Hardwood floor with pet odors

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#1

Originally Posted By: Stang
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I recently inspected a house that had a heavy odor of pet urine in the hardwood flooring. The buyer was asking if it is possible to remove smell or if it needed to be sealed and covered with carpeting. Question: Are pet odors in hardwood an expensive problem?


Michael

#2

Originally Posted By: psisler
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Michael,


You cannot, successfully, seal out pet odors from flooring. There are too many variables from the urine to hide it, it must be removed. Covering the problem with carpet just adds another problem. Have the client contact a reputable flooring contractor for a plan to remove the offensive odors and let it go at that.

Patrick

#3

Originally Posted By: Craig Shap
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Michael - Was the client on his hands and knees sniffing along the floor? I had a client a couple of weeks ago sniffing along the carpeting within a large basement room. Had his nose in it. aiwebs_012.gif The realtor and I chuckled and rolled our eyes.

–
CAS Atl GA.


The Hometeam Inspection Service

#4

Originally Posted By: Rusty Rothrock
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Answer - Pet odors can be removed by having the hardwood floors sanded. Normally there are also urine stains involved and the hardwood floor man will apply an acid to the stained area. Once all of this is done, the raw wood can then be re-stained and re-coated with poly in the normal sequence of things.

#5

Originally Posted By: psisler
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Rusty has a good point, but, if the urine gets into the wood, sanding is not enough as the urine gets INTO the wood and cannot be sanded out and sometimes MUST be removed.


Patrick

#6

Originally Posted By: dplummer
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Hi Guys, My experience is that the hardwood should be removed. The urine can bypass the finished floor & soak into the subfloor. The subfloor needs to be cleaned & sealed to eliminate the odor. Just my 2 cents. Doug

#7

Originally Posted By: dsmith1
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I had a client that when the carpet was lifted the hardwood was so badly damaged from pet urine, stains, since we noticed no smells, that it had to be replaced. I would say that yes it can be a serious problem.

#8

Originally Posted By: Melanie Gibbs
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When we bought our home, every room in the house had serious problems with pet urine on the floors (we never it was as bad as it was until we moved in).


We ended up taking all of the carpeting out and noticed there was hard wood flooring underneath. We sanded some of the floors and some turned out beautiful (and no smell) and others there was no hope. The stains got into the wood and no matter how far you went down-it was black. We would have had to replace many boards.

I asked around and the best thing to do when you definitely can't refinish the floors or afford to replace the boards is to put primer (I used Kilz-must be the oil-base) down on floor. This is supposed to seal in the wood. We did this to the floors and then put carpeting down. It made such a difference. We have animals and originally, the knew where the spots were-but now they smell nothing.