Hardwood floor stains and CF lungs

[Jenica]

We're having our stairs replaced and picked out a prefinished wood. The first half of our stairs was just done, and we noticed right away that the treads did not look finished.

I put a call in to the contractor, who is very willing to fix it all, but one of the options is to sand the stairs, then put a finish coat on them. This would all be done in our house. It's apparently not the type of polyurethane (sp?) finish that requires you to be out of the house for three days, but they do want you to be out while they are working on them.

Right away, I am concerned about the stain and its effect on the lungs of my 10 month old daughter with CF. I've read the posts about cleaning products, carpets, vacuums, etc. and it just doesn't seem like a good idea to expose her to what I am assuming will be harsh chemicals.

Anyone have any experience or thoughts on this? I don't want to make them rip up the work already done unless it seems prudent.

 

[bmombtoo]

I'm not sure about the staining product but I do know that sanding
is very messy and makes small particles. I would take her out while
they are doing that and clean up before she came back home.<br>
Good luck!

 

[wanderlost]

lots of dust with sanding. Cover everything before they do it and that will make clean up easier, you can also get in and dust before she gets home. We had our floors done and it didn't bother me, but she is pretty little.

 

[JazzysMom]

This is something that my husband does. Sanding shouldnt be a problem if they have the correct equipment which would include a vacuum attached right to the sander. There will be a bit of a mess because the vacuum doesnt have the type of hepa filters that we probably would use. The stain itself will have a slight smell. How bad really depends on the ventilation at time of application. If you have AC be sure to run it. IF not be sure to keep the windows open & have as much air circulating for a bit. My neighbor recently had hers done & it bothered me with sitting there for 4/5 hours with no ventilation. In the long run its said to be better then carpeting. If you can get thru this part you should be ok.

 

[Jenica]

Thanks for the replies, everyone. Our flooring contractor ordered the wrong wood (matte finish as opposed to gloss finish) for the stairs, and because we're doing our entire house, we want the stairs to match everything else. If we ask them to replace the stairs that have already been done with the correct prefinished treads, they've said they will do that, I just didn't want to be unreasonable and demand it if there was another good alternative.

We'll be traveling to the West Coast in August, so if they do sand and stain, I think I will ask them to hold off until we leave. We'll be gone a month, so I'm sure the fumes will have cleared by then.

 

[Ratatosk]

We redid our hard wood floors years ago before DS, who has cf was born. We camped out downstairs. Only problem we really had was I found the dog drinking polyurethane in the kitchen and we had to make him vomit. Hydrogen peroxide down the gullet. Bleah!

If we have to do it over again, I figure we'll move out for a few days. That's what friends and relatives of ours usually do anyway.