Hardwood Floors And Pet Odors

Question:

We are trying to remove dog urine odor from a wood floor where people left the urine for extended periods, maybe even months. Would your “Dual Action” product remedy this problem? We will be putting carpet down soon so we are not concerned about a stain problem.

Please help.

Ron

Answer:

Ron

You have a challenge. Sorry. There are several degrees of severity when dealing with dog urine and this is true with hardwood.  To neutralize the odor you need to get the neutralizer to the urine residue. With wood you will have urine soaked into the grain of the wood and possibly between the slats of the wood and maybe around the edges of the wood floor against the wall.  Dual action or Severe urine neutralizer will neutralize the urine it comes in contact with. The trick is getting it to the urine.  If you just go over the surface of the floor you will neutralize a good percentage of the urine and sometimes this is adequate to  kill the odor. Sometimes it is not. With wood you also have the possibility of the wood warping if it gets to wet. It may be slightly warped from the urine already.
The different methods you can use depending on how severe the urine contamination is, are:

Try a treatment just going over the floor with a good neutralizer and getting the obvious urine areas a little wetter so it can soak
in a little. Then see how the results are.

The next method would be to soak the floor so the neutralizer can soak in deep.This takes a chance of warping the floor in areas. I
have had cases where we ended up sanding and also replacing slats from this.

The next method is to sand the surface of the wood taking off as much wood as needed to remove the urine. Again this will remove most
of the urine residue and sometimes all. If it has run down between the slats you may still have residue remaining. Seal the floor to
lock in any remaining odor if necessary.

Or use a combination of the above.


Dog Urine in Wood

dog urine on wood

I am going to give a very basic outline about dog urine in or on wood. Two situations that you might have are:

1. Dog urine in or on hardwood flooring and 2. Dog urine in or on wood subfloor (plywood, particle board, chipboard). In this article I am going to address hardwood flooring such as oak.  If your nice oak or similar hardwood flooring is installed well and sealed well, with a quality sealer then the urine will be on and not in the wood. In this case you can use a mild cleaner and wipe the spot up with no damage to the wood. If the urine is fresh use a neutral or alkaline spotter that is safe for hardwood. If the urine is dry and there are alkaline salt crystals present use an acid base spotter that is safe for hardwoods. You can then apply an odor neutralizing spotter to eliminate any possible odor.

If the dog urine has started to penetrate into the wood then you will need to sand the surface of the wood to remove the urine. You need to sand until the stain is gone and reseal the floor.

If the urine has buckled the floor to the point it can not be sanded enough to correct the problem then you need to replace or hire a floor repair company to replace those pieces of wood that are damaged. Replacing individual boards is fairly common for professional hardwood companies. You will need to match the wood as close as you can so it blends in. This can be a challenge. You may need to re-stain the floor slightly darker to make the new wood match in sufficiently with the existing floor.  Contact your local fire and flood restoration contractor, he will probably know a good hardwood contractor for this purpose.