I laid some prefinished jatoba flooring in my house back in April. We havn’t put the rugs or all of the furniture back in rooms yet and have been moving what furniture there is around every week or two so the floor will darken evenly. My question is, how long should we let the floor darken before putting the rugs down and all the furniture back in place? The rooms are very bright with a lot of windows, but the windows have a UV protection film on them, so I’m thinking the process might take longer than normal. The floor has darkened considerably, and I know it will continue to darken for a long period of time, but at when do I reach the point of diminishing returns? I’ve heard some people wait a year before putting carpets down, but that seems excessive to me. Needless to say, we’re getting tired of not being able to put our living and dining rooms back together.
Any of you flooring pros have an answer?
Replies
Greetings Andy,
This post, in response to your question, will bump the thread through the 'recent discussion' listing again which will increase it's viewing.
Perhaps it will catch someone's attention that can help you with advice.
Cheers
"In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line."
-Thoreau
Thanks for the bump!
If it is like cherry 99 years.
But out in direct sun light it darken maybe 80-90% in 8 hours of direct sun.
And it is not just UV light. Even in a darken room cherry will darken, but much slower. From Jeff Jewit or one of the other finishing writters it is believed that the process is oxidation and light only speeds it up or part oxidation and direct photo reaction.
Now I don't have any experience with jatoba.
But here is some that you might try. If you have an spare jatoba leave it outside in the sun for a couple of day.
Then compare it to your floor.
But I suspect that you are close enough. So what if you move things in the future. In a few months it will catch up.
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Bill,Thanks for the reply. I think the problem with jatoba (as is with cherry) is that if you cover a spot for an extended period of time and then uncover it, it never really "catches up" with the rest of the floor. It will catch up to a certain degree, and fairly quickly, but I believe you will be able to see a line between the covered and uncovered area for quite a long time. Plus, different parts of the room get different amounts of light, which may impact the speed with which the floor darkens. I'm just trying to determine the point at which the entire floor has darkened enough so that if you cover an area for an extended period of time and then uncover it, the difference won't be too drastic.
The variation is CHARACTER.Serious if you use a 1 day sun test oone piece and say say a 7 day one on a 2nd piece and compare those with the installed floor you should get a fair idea the range of colors and how far the floor as come.Maybe a couple of more test pieces say 10 days and 14..
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.