Water and steam are NOT good on hardwood. Common Hardwood Myths 3. Damp mopping is the best way to clean a wood floor. To the contrary, water and wood do not mix. Throw away that bucket and mop! Water causes deterioration of the wood itself, as well as the finish. Use maintenance products and procedures that will not harm your urethane finish. Kitchen floor cleaner with vinegar, ammonia, or abrasive cleaners are the best products to use when cleaning my floor. Never use these kinds of cleaners, as they can dull and damage your hardwood floors and void warranties. Use products safe for urethane finishes. It is always best to use my vacuum with a rotating brush to remove grit and debris from my wood floor. While weekly vacuuming is important for removing dirt and grit, a special hard surface brush tool should be used. A beater bar with a hard bristle brush can scratch your hardwood. Wood floors require a lot of time and effort to maintain them. Unlike other types of floor coverings, hardwood floors can be kept looking like new with a minimum amount of effort. Never damp mop your floor. Use only products designed for wood floors. Just spray and dry mop across the floor. I have heard the oil-soaps are the best way to clean my wood floor. Soaps will leave a harmful yellow film causing the finish to alligator and crack. Here is a link that might be useful: Read more HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have butcher block counter tops including around the sinks in the kitchen and the bathrooms. I used Waterlox on all of our butcher block counter tops two years ago. We loved it at first. But after 2 years it has some deep stains that can only be removed by deep sanding down to the wood. This brown stain is caused by getting baking soda based cleaning and bathing products on the surface especially around the tub and the sinks. This causes a medium brown stain wherever the baking soda water splashed onto the surface that must be sanded out. There are also some light colored stains around the sinks that I don't know what caused them. These look like water marks, but I don't think they are caused by water. Possibly these are caused by splashing mouth wash containing alcohol, but am not sure. I would not use Waterlox again if I had to start over. I would use an oil based exterior poly urethane made specifically for wood floors that can also be used on counter tops. Just my opinion. Try a small spot to experiment.

I have unstained, polyurethaned red oak throughout my house. Here is my history: 1. Small starter house - built in 1971 - we bought in 1974. Wood floors everywhere except kitchen, bath, and laundry. Poly finished when we bought. 2. First child born in 1975 - immediately had orange and brown short sculptured shag carpet installed in living room and hall so baby would have nice soft floor to crawl on. Long range plans were to cover up the bedroom floors "someday" (when we could afford it) with an even uglier carpet probably. Thank goodness - that never happened. 3. Second child born in 1982 - ripped out orange and brown and replaced with silver gray plush in my gray/mauve days. 4. 1987 - Had the wood floors in bedrooms lightly sanded and topcoated in Minwax oil base high gloss poly (didn't know gloss was not trendy). They were looking better all the time because all they required was dusting weekly (or whenever) and damp mopping a couple of times a year. Fast foward to 2011 - those SAME BEDROOM floors are still in good shape and have worn down to a nice satin finish. 4. 1992 - Built a family room and second bath on, made a dining room out of old living room, installed new red oak in kitchen, new bath, and new foyer (coming in back of house off french doors). Used 4 coats of Minwax oil base semi-gloss so it would blend with the 1987 gloss that had worn to semi-gloss. Big mistake in 1992 though - let the kids talk me into carpet in the new family/TV room because they could get to every other room in the house without walking on the carpet and it would stay nice. It was mauve (this was my blue and pink days). Are you still listening?? 5. 2008 - Tore out the mauve carpet (finally), installed red oak floor in that room, hired it sanded, and I finished it with 4 coats of semi-gloss. At this time, I lightly sanded and top-coated the adjoining dining room and kitchen (that were previously done in 1992) so that my new and old would all blend. Yes - I have great experience with poly. And to answer OP's original question, when I finished the new floor in family room, I applied a coat a day. I used oil base and that was really good drying time for oil. Same for my touch-up coats on the old floors. I also have a #6 if anyone is interested. I hope to totally gut and redo my original bath (that still has vinyl)and will use poly'd red oak floors. Seriously, I have read a lot about the Waterlox finish, and have seen some beautiful pictures,but have never seen it in person. I think that is something I would like to try (in a different setting). I have also admired Olychick's bathroom - I believe it is some type of Swedish finish - not sure how that relates to poly. Tuesday

@Brianna I do have this on another thread but thought it would be helpful here as well. Brianna, I'd love to hear how things went for you. Hopefully I can offer some additional insight as I am currently in this situation :( A quick side note, I am shocked that polyurethane brands, specifically Minwax, does not offer more of a warning about the longevity of "off-gassing." It is understandable to deal with a toxic smell during application and sometime after, but the lack of education/honesty about their product, to me is complete negligence. Especially when these brands are carried at DIY home improvement stores and are bought by "everyday homeowners" and not restricted to just professionals. To sum up my situation... I bought my house in June 2021. I immediately sanded and refinished my floors in the Minwax stain and Minwax fast drying polyurethane for INTERIOR use. I did one coat stain, 2 coats poly. I aired out my house for an entire month before moving in July. As everyone can assume, the smell as intense, a 10/10! When we moved in a month later, I would rate it an 8/10. I cannot stress this enough for people thinking about using poly....DONT USE POLY! The off-gassing is very real! All of your area rugs, your couch and soft fabrics will most definitely absorb the smell. And if you're like me, you will be washing/ cleaning constantly to get rid of it. I have always had a very fresh smelling home, and this "adventure" has consumed me for the past 6 months and has continued today. Today, I would rate the smell a 2/10. I ask everyone that comes into my house to rate the poly smell...yes, I'm that person. For those dealing with this, here are the methods I used: 1) AIR OUT YOUR HOUSE EVERYDAY! This is the most important. Create airflow by pulling air in and pushing air out using window box fans. I did this for 4 months straight. No Joke! Every room with 2 windows has an in and out fan. 2) I CLEANED MY FLOORS AT LEAST 4X A WEEK! I used my Shark floor steamer. I would fill a bottle with vinegar water and pour it on the floor, then go over with my steamer. I would repeat this with bleach water. This definitely helped neutralize the smell. I started this 1 week after the last poly coat. 3) AIR PURIFIERS! I used multiple methods, so not sure what has had the most effect. I have 2 CARBON FIBER air purifiers, which I leave on every day and turn the setting up on high at night. Carbon fiber absorbs VOCs. I also bought Activated charcoal fiber pellets and put them in mesh bags in closets and under furniture. Be sure you activate the charcoal by laying them in the sun for a few hours. Not sure if it actually works, but that's what I read. I have 2 Filtrete Smart Furnace filters which i taped to 2 box fans and let them run in the house as well. Air filters are expensive, and this does the same thing. This specific filter absorbs VOCs. These became very very black from absorbing the fine particles and worked awesome. I use a Berger Lamp ever so often and also would put baking soda and water in a small crockpot to neutralize the air. Please change your furnace filter often during this process. I went through 3 in 6 months. 4) WASH SOFT FABRICS AND FRESHEN AREA RUGS! It's important to wash any fabrics taht have been exposed to the poly smell. I have consistently washed curtains, couch pillows/blankets, clothes and bedding during the "off-gassing" process. I have most of my clothes and off-season items in totes to avoid the exposure. I spray fabrics that i cannot wash with a backing soda/ vinegar/ eucalyptus mixture. The area rugs that I do have down, I have been freshening up every month or 2 with a similar backing soda/ vinegar mixture in my carpet cleaner. Even sprinkling backing soda on your rugs and let it sit before vacuuming can be helpful. 5) USE CANDLES, WALL SCENTS, ETC... These can be helpful but the last thing you want to do is mask/mix these smells with poly. Your goal is to really purify and clean the air. Poly has a sort of "warm" smell so i stayed away from "warmer" smelling scents like vanilla or sugar. I found that fresh, minty smells did better. Eucalyptus, Spearmint, Solar Musk, Citrus, Herb and Floral smells worked best for me. 6) OZONE MACHINE If you use one of these, definitely do your research on how to properly run one. Not sure if it helped much with neutralizing the floor smell, but it did help neutralize fabric smells. These machines work amazing and can make a dent in the "off-gassing" smell. I used it weekly the first couple months. FYI: don't put them directly on the floor, I set it on a stool. It can leave a mark, so I'm told. Again, these can be harmful so do your researched! There may be other things I'm forgetting. I tried to simplify this while giving as much info as possible. I am glad to see the off gassing is coming to an end...hopefully and I can actually feel comfortable having people over. I will never use poly again on a project of this scale. Hope this helped someone! :)