What about Blanchon Hardwood Oil, its all natural and often used in UK and EU.

I was just reading about your floor experience. I've been working with hardwood all my life. I've been a hardwood flooring contractor for over 45 years, I started at 16 with my dad and took his business over in my 20's and I'm still at it. I've worked with every type of wood and wood finish on the market - oil and water base. When new products come out I sit in on the training to see how the product stands up and see if it really is better than the last finish they produced. Bona has some good finishes but it's a very overpriced product for what you get and not necessarily the best on the market either - just my professional opinion. I'm still in awe that your contractor charged you as much as he did for only 650 sq. ft. with only 2 coats! I never leave a floor without at least 4 coats, especially high traffic areas like kitchens and main rooms. I would love to know how your floor finish has held up. You made a good choice not going with Waterlox - it's a dangerous product - just read the label - and the fumes would have landed your husband back in the hospital for weeks after putting it on the floor.
I also hope your contractor advised you on how to care for your newly refinished floor - please, no Murphy's!! Leaves a dulling film and completely ruins the finish, not to mention it makes my work a nightmare... although, without it on the market, I wouldn't have so much work! Both Bruce Flooring and Bona make excellent cleaning solutions to use with a Swiffer mop or their own applicator.
Now I'm going to talk to my wife about moving!! :)

Nanj,
I am also outside of Indy and would be interested who you used as I'll be laying hardwood this spring. I am south however, so not sure if that works for their location.

Ouch, just 2 coats of waterbase means you are kicking yourself right now. With 2 dogs you started to wear through the finish in around a year. I have been sanding and refinishing for 25 years and will do water base only when customer insists after we try to talk them out of that mistake, which isn't often. All we use is Swedish finish 3 coats. 3 coats will give average wear life of 15 yrs before recoat. We are just now starting to re coat floors we did 18-20 years ago. Nothing out there has the look of 3 coats of swedish properly applied. We are just south of Chicago and our cost to sand 650 ft now, including removing and replacing toilet, sanding out bevels, hanging plastic for dust containment, removing and replacing original shoe, Stain and 3 coats finish would be under 2500$. Yeah you can go out and spend the money on all those fancy floor cleaners also But the best cleaner out there is a 98 cent gallon of white vinegar and a terry cloth mop. 1 cup white vinegar to gallon of water ratio.

This is an old thread, so I'll jump in here with my dilemma. I have 20yr old bruce sterling strip(white oak and red oak mixed) in auburn. I have a love/hate relationship with the color. Love the look, hate the dust it shows and the fine scratches.

It's time to do something but it's only 165 sf. I have been told that it will be around $2sf, but probably 4-500 to screen coat it. Due to small size. It has several faded areas, and has lost much of its shine, except for under the area rug where it is dark and shiny. It is faded in the expected areas due to sunlight, but some individual boards look lighter too, maybe it's just the red and white oak aging differently?

Cost to refinish it entirely would be ?? I was told $4 sf, but due to small area there would be a minimum. It's hard around here to get anybody out for less than $500 for a day, and refinishing even a small area would take several days due to drying time right?

We are considering doing a horrible thing. Taking it out and getting new maple wood in a lighter color. I have this new maple in my hallway upstairs which has never held up to any carpet, but so far my two boys in their 20's haven't hurt it. (Appalachian brand toffee maple). The price would be 5.50 for just the wood, or 8.50 installed. One day, no mess. We would also extend it to a small adjoining area and the powder room if we replace it.

Any advice? I'm in NJ. Also, since I'm considering replacing it, is there any product I can try on it (without sanding) that might gloss it back up for a while? If it looks ok then maybe I would get the screen coat done. Mr sand less was suggested by a friend. Another person noted that a new prefinsined floor finish would probably hold up longer than a refinishing, and have a warranty.

You really should start you're own thread, I have a few ideas, but I don't want to clutter this post.

Can you please let me know what the best water based poly on the market is in your opinion? I am in Ohio so I doubt I can use you for the application, but I do have a contractor. Thanks

you will not be able to answer this as it is a very technical question although perhaps others might. My floor also had aluminium oxide pre-finish and it was a mess when I applied Bona Traffic. Why? When a floor has aluminium oxide in its early layers when you sand it down the aluminium oxide particles raise. Then when you apply Bona Traffic however number of coats and sanding in between you get black patches over time. I am surprised you did not notice such a thing. One year after applying Bona Traffic to my floor these black patches are very visible and I am considering changing the whole floor. I am thinking first of sanding it again and applying Bona again before Christams (this week) to rejuvenate the floor but then next summer to change the floor altogether for another wood floor. Any feedback or information on what I write by a technically competent person would be helpful to me. Write me at danielhowardjobs at gmail please.

Did you by chance use steel wool to abrade the floor between coats of the traffic?

Marble over hardwood any day. Persoal opinion and choice.

AhmadDoors.com.

gregmills_gw No, I used the correct sandpaper with the big rectangular electric sanding machine and I also used finest sandpaper by hand at the end because I did not have a rotary sander. I vacuumed the floor thoroughly. Keep sending me ideas if you think of something. Even Bona had told me many years ago that wood finished in aluminium oxide would be a problem for these reasons but I had forgotten that phone call to Sweden in 2000 or so.

The only special problem I know of in recoating aluminum oxide regards adhesion. You must have something else going on. We've recoated many, many floors with Bona finishes, Traffic included. There's a couple of prefinished commercial floors nearby that we recoat between one and three times per year and we've never experienced the problem you recount.

In 1992 I visited Bona's facility in Colorado, established in 1981. My impression was that their customer service was run from there, not Sweden.

Here's a restaurant floor where we've applied coats of Bona Traffic over factory aluminum oxide finish. The only issue has been due to them using water on the floor too soon after finish application.

Perhaps you could post some pictures of your floor in a new thread it would e easier to weigh in on a possible cause. If you have a suitable wood floor, you should be able to sand to raw wood and refinish. We've refinished factory finished floor with aluminum oxide, with no special issues.

Did you sand the floor down to bare wood and then refinished with bona? or did you just do a buff n coat? lightly abrade the top surface and then applied new finish?

OK I explain. It is a floating floor what we call in the UK engineered floor, so it is not solid throughout but a thickness of the wood mounted on a plywood base. It is a Malaysian wood, not so hard, so I suppose high heels could dent it perhaps, it is not the hardest. It is a click system not requiring glue, interesting. Now from Malaysia it says it has five factory coatings of which some contain aluminium oxide. It got worn out over the years. So a year ago I sanded the wood with the machines with the correct paper and vacuumed well. Then I applied one coat of Bona Traffic silk, you know the glossy one. I then noticed a number of parts were very coarse to the touch. So after some hours I sanded again with slightly finer paper but still coarse. Now I applied again Bona. Once again certain areas were coarse to the touch and you could see stains. So now I did a final very fine sanding but this was by hand with very fine paper particularly in the areas affected. It took me hours. Then I applied the third coat. I called the Bona representative who was at a loss!!! He gave me a bottle of Bona "refresh" it is a type of product to do another pass over. I applied it to the worse parts of the floor. Although one could see areas which were coarse to the touch and which did not look quite right the shine was sufficient to fool guests for Christmas. Now I am exactly one year on. In those area I mentioned there are now black marks. I attach some photos of the present situation with example of the black marks. (sorry I do not know how to create a new thread). I want to sand it and apply Bona again before New Year when my mother is visiting, my wife will just about tolerate me sanding on the 27th Dec. I had the suspicion it was the Bona product maybe the bottle I bought was old or had been exposed to low temperatures where I bought it from but the Bona representative told me it was very unlikely to be the case.

You still did not answer my question. Did you sand originally with the intent to sand to bare wood meaning removing all the old finish, or just abrade the surface to simply add another coat of finish (buff n coat) It doesnt matter to me if its engineered or solid.

I think he sanded to raw wood. I suspect that some old finish was left on the floor but it wouldn't explain the flaws. I also suspect that these areas could be sanded with an orbital sander and coated. Then another coat could be applied to the whole floor.

Traffic instructions state that one should apply a Bona sealer or stain then two coats of Traffic. If one were try to retouch the bad spots I'd stick with the method used before. If starting from scratch, follow the Bona directions.

Hi I do not know how to answer but I will try. The original factory coatings I think the package said were five and so I do not know if I got to remove it all or not. It certainly changed colour completely so I felt I had removed all but one never knows. I suspect I did sand to raw wood. I also was conscious not to sand too much because I think there was so deep of wood and was scared to get rid of all but I did go down with the sander. I did not have available to me a circular sander (is that orbital) I had the heavy type that goes forwards with the rotating drum. At times the paper tore. It pulls you forwards. I rented that equipment. The black I checked today and it feels it can be taken out with nails (scratching) so maybe it is a reaction of the bona emulsion with dirt over time? I cannot imagine but cannot know. Maybe I could clean the floor with some special cleaner? what do you think. I am sorry to bother you so much.

The orbital I was referring to is hand held, like this: http://www.homedepot.com/p/BLACK-DECKER-2-Amp-Corded-5-in-Random-Orbit-Palm-Sander-RO100-1/202516346

You can buy an assortment of different grit paper for it. My thought is that you might be able to sand the dark areas down to raw wood and apply a coat or two of Traffic, then clean and abrade the whole floor and apply another coat to all. Judging by your pictures there appears to be areas that look quite good.

You could do the same process by hand but the orbital would make quick work of it. We use a similar orbital sanders to sand the perimeters of rooms, hooked up to a vacuum. It captures almost all the dust.

Thank you that is very useful to me. I will buy or hire the tool and do as you say. The bad areas are no more than 10 percent of the floor. I will try this. I notice the tool also sucks the dust. I could try just the areas and use "Bona Refresh" or Bona Traffic and wait and see. Then in 2016 I could redo the floor with Bona traffic if I find that the repair worked out or improved the floor. Sounds good. Thanks.

Stick with the Traffic.

The person with all the experience above who said the new expensive products aren't great never said what one he recommends!

would really like to know!