wood gaining moisture, gaps is the opposite. When gaps appear in the floor, it is an indication that the floor lost moisture. That means again that acclimation and/or living conditions were not met when installation took place. Gaps also happen during the winter season when dry heat from the home furnace dries the air and causes shrinkage in the wood floor.
  1. Squeaks – the floor look flat but makes a lot of noise. One common reason is a bad nailing technique combined with the wrong nailer and fastener gauge. Another reason could be poor milling of the wood. Either way, the installer should have noticed the issue before completing the entire floor. Another possible reason is that the sub floor has a lot of deflection so with every step the wood moves and in turn makes a squeaky sound.
  1. Appearance – with every flooring product the manufacturer usually allows for up to 5% of material to be out of grade. That means that in worst scenario every box of flooring will have 5% of flooring material that can’t be used or would not look so good with the rest of the floor. It is fair to say that in most cases the floor planks are pretty consistent and don’t actually have that much waste in each box. Nonetheless, when installing a floor it is good practice to mix up the boxes and communicate to the home owner what the material looks like. I’ve seen many who went to local showroom and looked at a small sample without being told that the actual floor would look much different. There will always be the dark board and the light board in the floor. It is a natural product, but when some planks look like they truly don’t belong – it is a problem.
  1. Transitions – doorways with really big and bulky thresholds or sliding doors with not so beautiful moldings. It is all in the details, that is what I was taught. The floor could like great but when the final touches are not crisp and pretty it can really ruin the overall “feel” of the install quality. Taking the time to plan out those details can pay off big time when the job is done.

At Avi’s Hardwood Floors we work hard to make sure every client is truly happy for years to come. This takes a lot of educating you the client and open lines of communication throughout your project. As it is impossible to make each floor perfect, we get pretty darn close to it every time.