Let me start by saying that our refinished floors look beautiful. That said, the road to this wasn’t easy, nor would we choose to use Lehnert again.
They had to do the complete job twice - sanding, finishing, multiple coats - because the finish, for whatever reasons, turned out blotchy and mottled. This wasn’t subtle at all. It was extremely visible. But no one on the crew either noticed it, or raised it as a concern. We caught it at the final inspection. Votan was out of town on urgent personal business, and we understand and appreciate that situation. But his crew should have caught this before we did at the end of the job.
After the second job there were some minor issues, which is reasonable to expect. But it was all on us to find them and request fixes, which they did promptly and professionally. But, there was nothing proactive done by Votan or his crew. If we hadn’t caught the problems they would not have been fixed.
There was inconsistency in their approach. Before the job, Votan explained they would use “dustless” sanding - which we completely understand isn’t dustless at all but does reduce the amount of dust significantly. The first time sanding, we saw that a non-dustless sander was being used. The lead explained that it didn’t really make any difference. The second time sanding, a “dustless” sander was used and the same lead explained how much better it is using this approach. We don’t know what to make of this, other than confusion.
Also, there was a small fire, but no damage to our house. This was caused by putting an oiled rag in a trash bag full of floor sanding dust and not being aware that the rag would heat up and catch fire. The crew lead told us about this, but said it was kind of good since it showed the new finish was really fresh. Apparently, the crew wasn’t knowledgeable about the exothermic oxidation reaction from the oil, nor did they have a proper container for disposing of oiled rags. Also, they didn’t tell Votan, and he was surprised when we mentioned it to him, and when we explained how our neighbors had seen the crew running out of our house, yelling and carrying the burning bag, and stamping on it in the street with sparks flying up in the air. Votan at first said we were mistaken, that this fire was at his shop, not at our house. When we explained, it was obvious there had been two fires and all we can assume is that the crew hadn't learned from the first experience.
When our carpenter was putting the trim back up, which turned out to be more expensive because the second round of sanding required rework of the trim to fit properly, he noticed the flooring nail heads had been sanded off and were visible. He said they should have been set before the filler that’s used to fill gaps and holes was laid down. This way, when the finish went down, the nails would be covered and most closely match the color of the hardwood flooring. Instead, you can see the metal nails under the finishing coats around the edges of the flooring. But after having to stay in a hotel for several extra nights because of needing to do the job twice, and two returns of the crew to fix minor problems, we simply had had enough and just wanted to have it done and over with.
To Votan’s credit, after requesting it, he did reimburse us for the extra nights in the hotel. And, as mentioned at the beginning, the floors themselves look beautiful. I don’t know if some other company like Floor Crafters or Berlin would be better or not, but the reasons we can’t recommend Lehnert Flooring is because of lack of quality and detail, training, and communication.
All USA
Let me start by saying that our refinished floors look beautiful. That said, the road to this wasn’t easy, nor would we choose to use Lehnert again. They had to do the complete job twice - sanding, finishing, multiple coats - because the finish, for whatever reasons, turned out blotchy and mottled. This wasn’t subtle at all. It was extremely visible. But no one on the crew either noticed it, or raised it as a concern. We caught it at the final inspection. Votan was out of town on urgent personal business, and we understand and appreciate that situation. But his crew should have caught this before we did at the end of the job. After the second job there were some minor issues, which is reasonable to expect. But it was all on us to find them and request fixes, which they did promptly and professionally. But, there was nothing proactive done by Votan or his crew. If we hadn’t caught the problems they would not have been fixed. There was inconsistency in their approach. Before the job, Votan explained they would use “dustless” sanding - which we completely understand isn’t dustless at all but does reduce the amount of dust significantly. The first time sanding, we saw that a non-dustless sander was being used. The lead explained that it didn’t really make any difference. The second time sanding, a “dustless” sander was used and the same lead explained how much better it is using this approach. We don’t know what to make of this, other than confusion. Also, there was a small fire, but no damage to our house. This was caused by putting an oiled rag in a trash bag full of floor sanding dust and not being aware that the rag would heat up and catch fire. The crew lead told us about this, but said it was kind of good since it showed the new finish was really fresh. Apparently, the crew wasn’t knowledgeable about the exothermic oxidation reaction from the oil, nor did they have a proper container for disposing of oiled rags. Also, they didn’t tell Votan, and he was surprised when we mentioned it to him, and when we explained how our neighbors had seen the crew running out of our house, yelling and carrying the burning bag, and stamping on it in the street with sparks flying up in the air. Votan at first said we were mistaken, that this fire was at his shop, not at our house. When we explained, it was obvious there had been two fires and all we can assume is that the crew hadn't learned from the first experience. When our carpenter was putting the trim back up, which turned out to be more expensive because the second round of sanding required rework of the trim to fit properly, he noticed the flooring nail heads had been sanded off and were visible. He said they should have been set before the filler that’s used to fill gaps and holes was laid down. This way, when the finish went down, the nails would be covered and most closely match the color of the hardwood flooring. Instead, you can see the metal nails under the finishing coats around the edges of the flooring. But after having to stay in a hotel for several extra nights because of needing to do the job twice, and two returns of the crew to fix minor problems, we simply had had enough and just wanted to have it done and over with. To Votan’s credit, after requesting it, he did reimburse us for the extra nights in the hotel. And, as mentioned at the beginning, the floors themselves look beautiful. I don’t know if some other company like Floor Crafters or Berlin would be better or not, but the reasons we can’t recommend Lehnert Flooring is because of lack of quality and detail, training, and communication.