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.