Any recommendations on a durable floor finish? I installed a maple floor in our home six or seven years ago, and used a water-borne urethane finish (Bona Kemi brand, or something like that — a “pro” product, two-part formulation), four coats. Anyway, it’s pretty much shot now, totally gone in high traffic areas, and darn near gone elsewhere. I want to refinish, but want to find a more durable product. The house is low volume, just my wife and I, and a couple of dogs who only visit inside some evenings.
Does anyone have any thoughts? Specific brand names would be appreciated. Thanks.
Replies
I'm suprised your floor faded so quickly. I switched to 4 coats of Varathane Diamond Coat (water based) for finishing dance floors and doubled the life of the floor compared to oil based ployurethane.
Gordsco
If you like low sheen I would go with Traffic by Bona or there Ultra for higher sheen.
You might have used an older finish like Pacific strong, the new water born finishes like Traffic are way better now.
Jeff in so cal
66 f---45%
FLECTO oil base floor finish! Do it once and be done with it!
fxdp:
I have used Varathane water based polyurethane finish and also Varathane oil based polyurethane finishes and I am very happy with the oil based product. The oil based product penetrates the wood while the water based forms a skin on the surface. It is more work with the oil but it levels out well and can be touched up if necessary. I have used the oil finish on quartersawn oak and the water finish on heart pine. I plan to use the oil finish on my second floor maple floors.
Dyna guy,
How are you maintaining your floors? Do you wear shoes in the house? Do you use walk off mats at all the doorways? Is the floor vacuumed on a regular basis and is a quality floor cleaner used weeekly? Dogs will destroy a finish, even if they only visit on occasion.
Treat your floors as you would a fine piece of furniture...they are.
Ditch
I've used that Bona Kemi two part on floors,don't like it,
seems to come off just as easy as it goes on. For water
base apps I use a product called MaxTech, it has a uv
inhibiter and all that. Holds up real well.
Mitch
Maintaining the floors as you suggest would require bringing back the maid, since neither the wife nor I enjoy weekly mopping (we're not slobs, but the floor's not kept immaculate, either). : ) It seems to me that our traffic is just about as low as it is possible to have on any floor that is actually in use. We try to keep our shoes clean, but we do wear them, and there is an abrasive quality to L.A. airborn dirt. Nonetheless, it doesn't seem that we've gotten decent wear out of Bona Kemi. If our floor finish has worn out so quickly, what do places with real traffic do? The floor did look like fine furniture once, the day I finished it. But it's not furniture, at least not in this house. It's a floor.
FX,
I have used Mega, a single component water borne finish in restaurants. It holds up well as long as a strict maintenance schedule is adhered to. A commercial customer called me back to look at his floor claiming the finish failed prematurely. After asking the guys in the kitchen, I found out they do almost no maintenance. I agreed to recoat the floor and then told him to go look at a floor in Erie which is 2 years old and still looks good...because this owner is meticulous about vacuuming every night and cleaning the floor twice a week.
Floor finish isn't armour. The arch nemesis of a floor is grit...ground in underfoot...over and over. It's like fine sanding the floor every day if it's not kept clean. Bona products are some of the best out there. I don't know what's so hard about spraying some hardwood floor cleaner and running a swiffer over a floor everyday...it takes 15 mins.
And no it's not just a floor....it's a WOOD floor!! If ya' can't take care of it carpet over it.
Ditch
Edited 12/31/2002 5:49:00 PM ET by luvditchburns
FX
Any "mositure cure" product is damn durable, especially the higher the sheen. Follow directions explictly though as its very different then regular urethane and more expensive. Use non-yellowing MC if your floors are light colored other wise don't waste your money because non-yellowing is also quite a bit more.
HAve fun and happy new year
Namaste'
andy
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I did a bit of research a while back when we had some floors laid.
Oil based and water based polys are the least durable, but the simplest and easiest to apply.
Next up are the professional finishes, which are typically labelled as "Swedish Finish". These finishes cure rather than dry, and give a really durable finish but are pretty toxic. Typical ones are either acid cured or moisture cured ('Swedish finish' sounds much nicer). Those are the best ones you can apply in the house.
Prefinished floors typically use a UV-cured poly, which can be applied in a factory but not in the field.
The advice I got from my floor guy on care was to use something really light (like vinegar and water) to clean. If you get anything sticky on it, it will hold dirt, and walking on it will work just like sandpaper.
I laid almost 2100 sqft of brazilian maple in a house with borders of brazilian cherry with designs in a house, I built for my self. I also did alot of research on finishes. I have a buddy who finishes, since I didn't have the time to finish them. I asked him what he has been using and if he's tried any of the new finishes on the market. He tried traffic and mega and varathane and some swedish finishes. His opinion was bona kemi mega was extremely durable and with proper care will last a long time. The other finishes are good but his opinion on traffic its good but very costly and thought mega was almost as durable. His opinion for the swedish finishes they look great and are durable, but not as durable as the urethanes. I also found a ceramic finish that is new and talked to a distributor and thought about it, but again, I was under a time crunch. I had him use the mega and I am quite happy with its finish. I probably should of had him put on 4 coats instead of two, but as I said I was under a time crunch. I must stress as everyone else you must at least use a dust mop on them daily or every other day and swift them, or use vineagar and water to keep them clean.
I'm not a professional floor finisher but I've experimented with a few different finishes and we have an old Eastern Maple floor in our house. I think one of the problems you have with Maple is that it's not as porous as other species, so the base coat of finish doesn't wick down into the wood as well as it might on other floors.
Five or six years out of a skin type finish on Maple might be all you're gonna get, especially if you consider it your house, not a museum. We live in the woods, bring in firewood a couple times a day in winter, walk right in in our shoes (Redwings for my son and me) and 4 or 5 years is when we started seeing wear spots in high traffic areas and under chairs. That's on a professionally applied Sweedish finish. Then, of course, those wear areas rapidly grew as the edges chipped back.
I'm not saying it will last any better, but next time I'm using a pentrating oil and saturating the wood. It might not be any better, but it's worth a try. I'm thinking this is exactly why carpet became so popular over the past century.
This applying a hard finish to wood that is always flexing and moving is very confusing to me - I think it's doomed from the start.
I have been reading this thread with fascination, since we plan to refinish our floors when all the other stuff is done on our little house. However, I am more confused now than at the start. In my universe, floors are to be walked on. I don't dust my fine furniture every day, and I don't sweep daily either. Yet, I remember the house of my childhood had birdseye maple and walnut floors that were about 150 years old and they looked OK. Not shiny (which is probably why I don't really like that mirror shine look), but OK. The house was an old meeting house and had farmers tramping in their boots on the floor, but the floors looked better than the ones on my 30 year old house do. I'm pretty sure that the floor had not been refinished in recent times - the house was a total fixer-upper when we bought it. So that's the finish I want - the one that lasts 150 years through abuse, not shiny Better Homes and Gardens looking, but not peely and cracked either. I don't want to have to move my furniture out of the room every 5 years to get the floors screened, but I don't mind applying a little oil and elbow grease every couple of years on wear spots. Does anybody know what finish that would be?
C'mon now I'm right there with ya! My thoughts exactly.Character? I never had any problem with character. Why, people've been telling me I was one every since I was a kid.
That would be an oil finish...applied properly...I have explained the proper technique for oiled floors in other posts.
Ditch
Thanks for the reply. I read your other posts before, but then when I saw this thread where you recommended such care for the floor I thought maybe that the same went for penetrating oil. So, a penetrating oil such as those made by Watco or Livos will give me the low-sheen, durable floor I am looking for?
It sounds like I will have to do the finish myself - I can't see any of our local floor guys spending the time it takes to do 10 or so coats on our house. I guess that will be good practice for sprucing up the high traffic areas every couple of years. I wish we still had the picture thread that SG set up when she and Ian Gilham did that floor in Montana (I am a long-time lurker)
Thanks again!
I grew up using Watco floor finish. My dad used it into the early 70s and my grandpap used various oils for 40 years before that. Oils are deep penetrating and polymerize within the cells of the timber. This creates a very durable, rock hard finish which is in the floor, not on top of it like surface finish (urethane).
Another lost finish is wax over shellac. Whenever we complain about coating floors, my dad likes to tell us about hand rubbing on multiple coats of solvent based floor wax when he was a kid (1940s) and buffing it with steel wool and burlap.
Ditch
Thanks everyone for the input. Of course I understand the nature of dirt and wear (the sandpaper principle). However, I cannot believe that the wear we two quiet people give the floor is in the same universe as the wear given a floor in a commercial application such as a bar or restaurant.
While we don't clean our floors daily, or even weekly, I cannot imagine that the foot-falls per square foot given our floor in one month exceed those given a (successful) bar or restaurant in one day.
Oil sounds nice, but I don't really want to resand the floors down to bare wood again, but just to lightly sand them and reapply some sort of urethane. I just want the hardest, desnsest, most durable stuff of this nature that there is. Then I guess we'll just take our lumps.
ml