White oiled parquet - and afterwards only problems

Hello everyone,

I have some questions about white-oiled parquet, but to make my concern understandable, I need to go into some detail :)

So, in our apartment there is mosaic parquet, which was lacquered, and this parquet has been there for about 10 years without anyone taking care of it, so there was considerable wear. So we decided to have the parquet sanded down and to give the apartment a modern touch by oiling the parquet with white pigments.

We then posted the job on a craftsman platform and numerous companies from the Main-Taunus as well as Hoch-Taunus district responded. We decided on a master parquet fitter. And that's when the chaos began.

The parquet was sanded (about 2-3 mm), then the white pigmented oil was applied with a roller and then lacquered again. But we were not satisfied with the result because there were many spots, and some areas were unevenly lacquered. So the company came back, sanded everything down again (another 2-3 mm) and this time oiled with a spatula, but unfortunately I do not know if it was lacquered afterwards. This work was done about 2 months ago now, but we notice that the parquet is now much softer than before. For example, today we stacked 2 chairs on top of each other because we wanted to mop, and when we removed the chairs, a chair footprint was visible in the parquet, or our son (13 months) crawls over the parquet and you can clearly see his path.

Therefore the question: what could be the reason for that and what can we do???
Thanks in advance for your help.

So far as I know, you cannot varnish oiled wood at all. The varnish will not hold on the oiled floor.

If the company sands once and removes 2-3mm, then probably not much of the wear layer of the parquet remains afterward. After the second sanding with another 2-3mm, too much of the wear layer is probably already gone. If you consider that there is probably 1mm varnish and 2mm wood and that twice, you come to 6mm removal. My parquet, for example, has a 4mm wear layer. Hard to say how thick the wear layer is/was for you, but probably in a similar range. Coupled with the statements that the floor is now significantly softer and that you can see the path of your son, this suggests that the wear layer is hardly or no longer present.

What you can do now. You might not want to hear it, but I suspect the floor is damaged. I would get an expert to assess the matter. Depending on what they say, you can hold the parquet installer responsible or not.

Mosaic parquet is usually 8mm solid wood. It will rarely be possible to sand it more than twice. I would seek a second, expert opinion. Removing the parquet that is (probably fully) glued down is a pretty nasty job.

Would like to see pictures sometime.