construction dust on hardwood floors.

[czarr]

Hello,

I built a home in a division called "the hollows" at Lake Travis in Austin the home builder was Coventry homes/MHI builders. Anyway, the builder allowed contractors to walk on my hardwood floors during construction and white construction dust has now itself lodged into the wood grains of my oak floors. I called the flooring company that Coventry used to install my floors and they sent a tech with a machine and a BONA product to attempt to clean my floors. As soon as the tech saw my floors, he said there is no way this machine will get that dust out of your grains. So, now 12 weeks later the builder has not provided a solution and it looks like I will have to hire an attorney as they are shirking their responsibility. In the meantime, does anyone have a solution to remove the dust out of the floor? is there a cleaner on the market that's powerful enough to get the dust removed from the grain? I have already tried using cleaner products that's available to the public and have gotten down on my hands and knees and tried scrubbing the floors with a brush. So far, nothing works. Any suggestions out there?

 

[Jon]

czarr I dont know much about timber and your laws but I would have everything documented and I personally would not be trying anything to get rid of the dust as someone will come along and say if you hadnt put that product or done that, on the floor we could have fixed it then they just walk away saying your problem now as you caused it

 

[highup]

I agree with Jon don't try and do anything yourself. I would call the manufacturer of that product, show them pictures, describe the situation, tell them your concerns and see what they say. Maybe they can send a rep to look at the floor closely. Maybe there is a cleaner along with a scrub brush or a vacuum system, who knows. Get recommendations from the company that made the floor and go from there.
Tell them you don't want to do anything to the floor that would make you own this damage.

 

[highup]

Let us know how this turns out and if you have any more questions or maybe you can send us some pictures so we can see what it is that you're talking about.

 

[Dan]

I have seen what looked like drywall dust in the grain. Would not wipe off, even with a damp rag. As I kept inspecting I saw swirls of this white substance in the pantry. Swirls where I could tell the residue was left from an attempt to clean. Turned out it was residue from an attempt to clean adhesive off of the face of the floor with mineral spirits.

Evidently there was a LOT of places with adhesive on the face of the boards, so the guys sent to clean it up just wiped down the whole floor with mineral spirits. In doing so they did clean the original spots, but did not change their rag often enough and just spread the adhesive around the floor. While wet it looked clean, but as the mineral spirits evaporated you could see the white residue in the vessels of the wood.

 

[highup]

The only thing I can think of that would cause white dust would be powder from the installation of sheetrock. But nobody puts a wood floor in first then sheetrock. Sawdust from other tradespeople doesn't seem like it would get stuck in the pores of the wood. Sawdust are vacuum out fairly easily. I'm thinking this is one of those rough or hand scraped type products.