WoodFlooringGuy.com

Ok, these sample boards I’ve been working on. I’m trying to show the difference in appearance between oil modified and water borne urethane. The samples are on steamed walnut (that is the sample with the consistent colouration), unsteamed walnut, quarter sawn white oak and plain sawn red oak. On the white oak I’ve also stained [...]

Q: I am looking into getting a new puppy. Our apartment has natural wood floors from the 1800′s (the house was built in 1860). Someone in my office mentioned a silicone cover that could be painted onto the hardwood while we potty-train the pup, and then peeled off later. Does this actually exist and, if [...]

Q: I have central air. Should I leave it on while the floor sanding/staining is in progress? Or is it better to turn it off, and turn it back on after a few days? A: That is a bit of a tricky question. If the company doesn’t use a dust control vacuum system with their [...]

Q: Home Depot sells oak replacement stair kits (treads with a nose and risers). I’m working with stairs to the basement. How does one finish it so that it isn’t dangerously slippery? I think varnish or urethane might make the stairs too slippery. A: You will probably find that a gloss or hi-gloss is a [...]

Q: I’ve never used a shellac on floors, but in a quick search online, I gather it can be used as a “primer” when refinishing wood floors (to hide any problem areas). I didn’t catch in reading, whether the (oak) wood grain will still show through? Or whether oil polyurethane will adhere to it without [...]

Q: Some shoddy workmen applied high gloss polyurethane to my sanded oak (80 years old, at least) LR and DR floors, without clearing the dust from the rooms! The next workman, trying to correct this, sanded with a fine grade grit (120?). While the floor FEELS SMOOTH, you can still see the dust spots as [...]

Q: Do you know of a good source for information to give customers for oil finish maturity? Like the PDF Glitsa has on their website under their “What to expect during curing process” link(http://www.glitsa.com/maintenance.php). We don’t normally use Glitsa for obvious reasons. We use Bona oil base and cannot find that kind of a list [...]

Q: How do I change from a clear gloss finish to a semi-gloss finish on hardwood flooring? A: Very straight forward. Prepare the existing coating to receive the shine level of choice, in this case semi-gloss. This means you have to buff/sand or abrade the coating which creates (hopefully) tiny scratches which the next coating [...]

Q: I bought some “no warranty” wood from a popular wood flooring store. It was advertised as damaged w/ split, knots, damaged grooves and burns. I bought 15% extra for waste. I’ve noticed that some pieces have obvious termite damage. Should I be concerned? Is there a possibility that some of that wood may still [...]

Q: We have laid an oak hardwood in our living room. We notice some areas with a little residue, where it looks like something has burrowed in it. What would be causing this and can we fix it? A: Something burrowed into your floor? Does it look like someone drilled a perfectly round hole? Post [...]

Q: We have a home in NC that we do not live in during the winter months. There are hardwood floors throughout the home. We do not want to pay high heating bills since the house is empty, but we also do not want to compromise the floors. What is the lowest safe temperature that [...]

Q: I painted my BR floor and put polyurethane on it. It yellowed. I didn’t know that some finish yellows, what can I do? A: Virtually all solvent based finishes will amber to some degree. I think I would “screen” the heck out of the polyurethane to remove as much as possible and give it [...]

Q: I am planning to change the staircase from carpet to wood. I have one side boxed and the other side open with rails. I read in the Q&A that the extra nosing needs to be cut flush with the riser face. How about the extra tread width from the open side that extends beyond [...]

Q: Firstly, thank you so much for such an informative website. I’ve learned more in the last 20 minutes here than the rest of the 3 hours of research combined! I own a home in the Chicagoland area, built in 1926. All of the flooring is wood, some hard and some soft. We had someone [...]

Q: We retrieved maple flooring, tongue and groove, from a neighbor’s dumpster (with permission) and want to reinstall it our home. It rained a bit but the wood does not appear to have warped. Until we can install it, we are keeping it in our garage which is not attached to the house and has [...]

Q: My husband and I bought an old home (over 100 years old) and it has all original hardwood floors (this is the subfloor). There were a lot of gaps and nail holes where the boards were facenailed. We decided to fill in the gaps and holes with woodfiller. We sanded the woodfiller down and [...]

Q: Can we install a prefinished hardwood floor and then put a coat of polyurethane over it, to seal all the cracks? Will it adhere to the prefinished hardwood? A: No. If you don’t like the bevelled edges get square edge site finished which is what I generally recommend. Pre-finished floors will end up costing [...]

Q: I recently moved into a two-storey home built in 1936. Two of the joists under my living room floor deflected upward at some point in the past, resulting in a hump in the living room floor. Using a long level, I’ve determined the hump is about an 3/4″ to 1″ above the normal floor [...]

Q: Problem- Floors have cracked, gapped, and some planks slightly cupped. Floor Description: 3/4″ Thick, 5″ wide new poplar floors, installed fall/2008. Finish: A water-based polyurethane finish was applied to unfinished boards after installation. There is a full size, unheated basement below the floors. Humidity readings we started taking in late winter of 2009 have [...]

Q: I have a professional refinishing my solid oak wood floors. They have been sanded once and then stained. It’s been over a week and the floors are still tacky. Also there are still stains, and I noticed some bad scratches. I know he’s not finished, but I would have thought that after the initial [...]