we have a very busy household, 4 teenagers, dog, etc and our floor guy very highly recommended oil over water - we have three coats in the kitchen and two thoughout the rest of the house - it looks and is holding up beautifully....a friend has three coats of water base that is showing wear and tear after two years (less busy household...only two teens!) - yes you have to be out of your home for several days - but there was very little if any odor when we returned...

You might try posting in the flooring forums... We've had polyurethane over oak for the last 14 years. This has held up well with minimal maintenance required. We refinished the kitchen area once in that time. In our remodel we are putting in some new floors and going with reclaimed oak flooring milled in downtown L.A. from beams salvaged from a railroad depot in Alabama. We will refinish all our floors at this time and going with either an oil finish or hard wax oil. Our flooring installer recommended Waca oil but the place that made the flooring recommends a hard wax oil. We ordered a bunch of sample colors of Waca oil to check out. Here is one source of samples: http://www.1877floorguy.com/wocooilsafte.html Osmo Hard Wax oil is pretty popular. We'll probably order some samples from them as well: http://worldclasssupply.com/store/OSMO-Wood-Wax-Finish-Transparent-Starting-as-low-as......html My sense is that hard wax oil gives a bit more protection than just oil. I've only seen small samples of wood with these finishes and they look different. Sounds like your finisher will be doing a waca-like treatment. You might want to check into a hardwax oil finish as well, so you know what your options are.

The oiled finishes (either UV cured hardwax oils or natural finished hardwax oils) both require "oiling" and maintenance. The DuChateau floors have been called "thirsty looking" after only a few months. This is upsetting to many people who thought they could get away with "no maintenance" for the first year. I like to suggest that clients apply the replenishing oil AS SOON AS the floors are installed. This is the recommended application for commercial floors. So we know it should be done in certain circumstances. Depending on the colour of the floor, the coloured finish has to be used - especially with repairs. Oiled floors require maintenance. There is no way around it. The good news is it can be done by the homeowner at very little cost. It can be done in high-traffic areas or room by room. Repairs can be done by the homeowner as well. The bad news: it has to be done. Yep. The work has to be done. Either by the homeowner (cheapest way) or by a professional (most expensive way). But it must be done. Like I said, I always like to start off a freshly laid floor factory finished oil floor with the best chance of success. With factory finished hardwax oils, that means a nice dose of refreshing/maintenance oil put down right after install. It takes about 24 hours for it to "cure" or dry. That's it. Nothing exciting. And it makes the floor much more attractive and homeowners much happier for much longer. Remember: we have NO IDEA how long those floors were sitting in a warehouse. It could be 2 days (freshly applied UV oil) or it could be 10 months (very dry looking UV oil...means it is time to reapply). So you might as well go ahead and apply more at the time of install and be done with it. It makes for a MUCH HAPPIER situation.

The floors will look different with water based finish, since that rich warmth you like is the result of using oil based finishes. Water based finishes do not add the amber/rich tint. That results in a look that often looks washed out or bleached. It is actually the natural color of the finished wood with no added color, but people are so used to the added tint of oil based finishes, seeing an application without the amber tint looks different. You are correct in the fact water based finishes dry more quickly and do not smell as bad. The science of creating finishes have made water based finishes better and almost as serviceable as oil based finishes. Once oil based finishes completely cure(up to 30 days for area rugs) and 2-3 days to walk on, there should be no odor. I applied oil based floor poly on our floors and the smell was gone in three days. It was(is) nasty when applied/curing, but no odor after curing. Getting the rich color you like will be problematic when using water based finishes, since that tone would need to be created with a stain or dye. Not impossible, just difficult to find the exact recipe of colorants.