I bought a house this summer that needed new floors. We redid them with prefinished oak hardwood. When we pulled up the old linoleum floors in one bedroom, there was a strong pet odor smell. We cleaned the subfloor as best we could and coated all the stained areas on the floor and wall with Kilz, then layed the hardwood over top of it.

This did not solve our problems. There is still a noticeable pet urine smell in the room.

My next step is going to be to remove the baseboards and prime the walls with Zinsser BIN. The baseboards are brand new. Do they need to be primed as well?

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to remedy this problem?

 

No one here knows just how bad that subfloor was before you tried to seal it or even what there was for a subfloor, or which Kilz's you used.
Not getting your reasoning about removing the baseboards and painting the walls if the stains where on the floor.
Any bare wood always needs to be primed before painting, no primer and paint in one!!!

 

Probably should have been handled before the flooring was put in, but you already know that. You say you only painted the stained areas not the entire floor, that may be part of the problem. Did you install tar paper under the hardwood? - that usually is another layer of protection. I always cut out and remove questionable sections as part of the prep.

Can you smell it in the walls? I can't see how painting the wall will do anything to alleviate the problem in the subfloor. Is it by chance an adjacent room that is the culprit?

 

Did you use oil base Kilz or the latex?

 

Any idea if it was cat or dog?

 

I know she had dogs. I THINK she only had dogs.

We used oil based Kilz. There was definitely urine on the walls as well. You could see/smell the stains under the baseboard when we pulled them up.

Yes, we put a moisture barrier down. It was whatever one the flooring dealer recommended.

We were planing on trying to prime the walls with an odor barrier because we are going to paint that room anyways. I guess we were just hoping that a $50 fix would be an acceptable instead of spending another ~$1000 to pull up the floors, seal the subfloor, and lay new hardwood.

 

The reason I asked was because tomcats can urinate on the walls and ceilings. So the smell might have been elsewhere. With dogs, probably on the lower walls and floor.

 

While a pigmented shellac like Zinnser's BIN does the best job of sealing odors/stains, Oil base Kilz should do ok. The main thing is to apply it liberally! The suspect areas need to be well coated.

 

Thank you guys for the replies.

Hopefully treating the walls does enough to make the room livable. I'm not looking forward to having to remove the floor, salvage as much hardwood as possible, seal/repair/replace the subfloor, then lay hardwood again.