NoMad · New York · NY

Madison House

Site-finished white oak through a NoMad tower, sequenced so that sanding and coating never overlapped with occupied floors below.

Site-finished in an occupied building

Site finishing produces a better floor than factory finish — the coating flows across the board seams and seals them, so there is no micro-bevel line for grit to collect in. It also produces dust and vapour in a building where people are already living.

Sanding ran with contained vacuum equipment and negative-pressure containment at the unit entry. Waterborne finish was specified over oil-modified partly for cure speed and largely because the solvent smell from oil-modified polyurethane travels through a shared corridor and generates complaints regardless of how well the unit is sealed.

Sequence

Floors were completed top-down against the turnover schedule, with sanding and coating scheduled so no coating day ever sat directly above an occupied unit. This is a scheduling decision, not a flooring one, and it is the part of a job like this that actually determines whether it goes smoothly.

Moisture

The building’s slab was tested per unit. Coating a floor over a slab still releasing moisture traps the vapour beneath the adhesive line and the failure appears eighteen months later as isolated hollow spots, long after everyone has left the job.