Ask Mr Sanders

Hi Richard,

There are 3 standards of thickness in engineered wood flooring - 20 mm, 18 mm and 14/15 mm. Each of those will have different thickness of top layer (oak, walnut, beech, maple, etc), which will vary between 3 mm and 6 mm.

Every time engineered wood floors are sanded approx. 1 mm will be removed by the restoration itself, however another 1 mm should be allowed for difference factory defect difference and the level of the floor throughout.

So, technically - 3 mm top layered floor can be sanded only once and a 6 mm top layer, should be able to achive 3 or even 4 restorations.

Hi James, the right product for regular recoating is maintence oil, which contains less solids than regular hardwax-oil products and therefore is easier to work with. However, re-oiling with normal hardwax-oil is absolutely fine and most popular and easy to work with products on the market are Osmo Polyx and Bona Hardwax-Oil.

Bare in mind these are slow drying sealants (4-8 hours). Osmo offers a quicker drying version - couple of hours quicker, Osmo Polyx Rapid.

Hi Jim,

For higher traffic areas like hallways, kitchen / dining room, living room re-oiling of the wooden floors is recommended every 18 - 24 months. For bedrooms, upper landing and areas with less use, this can be every 4-5 years.

Hi,

Doing floor restoration yourself might be a tricky thing to do unless you have some sanding experience and knowledge. Floor sanding requires particular skills which can only be obtained through experience. Therefore, we always recommend leaving the sanding of your parquet flooring to the experts like FloorWorks, who are experienced in sanding different types of flooring nad have the skills to avoid costy mistakes.

However, if you are certain that you want to give it a try, make sure that you do some research about parquet floor sanding. One particular thing that you need to be aware of is the technique of proper allication of the wood floor finish. Once floors are sanded to a smooth finish, carefully apply the first coat of varnish, allowing sufficient time for it to dry before the next application of the following coat. Sometimes, when when the floor surface was not perfectly smooth and clean before the application of varnish or in cases where the existing sealant has not been entirely removed, blobs can appear after the sanding. This might be a very expensive thing to ractify as it would require an entire re-sanding and re-varnishing of the floors. Bear in mind that if your parquet flooring has already been sanded in the past, there might be a limited opportunity to re-sand agai, which may mean that an overall replacement of the flooring might be required.

Therefore, it is always recommended to leave the parquet floor sanding to a professional sanding company like {{ organisation:name }}.

Thank you for your question regarding parquet floor restoration.

Both, lacquers and hardwax-oils can be used to seal parquet floors. However, there are some differences between the two types of wood floor sealants that you need to be aware of before you make up your mind.

Wood floor lacquers are more hard-wearing and durable sealants providing long lasting protection for parquet floors. Theay are highly recommended for floors, which are subject to high level of foot traffic. Some popular products, which we regularly use for our parquet floor restoration services include Bona Mega, Bona Traffic, Loba Viva and Junckers HT700 lacquers. There are also solvent based varnishes on the market, which also provide a thick layer and higher level of protection. However, they emit strong odour and are therefore a less popular choice for residential properties.

In comparison, oil-based wood finishes such as hardwax-oils are less hard-wearing and require more frequent maintenance and recoating. However, they make the floors look and feel more naturally appealing.  Some of the most popular products that we use for our wood floor re-oiling products include Osmo Polyx hardwax-oils.

Hi and thank you for your question about the use of commercial grade floor lacquer or oil in domestic properties. The quick answer is yes. However, there are several things you need to consider when choosing the most appropriate floor sealant for your floors.

Once the floors are properly sanded to a smooth finish, it is extremely important that lacquer is applied right away to ensure that the bare timber is protected from any accidental spillages. Choosing the best type of sealant requires not only consideration of how the floors are expected to be used, but also how often you will be bale to maintain them in the future. While lacquers provide a more durable and hard wearing sealant, it is important to note that they do not allow for local scratch repairs and once floors are damaged, they would need a total resanding and revarnishing. Therefore, some customers prefer the use of wood floor oils, such as Osmo Oils to seal their floors. While oiled floors allow some minor floor scratches to be repaired and reoiled locally, without the need of overall sanding, it is important to note that they do require a regular wood floor re-oiling service to maintain the sealant.

Should you decide to go for a lacquer rather than oil, we would recommend the commercial grades of some renown varnish producers such as Loba Varnishes, Bona Lacquers and Junckers sealants, which we regularly use for our floor restoration services as they provide high level of protection and durability.

We hope this information was helpful and don't hesitate to contact us if you need any further assistance or if you would like to book our floor restoration service.

Hi and thank you for your question regaring whitewashed effect on wooden flooring.

Achieving whitewashed / nordic finish on engineered oak flooring during floor restoration service with the use of either stains, lacquers or by using precoloured oil-based products. You need to be aware that there will be a slight difference in the appearance of the whitewashed effect depending on whether it has been achieved by lacquer or oil.

If you decide to seal your floors with lacquer, whitewashed effect can be done in two ways. You can either use white pigmented primer like Bona White, or you can first apply white stain on the sanded floors and then coat it with multiple coats of clear lacquer. For our wood floor restoration service where staining is involved, we rely on some of the most popular products such as Bona Create Ice, followed by the application of three coats of waterbased Bona Mega lacquer in either matt, satin or gloss finish.

If you prefer to achieve the whitewashed effect using oil-based products, then you need to be aware that this will achieve less uniform appearance.

Hi and thank you for the question regarding the choice of sealant for pine floorboards.

Pine is soft wood and while it is possible to seal pine with both laquers and Harwax Oils, we would always recommend the use of hardwearing varnish when sanding and sealing this type of flooring. The reason for this is that pine tends to absorb oils, which means that pine floorboards sealed with hardwax oils will have lower level of protection and durability compared to those sealed with varnish. This is particularly the case where staining is required. Therefore we would recommend stained pine floorboards to be sealed with hardwearing varnish.

We hope that the above helps.