Unfortunately you need to sand to bare wood and redo. The use of minwax generally means you are working with someone not very skilled, most professionals use better products than minwax.

Ok thank you!

It's not unusual for tape to pull wood floor finish off but the other spots where it's lifting indicate that the finish adhesion is compromised. The best way to determine whether the excess stain was removed completely is to make a sample with the products used and see if the color matches the floor.

You mention stain, "sealer" and "finish". What are the sealer and finish? How long did the stain dry before being coated? It sounds like a refinish is necessary but it would be nice to know what went wrong to avoid having it happen again.

You can peel it off, but it will be much easier to re-sand. The square buffer they used left a bunch of happy faces. You will want to sand those off. You can get much better results.

Oh...and just to add insult to injury, Maple is NOTORIOUSLY DIFFICULT to stain. A medium tone like yours would take a seriously skilled flooring technician and not just some guy with a can of $70/gallon Minwax polyurethane.

The 'Titans' of the polyurethane world come with a price tag of $160 - $200+ per gallon. They are the toughest of the tough and they come with their own stain line...and one of which comes with a UV protection additive for maple.

Bona Traffic HD is very tough. Loba 2K Supra AT is up there in the toughness range. Anyone who looks to Minwax as 'professional grade' won't have a clue how to work with either of these high-end products.

Please contact someone who works with one or the other product. They can deal with your wood properly. If you are having a hard time, you can look for a professional on the nwfa.org website.

Sounds like it's lawsuit time....that's going to be an expensive fix.

I think we need to understand what was meant by wet too. IMO a poor job done with cheap materials and IMO at least some of that was your fault if you got quotes and went with the cheapest. So I need more info but the way it looks to me this is a strip and start over job

No lawsuit. I'd be happy if the original installer just sanded the finish off and called it a day. If the contractor was using Minwax there is likely no insurance to cover the cost to refinish.

Here are stain samples on maple flooring

I love the second stain from the left! What is it?

There are only a couple of people in our area that refinish floors. We went and saw some of his work and it was beautiful although it was either ash or oak and brand new. We were given good recommendations so we just went wi this guy.

by “wet house” he said our house was full of moisture and that we probably had mould in the walls and ceiling. We have done some drywall work as well and didn’t find any mold at all. It’s just his excuse to get out of fixing it.

Did he take moisture readings of the floor prior to accepting the job? Just after sanding? Ever? If not than I call bs on the ‘high moisture’. Maple is tough to stain but it can be done by the right person.

No he didn’t do any moisture testing. Because we had 1 hinge on our bedroom garden door that was a bit rusty he said it. Then when he painted the walls and tried to do 2 coats in less than 8 hours it started to bubble. Again moisture he says. I’ve painted other rooms in the house and they were fine. im thinking the primer might have been a problem but I’m not sure. It was the first time I had used Sico primer and paint.

He left some gouges in the floor and when I pointed it out to him he said I had asked him to do it??? That’s when I started to swear!!

Are you over a crawl space. No sense in doing the floors if you have moisture.

Sico Evolution has a recoat time of 4-6 hours, and it is very prone to bubbling or peeling if you don't wait long enough between coats. Darker colours have an even longer recoat time. Do you have an hygrometer? If not, you should get one and you'd know once and for all if your home is too humid. I was working for a floor refinisher as a summer job when I was a teenager, and we would never use anything Minwax anywhere near a hardwood floor.

Moisture content of the wood should have been checked with an hygrometer such asthis one prior to doing any staining or applying finish to the floor.

Wait he’s a painter and he does floors? So he’s a handyman not a flooring professional right?

It needs to be redone to correct the issue. You need to look into preventing a repeat problem. Hire the right person, improve on the sanding quality, use a fast drying - 2 hour dry stain and allow it to dry for at least 24 hours, before top coating. The indoor environment needs to be controlled - maintain humidity between 30-55%. No force air during staining or coating. No fans or HVAC. You can turn on mechanical items 2 hours after completion. Make sure air circulates through the entire space. If not, add a fan to move air.

Moisture test the wood floor after it has been sanded to raw wood. Record reading for reference. This reading is what the MC needs to return to after staining.

We are currently living downs. It is a fully finished walkout with infloor heating. We had a dehumidifier running but it wasn’t picking up any moisture. Now that it’s summer the humidity level is higher On both floors. We don’t have central air so the windows and doors are open. Our weather has been very hot and humid so when I close up at night I run the dehumidifiers on both floors

With high humidity, allow the stain to dry for a minimum of 72 hours. Give it a light abrasion with a maroon pad prior to top coating. I would allow 48 hours for drying in-between coats for top coats. Humidity will slow drying down, you can end up with orange peel effect and poly beads. If, you can add a window a/c. That will help with dehumidifying the space.

None of that happened He just kept saying it was humidity and he’d never had this happen

So I have another question. If I was to buff the floor would I be able to put a Varathane product on top?

The bond has failed below the current polyurethane. Putting anything on top will not fix that bond, you will need to remove the current poly down to raw wood and start over properly.

and there isn’t a person or company around that will touch my floors now. I think the contractor whined about the situation to everyone. So I’m left with trying to fix it myself. :(