Have a look at our video that details one solution for replacing a damaged, 100 year old stair tread
Sandless hardwood floor refinishing
Sandless hardwood floor refinishing is a process that utilizes a machine that deep cleans your polyurethane, ceramic, or aluminum oxide finished hardwood floor prior to the application of a new top coat of polyurethane finish. This machine is designed to scrub a hardwood floor with specially designed detergents that gets immediately extracted with powerful vacuum. The first step in the process is to use an intensive cleaning detergent to remove deeply seated dirt and other contaminants from the existing floor finish. The second step is to use a mild detergent, that does not leave a residue, to remove the initial intensive detergent. At this point, the floor is ready to have either a “refresher” coat or a commercial grade waterbased polyurethane applied over the existing finish. The “Refresher” coat is a thinned out polyurethane that is designed to cure quickly and bring the floor back to life for a minimal expense. The stronger, commercial grade water based polyurethane needs to have a chemical bonding agent applied prior to the finish application to ensure a proper bond. At the end of the process, your hardwood floor will look brand new without going through a standard sand and refinish.
Customers, however, must understand the limitations of this process and understand there are tradeoffs to avoiding the full resanding process. Scratches that have penetrated the actual wood will not be removed, they will be covered over and be less noticeable. Dents will not be removed, nor will poor previous sanding jobs. You can not change the colour of your floor, the only way to do this is to fully sand down the floor and apply a custom stain directly into the wood. If the finish has been completely worn off, a professional will have to determine whether a touchup will work with this process. Waxed, and oiled floors can not be recoated with this system. These floor can also be easily maintained with different machines.
In summary, sandless hardwood floor refinishing is an inexpensive and less intrusive option for either prefinished or standard site finished polyurethane/swedish/ceramic finished engineered or solid hardwood floors.
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Winter interior living conditions and your hardwood floor
Winter has officially arrived. Over the last few days the temperature has dropped significantly and you have undoubtedly cranked up the heat in your house. This blogpost will have a look at the effect increased interior heating has on your hardwood floors.
Unless you have a humidity controls built into your HVAC system, the heat you turn on is typically very dry. Since your house is designed to keep exterior moisture out, the increase in interior heat without an increase in moisture results in a decreased relative humidity inside your house. Psychrometry is a very complex topic and out of fear that you fall asleep before you get the end of this article we will simplify it as much as possible:
Increased heat without and equal increase in moisture makes the air more dry. Water, in any form, is always seeking an equilibrium. Meaning, dry air will absorb moisture from wherever possible: INCLUDING THE WATER THAT IS IN YOUR HARDWOOD FLOOR.
Some of you may be saying, “my hardwood floor has multiple coats of finish that repels water and therefore has no water to release.” Those of you saying this are wrong. Yes, your finish does repel water, but all finishes are designed to have a degree of permeability. This is because wood absorbs and releases water just the same as human skin. Think about what would happen if you covered all of your skin with a plastic coat that didn’t allow you to sweat…. yikes! Your hardwood floor is always absorbing water that is slowly making it through your subfloor and slowly releasing it through the small gaps between the floor boards (and to a lesser extent through the finish) and vice versa. Think of it as your wood floors version of sweating. Think about it, what does your skin do when you are in a dry sauna? You release water from the inside of your body through your skin and into the air. What would happen if you where to stay in that sauna all day long without drinking any water: you would sweat until the water in your body has been sweated out. At this point you will have lost a significant amount of weight and consequently shrunk. This is basic psychrometry and this is what happens to your hardwood floor: IT SHRINKS WHEN EXPOSED TO AIR THAT IS DRYER THAN WHAT IT WAS INSTALLED AT. Conversely, during the summer, when the air is more humid, your hardwood floor absorbs water and swells. During the winter, your dry wood floor will “crown”. Meaning, as it shrinks the middle of the floor board protrude up to form the shape of an upside down letter U. During the summer, your relatively wet wood floor will “cup”. Meaning, as adjacent floor boards swelling into each other causes the sides of the boards to slightly lift up. This results in the individual shape of the floor board to take on the shape of properly oriented letter U.
Click here if you would like a deeper examination of this topic.
Some types of wood, for example, Brazial Cherry (Jatoba) react to dry winter conditions by “checking” as well as shrinking when exposed to very dry area. This means that cracks will form along the surface of the floor boards. One could speculate that because it is a tree that is grown in a consistently humid, tropical environment it is not genetically designed to be exposed to dry environments. If your wood floor was installed by a professional, you should not worry if your floor has “checked”: this is a natural occurrence and is part of the character of your wood floor.
Here are some basic reasons why your wood floor may shrink more or less than your neighbors wood floor:
1. Some wood floors are naturally able to handle changes in moisture conditions and some are not.
2. Generally, wood floors with flat (or wild) grain patterns will react to moisture more than wood floors with tight, straight grains.
3. Wider plank floors will show larger gaps because an 8 inch floor board will shrink as much as four 2 inch boards. If the each 2 inch board shrinks 1 mm, each 8 inch floor board will shrink 4mm. A 4mm gap is more noticeable than a 1mm gap even though the wood will have proportionally shrunk the same amount
4. Engineered hardwood will shrink less than solid hardwood. Please read our blogpost on this topic
5. Prefinished hardwood floors show gaps much less than site finished hardwood floors because they have beveled edges that create a dark shadow that makes the gaping less obvious.
Tips for reducing the gapping between your floor boards during the winter:
1. Make sure your floor was installed properly, if it has gaps between floor boards during humid summer conditions, there is a chance that your installer did not properly acclimate your wood floor to the ambient conditions.
2. Buy a hygrometer, accurate ones will run about $200-$300 cheap ones are pretty much useless, and get a reading on the relative humidity of your house. If there is severe gapping between your floor boards, there is a good chance that the relative humidity will be much less than the recommended 40%-50%. If this is the case, you should consider purchasing a humidifiers. If you have a basement, it is just as important to have a humidifier in the basement as it is on the level that has the hardwood flooring. You want the downstairs to have the same Relative Humidity as the upstairs: this creates a balance. Don’t expect rapid changes in your floor boards because this process takes time. Wood absorbs water relatively slowly. Also, don’t go crazy and add too much moisture to the air and facilitate mold growth: keep it between 40%-50% Relative Humidity (RH).
In conclusion, wood floors shrink during the winter and swell during the summer. It’s just wood being wood.
Hardwood Floor Finishes and the Environment
Floor Finishes and the Environment
In regards to Environmentally friendly floor finishing, people are generally referring to the immediate and temporarily persistent toxic gases that are emitted while the finish is applied and cures in your house. Generally, oil based polyurethanes finishes will off gas for 2 weeks and Water based urethane finishes will off gas for 1 week. The most common measurement for the toxicity of the gases is called VOC, or Volatile Organic Compounds that is measured in grams/litre.
Generally speaking, Raincoast Floors Ltd. does not use any products that emit a high level of VOC’s. The only product we do use that emits a significant amount of VOC’s is our penetrating oil stains, 531 grams/litre. While this is not an egregious amount, we do not recommend sleeping in your house on the evening after we apply the stain. The reason that we make this trade off is because we are not happy with the colouration and depth of water based stain alternatives. Please keep in mind that the majority of the off gasing takes place in the first 8 hours and becomes gradually more dilute until the 100% cure has been reached in about 2 weeks. It should also be noted that the air you breathe outside contains VOC’s: the trick is to avoid high concentrations in enclosed areas.
If VOC’s is of paramount importance to you and your family, then we proud to offer Eukula Oil and Eukula Hardwax oil. These products conform to the incredibly stringent German air quality regulations while offering a gorgeous, breathable finish. If you are interested in a static, protective surface finish we are proud to offer water based urethane finishes that emit 275 grams/litre of VOC’s.
A few notes on engineered hardwood floors
As engineered hardwood floors become more and more prominent it is time to clarify a few points on this topic.
1. Engineered hardwood floors are basically plywood with 2mm-7mm of various species of finished wood glued and pressed together to form a single unit.
2. Engineered hardwood floors are NOT laminate floors. Laminate floors are MDF with a photograph of wood as the top layer.
3. Engineered hardwood is more dimensionally stable than solid hardwood. This means that it mitigates the woods natural capacity to absorb and release water in both its liquid and gaseous forms. This is because plywood has several layers of wood glued together with the grains of the individual layers orientated in opposite directions.
4. Engineered hardwood is generally perfectly straight and therefore can be installed with tight joints without the use of mechanical fasteners. Along with its moisture stability, this is why you always find engineered hardwood floors glued to or floated on concrete subfloors that are prominent in apartment buildings.
5. A common marketing feature for engineered hardwood floors is the “wear layer”. This is the finished layer that should be able to be resanded and refinished. These wear layers can be anywhere from 2mm to 7mm. Obviously a 7mm wear layer is more preferable to resand numerous times, however, in this case thicker is not necessarily better when the whole picture is considered. A 5mm wear layer on a 5/8th inch engineered floor is strong enough to lift, curl, and potentially de-laminate from the plywood in case of a severe fluctuation in atmospheric moisture levels in the interior environment. Many manufacturer’s of prefinished hardwood floors are switching from to a standard 3mm wear layer to 2mm to facilitate more resiliency in high rise apartment buildings that tend to be very dry. It should also be noted that “site finished” engineered hardwood floors generally have a wear layer of 4mm-5mm on standard 5/8th thickness. It is always important to consider the big picture of your flooring project before you get sucked into the “bigger is better” marketing ploys.
5. Many hardwood floor contractors are starting to only install engineered hardwood floors when the clients decides on a site finished wider plank flooring width. While this is an added expense, the moisture stability properties of helps mitigate the solid hardwood flooring propensity to expand, contract, crown, and cup. It is also beneficial to use engineered flooring when installing long length flooring because it is much straighter and easier to install with perfectly tight joints.
Hope this was helpful!
Maintaining hardwood floors
Don’t overthink this one, folks. Maintaining hardwood floors can be boiled down to two main rules:
1. Don’t get your hardwood floor wet.
2. Don’t drag heavy things across your hardwood floor.
Keeping these two points in mind, let’s go over 8 simple tips that will help your hardwood floor stay looking beautiful for as long as possible.
1. Keep shoes off the hardwood floors.
Shoes introduce water and grit to your hardwood floors. Water will slowly degrade all finishes and grit will abrade the finish. Waxed and oiled floors will show surface scuffing when you, and your guests, wear shoes in the house. Typical polyurethane or Swedish finished floors will not show shoe scuffing; however, they will show scratching from the dirt and sand ground into the floor finish with you shoes.
2. Put an area rug underneath your kitchen sink.
An area rug underneath you kitchen sink will help you follow rule #1: Don’t get your hardwood floors wet.
3. Put a door mat on the outside of all exterior entrances to your hardwood floor.
A door mat is your guests’ first signal to take their shoes off before entering your house. At the very least they will instinctively wipe their shoes off before walking on your hardwood floors.
4. Put an area rug on the inside of all exterior entrances to your hardwood floor.
Not only do rugs tie the room together, they reinforce what your door mat started to tell your guests: keep the water and grit from your shoes off of our beautiful hardwood floors!!!!
5. Put “glides” on the legs of all chairs, tables, stools, and furniture that are on your hardwood floor.
You can purchase these from any hardware store and they are easy to apply
6. Be careful putting your refrigerator back into place after having your hardwood floors refinished or installed.
Refrigerator movement is, without question, the worst offender of rule #2: Don’t drag heavy stuff across your hardwood floor. Make sure that you use a dolly with appropriate rubber wheels. If there is any doubt about the dolly, you should place cardboard down, then put plywood over top of the cardboard, then dolly the refrigerator across your hardwood floor.
7. Regularly sweep and vacuum your hardwood floors.
Not only does this clean up dust and other debris, it helps clean up the grit brought in by secret shoe wearers that may be living or visiting your home.
8. If you need to clean your floor with a detergent, do not wet mop the floor.
Lightly mist an appropriate hardwood floor cleaner over a small section of the floor then soak it up with a microfibre cloth applying strokes that go with the grain of the hardwood flooring. In accordance to rule #1, do not leave water puddled up on your hardwood floor: wipe it up.
In the end, these are simply guidelines to treating your hardwood floors with respect. With the exception of stone, hardwood floors are the longest lasting floor coverings available; even the most abused hardwood floors can last hundreds of years. However, there is only a finite amount of times your hardwood floor can withstand a full resand. Commercial grade floor finishes will not protect you from water and abrasion: they will simply buy you more time before you need to have your floor professionally treated. The best solution is to minimize your hardwood floors exposure to water and grit—or you will be seeing our smiling faces sooner rather than later.
When should I refinish my hardwood floors?
Having your hardwood floors sanded and refinished is a massive undertaking that will intrude on your life. It involves moving your furniture, storing your furniture, having a crew of tradesmen working in your house, loud noise, in some cases finding somewhere else to sleep and live while the finishing is taking, hiring a painter to do baseboard touch ups, and finally moving the furniture back in. It’s no wonder that people generally just choose to let their hardwood floors degrade until the floors are so worn out and beaten that they are almost embarrassed to have friends over for dinner.
However, it is important for hardwood floors to be retreated, not only to reclaim that beautiful finish, but also to prevent serious water damage.
Most common static hardwood floor finishes are oil-based polyurethane, water-based urethanes, Varathane, Swedish finishes, and ceramic finishes. To varying degrees, these finishes are excellent for scratch/scuff resistance, chemical resistance, and repelling water but they are designed to only last for roughly 2-7 years before they need to be screened and recoated. In addition, prolonged water exposure in particular areas—such as entrance ways, kitchen sinks, and bathrooms—can dissolve the finish even more quickly.
Screening and recoating involves a professional floor finisher to evenly abrade the finish with a very light sanding screen to remove the top layer of the finish to prime it for the second application. Now that water-based finishes have become prominent, screening and recoating can also refer to the application of a chemical solution with a floor machine which produces essentially the same function as the mechanical removal of the top layer. The main difference is that the chemical solution can remove chemical contaminants that may adversely affect the adhesion of the new coat of floor finish.
It’s time to screen and recoat when:
- surface scratches make the floor look scuffy
Generally, you can tell if scratches are just on the surface when you only see white lines that look like a hockey skate mark on a freshly Zamboni’d ice rink.
- the floor finish is dull and uneven: an even-sheened finish will make it look new–or better!
- water has dissolved the finish
Preliminary water damage occurs when water has dissolved the finish—here you can see the damage particularly between the butt joints—and has penetrated into the wood. This penetration is the beginning of the end for this section of the floor finish. Screening and recoating will stop this from spreading.
If these warning signs are left for too long, screening and recoating won’t be enough to restore your hardwood floor.
Although all furniture from the area that is being recoated must be removed for 1-3 days while the finish is curing, generally hardwood floors have natural break points that will allow you to recoat one area at a time and you can avoid redoing all of your hardwood floor at once.
And this is not a process to do too often. The more times you screen and recoat, the deeper the layer of finish covering the hardwoods becomes. There is a point where the floor starts to look plastic-y.
If you stay alert to the early warning signs, you can avoid the process of having your floor resanded completely. We would also suggest that you look into a dynamic finish system that allows you to spot repair the key areas of your home without having to do the entire floor.
Stay tuned for our next blog on preventative maintenance and “the little things” that will allow your hardwood floor finish to last as long as possible!
Bamboo Flooring and the Environment
Bamboo Flooring has skyrocketed to prominence in recent years due to its beautiful appearance, durability, affordability, and particularly, its environmental sustainability.
Bamboo is a tree-like grass that predominately grows in the forests of China, India, Vietnam and Myanmar. While bamboo is technically a grass, it provides many of the same building products as trees such as lumber, furniture, and flooring.
Strand Woven Bamboo Flooring is manufactured by shredding the bamboo culms, or stems, down to its elongated fibres, or “strands”. Strands are separated into two batches: one designated for carbonized bamboo flooring and the other designated for natural bamboo flooring. The carbonized bamboo flooring strands are steamed to a temperature where the natural sugars transform into the characteristic brown colour that you will see in the final product whereas the natural bamboo flooring strands are bathed in a boric acid solution that removes the sugars entirely from the strands to provide an oak colour. The strands are then twisted and woven together, immersed with a binding agent and hot- pressed together to create a product more than twice as hard as Northern Red Oak Flooring. The strand woven bamboo is then milled into either tongue and groove flooring or click together flooring. The next process is to apply many coats of lacquer to provide a beautiful, protective layer that you will walk on in your home for many years to come.
The main environmental plus of Bamboo Flooring is its extremely fast growth cycles. Please keep in mind that Raincoast Floors Ltd. does not pretend to be scientists and that this is simply an attempt to clarify the benefits of a potentially beneficial alternative to standard hardwood floors.
The harvest cycle for bamboo is roughly 5 years, as opposed to a minimum 50 years for trees. This means that we get the same amount of product in a fraction of the time on the same amount of land. Theoretically, this means that less land is needed for human consumption and more land can be devoted to conservation: this is undeniably good for the environment.
Wax Floors??!! Are you kidding?
After attending wood flooring schools in the US, I was stunned to hear that the waxed floor technique was coming full circle. This wasn’t coming from the average floor mechanics who were going retro; this was coming from the best of the best of the best—the repeat international Wood Floor of the Year award winners, the guys that seasoned, hardened tradesmen seemed to get a little starstruck and faint at the mere mention of their names. In order to look at the pros and cons of this previously outdated finishing method, Raincoast Floors started experimenting and troubleshooting this method that went out of favour after the advent of polyurethane floor finish. What we have found is a slightly quirky yet spectacular floor finish. Here I’ll bring you up to speed with what you need to know in an FAQ format.
