Hardwood flooring: refinish vs replacement
Imma S
last year
last modified: last year
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water based vs oil based hardwood floor refinishing?
Comments (11)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......See MoreOil v/s Waterbased hardwood floor refinishing
Comments (9)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....See Morecost of replacing hardwood floors rather than refinishing?
Comments (8)We refinished one half of our house (moved everything from one side to the other), waited a couple of months and then did the other side. It is always a pain to deal with floors. We had to have our grand piano professional moved, stored and then returned to us. That was $1000! My advice is to take this opportunity to do a deep purge. Start doing that now in preparation for whatever you decide to do about the floors. Start with your garage. Get it as emptied-out as you possibly can so that there is room in there to hold as much of your furniture as possible. If you have an upstairs and you are not touching the floors up there, purge all those rooms. Purging those will allow you to temporarily store a bunch of things up there. Then start purging all the downstairs rooms. Fill your cars with stuff to take to Good Will, Habitate ReStore, or you favorite local re-sale or charity shop. Also take as many car loads of stuff to the local dump or recycling center as possible. If your kids are grown and need furniture for their new apartments or houses, see if there are any furniture pieces they want to take. Right before the wood floor people are about to start, move everything you can to the garage, upstairs (if you have one), covered patio (cover with tarp). You may even have a neighbor that will let you put some things in their garage. I took some things to my Dad's house for a couple of weeks. After all that, if you need a storage unit, go ahead and get one. They aren't that expensive for just a month. Regarding refinishing vs installing new: if your wood is the thick kind and can be sanded down and refinished, I vote for that. It'll be cheaper than replacing, and there's no reason to throw away a floor if it's not ruined. We even had broken boards and big gaps between some boards. Our wood floor person took out and replaced some of the boards, sanded everything, smeared wood filler all over it, sanded again, and stained. He was great. He even discovered that the stupid previous owners had installed red oak on one side of the house and white oak on the other side of the house! He had to work some magic to make the stains match because those woods take the stain differently. A good wood floor person can do all that for you. I can't remember how many days it took, but it seemed to go pretty quickly once they got started....See MoreEngineered Hardwood vs Hardwood vs LVP in Kitchen/Dining/Living? MDWST
Comments (19)Kim,,,it's very solid. just make sure the glue is spread to completely cover the plank. I have a few spots (like under the kitchen sink) where they missed the corner and it squeaks. They've held up great. I don't have dogs, but I have cats and have heard their nails burning rubber across the floor they go off on their tangents. I've spilled water, cleaned up their barf, spilled food, whatever, it all cleans up very well. as for dents, only if you drop something very heavy. but any wood floor will dent. I vacuum w/a Dyson, and then I use Bona wood floor cleaner on a mop. in the kitchen, i'll often take the scrubby brush and watered down Dawn to clean up spills or oil stains. no problem. no, I don't baby them. I don't wear shoes in my house though. I love my floors. just make sure on install they clean up all the glue residue. my guys were messy and lazy. had to call them back w/special glue remover and rag and go over the entire floor....See Morechispa
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