Customer Update – Day Flooring Company

Arboritec Customer: Day Flooring Company - Vancouver, WA

Arboritec recently had the pleasure of catching up with a third generation hardwood floor professional and recent Arboritec convert, Dallas Day of Day Flooring Company.  Dallas has been in the hardwood trade for 56 years. For the last 20 years, he has been based out of what locals refer to as the “Coove” or Vancouver, Washington. Since 2001, he has busied himself delighting customers as a contractor operating both in Vancouver and just over the salmon- and sturgeon-filled Columbia River in the greater Portland, Oregon market.  Dallas is an accomplished installer and sanding & finishing contractor who focuses primarily on the residential market working directly with homeowners and remodeling contractors. 

Day Flooring Company sources Arboritec’s line of waterborne finishes from Greenpointe Wood Flooring Supplies. “Working with Day Flooring Company is always a pleasure, they are one of our area’s finest flooring contractors,” said Todd Brandsen, the owner over at Greenpointe. “They first encouraged us to take a closer look at the Arboritec product line. We did our research and decided to take the line on, this has been truly a great business decision for us and we really owe it to Day Flooring Company for directing us to a superior finish line with a fair price. We are pleased to offer the Arboritec’s ceramic-fortified finishes to contractors here in Oregon.” 

Dallas: I was there at the very beginning when many of the early finishes were not very impressive. I recall I even began doing more stair work to avoid working with some of the toxic and high VOC finishes that were available at that time. Currently, we only use waterborne finishes. 

My son, Charles, was introduced to Arboritec at one of the NWFA Sanding and Finishing schools. They sent us samples of each product after he returned from the school, and we immediately used them on several jobs. We found that Arboritec’s line of finishes worked better for us than other finish options available. We were tired of dealing with stretch marks on floors with dark finishes due to elasticity issues of competitive products.  At the end of the day, we also decided to switch because we were also tired of dealing with unpredictable price and formulation changes. 

With Arboritec, I was impressed that your finishes are ceramic-fortified. We also like that your "First Coat" sealer provides a good build coat while it also minimizes sidebonding issues. With Avenue finishes, we never see lap lines or cross grain roller marks. We roll all our floors using a 9/16" microfiber cover. In addition to the ceramic fortification, Arboritec’s products appear to be "harder" and we also don't see scuff marks show up easily like we experienced with other products.

Quality is very important to me. I want to set the standard for others to follow because most of my work is now referral business. We routinely refinish floors that are 50 to 75 years old that make our customers ecstatic. My customers often feel they have not only "saved" something, but that they have participated perpetuating the heritage of their homes. 

I believe there is a deeper connection between people and hardwood floors than to many other aspects of their homes. Perhaps this is simply because these floors were created from wood - an organic material intimately connected to the environment and also to the progress of the people of the Pacific Northwest.

I do feel at times that folks in the Pacific Northwest are perhaps more on the cutting edge of what is new in hardwood floor refinishing compared to much of the country.  We have many of the same issues experienced in other markets where cheap “old-tech” finishes derived from petrochemical sources are competing with newer “green-tech”. We don’t seek out customers who are content with accepting old solutions and technologies. We look for customers who want the best and are willing to pay a bit more for it. 

Fortunately, we are able to find enough of the latter to make a business of it now, and we expect it to improve over time.