Cure time, dry time, when to move back home
Wednesday, October 26th, 2011
A frequent discussion I have during estimates is regarding when people can have their home back. When can they walk on the floor? When can they put back area rugs? I’ll dive into this as best as possible.
Cure time- A finish is technically cured when 100% of the solvents have left the coating. This is quite variable between the types of finishes. A general rule follows:
- Waterborne finishes-(7-10 days)
- Oil modified polyurethane- (30 days)
- Conversion varnish-(30-60 days)
- Allow 24 hours following the application of a final coat until you return and walk on the floor
- Allow one week until you put down area rugs.
- Replace the felt on your moving furniture and allow 2-3 days before using chairs that move or slide.
Tags: hardwood floor finish, hardwood refinishing, low-VOC hardwood floor finish, Swedish finish, waterbased finish
Posted in Floor Finishing | No Comments »
Fixing time’s impact
Friday, October 7th, 2011
We have been working on a floor in the Laurelhurst neighborhood and restoring it back to it’s original state. One issue we’ve noticed is that the time effects of the floor being ambered from finish for so long has created a dilemma. The original feature strip stood out in color and over time has faded to match the original flooring.
To fix this problem, we taped off the area and applied a tinted sealer to pronounce the color.
The impact is pretty amazing and should last for a long time until the next refinish when the color will need to be re-applied.
Tags: hardwood refinishing
Posted in Floor Projects | No Comments »
Green Blog : Evaluating Production Sources
Tuesday, September 27th, 2011
Green Blog : Evaluating Production Sources.
Here is a great article by Elizabeth Baldwin. Elizabeth Baldwin has over 20 years of international wood sourcing experience. Very widely traveled, her résumé’s “Special Skills” section includes “the ability to eat anything from raw horse to deep-fried scorpion.” She serves as Metropolitan Hardwood Flooring’s (metrofloors.com) ECO (Environmental Compliance Officer)
Tags: sustainability
Posted in Sustainability Talk | No Comments »
Built to last
Thursday, August 25th, 2011
I recently tiled my own kitchen and it required me to install an oak nosing at one doorway. I put the nosing in using the standard procedure we generally use (unless asked not to do so) when we install stairs and stair nosings. Why these pieces?
Because stairs and stair nosings actually extend out and slightly overhang a vertical surface such as a riser the area is usually 1″ to 1 1/2″ overhanging. When you leverage hundreds of pounds of force multiple times in the form of foot traffic, then the area can become loose and dangerous. Ask most seasoned carpenters about building for the long haul and you’ll hear the phrase “glue and screw”. Let’s investigate a little deeper.
Glues can come in many shapes sizes and I prefer PL Polyurethane adhesive because it is very tolerant of temperature and moisture swings. This is not entirely true for traditional wood glue, which can shrink as it cures, causing it to fracture over time and loose its strength.
For screws, we love the #10 trimhead screws-2 3/4″ length with threads in two different directions. These screws leave a small footprint-approx. 1/8″ in diameter. Because there are threads in two directions, it makes it impossible for the screw to back out. In fact, if you hit resistance you can turn your power driver to reverse and with additional pressure these screws will actually sink even farther into the wood.
After being screwed into an area, we will create a 1/4″ recess and apply grain-matched wood plugs. If the plug is well matched then the area with the screw will look pretty seamless in appearance.
You cannot always see what creates quality right away. But time is the greatest judge of a well built project and if value is on your mind, then I urge you to weight longevity greatly over bottom line pricing.
Tags: hardwood floor contractor
Posted in Contractor Perspectives | No Comments »
A world tour…All in the name of better a floor
Monday, August 1st, 2011
Recently I had the opportunity to visit Fraunzimmern, Germany for a Lagler PST (Professional Sanding Training) July 22-27th. Lagler is a company located in Fraunzimmern that makes the world’s best floor sanding machines. The factory is state of the art and Lagler has decided to extend their tradition of quality beyond manufacturing and train selected professionals on technique as well.
Only ten people were selected for the trip from the United States. The tour included one day of a factory tour/machine maintenance. State of the art machinery used in production enables Lagler to maintain a consistency of product far beyond all other manufacturers in the industry. Following the factory tour all professionals on the trip were trained on even the finest details regarding proper machine maintenance and operating specifications.
It is important to consider that reproducible quality and workmanship is most likely when machines are running optimally. The other component of producing quality floors resides within efficient and reproducible methods of sanding. Lagler has spent the last ten years in conjunction with various engineers validating their methods for producing floors that are flat and free of error. The students at the July training were all taught and judged on performance afterwards by competing teams.
Beyond the technical aspects of the trip I was really impressed by the dynamics of our group of contractors on the trip. We had contractors represented from nearly every region of the United States, all with varying beliefs in method but a common bond of passion for a perfect floor. I now feel that my network of knowledge and access to the best in the business just jumped an order of magnitude because of this opportunity. I’m certain that with the knowledge from the training and the coming line of products for floor sanding from Lagler that our abilities will advance.
Thanks to Karl Lagler and Jeff Fairbanks for this opportunity. In our next related post I will discuss the real story behind dust collection and validity of endorsements for various “dustless” systems in the industry.
Tags: hardwood floor contractor, hardwood refinishing
Posted in Company Life | No Comments »
Hardwood Floors News : Wood Products Better Than Steel & Concrete, Researchers say
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011
This is why we like the NWFA because they stay on top of the latest data.
Hardwood Floors News : Wood Products Better Than Steel & Concrete, Researchers say.
Tags: sustainability
Posted in Sustainability Talk | No Comments »
A really big reason to hire a professional
Saturday, July 2nd, 2011
This e-mail just came into my inbox:
On July 1, 2011 the Construction Contractors Board (CCB) Dispute Resolution Services (DRS) program will make significant changes to its program.
For complaints filed on and after July 1, 2011, DRS will provide only mediation services. If the parties do not settle the complaint, the complainant must go to court and obtain a court judgment before DRS can send it to the contractor’s surety for payment.
This change is made necessary by the recent sharp slowdown in construction that resulted in asignificant drop in the number of licensed contractors and the fees paid to the CCB.
To adjust to this drop in revenue, the legislature made significant cutbacks in the CCB’s budget for the DRS program. This reduced budget was signed into law by the Governor.
Essentially, if you are a homeowner and you have a significant problem with your contractor, then you should prepare for a much longer and more arduous process of correcting the issue.
Please hire the best, not just the cheapest.
Tags: hardwood floor contractor
Posted in Contractor Perspectives | No Comments »
Water-based finish versus oil based finish color
Tuesday, June 28th, 2011
We recently refinished the hardwood floors at a house in north Portland and they were old growth fir flooring. The floors had previously been refinished using a waterborne finish and judging on the color and age they were probably done somewhere in the 5-10 year period beforehand.
The kitchen floor on the left was a little too worn through to refinish, so we left that portion in its original state. The floor on the right was after our process and was refinished using a Glitsa conversion varnish finish. Conversion varnishes are regarded as the true “Swedish” finishes and really enhance the warm caramel/amber color of a fir floor as you can see from the photo.
We hope that this photo does a good job of illustrating the color enhancement difference of hardwood floor finishes over time.
Tags: Fir flooring, Swedish finish
Posted in Floor Projects | No Comments »
Jobsite conditions and rare finish issues
Thursday, June 23rd, 2011
I’ve recently been scratching my head over issues that are so rare that it took some digging through contacts to resolve. Here is the full explanation of diagram of a phenomenon know as Benard cells:
Bénard cells: differences in surface tension
To achieve good flow, the surface tension must remain uniform over the complete surface of the coating layer while it is drying. During the drying of a solventborne coating film, the solvent on the surface evaporates causing differences in temperature, surface tension, solvent concentration and density within the film. To balance the thermodynamic disequilibrium currents occur in the coating film. These currents produce eddies in the drying layer, a phenomenon known as the formation of Bénard cells. The surface tension is higher at the edges of the cells than at their centers and coating material flows from regions of lower surface tension to regions of higher surface tension. The resulting unevenness in the surface dries into the coating film. This produces an irregular surface as the coating shows marked texture.
I wanted to simply post about this phenomenon as a way to let people know that floor finishing can be a very tricky business and so many variables apply to coating a floor that it is often unfair to blame contractors for an issue this rare. It took a number of phone calls to various experts in the field to uncover this phenomenon and an appropriate fix. This is a case where even my experience was not enough. My network was the real strength in resolving the matter.
Problems will happen with any hardwood floor during installations and wood floor refinishing. The goal is to minimize the number of problems and if they do occur, then to quickly arrive at an answer to expedite the fix and get homeowners back in the home with minimal impact on their life. If we had approached the issue with recoating the floor, then the problem would likely have been the same with each attempt. We were able to fix the problem with a minor buffing with a polishing pad in a couple of hours.
Tags: hardwood floor finish, Swedish finish
Posted in Floor Finishing | No Comments »
Hawthorne painted wood floor refinish
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
Here is the video for our latest fir floor refinish. The job was a painted floor that was located in the Hawthorne area of southeast Portland.
Tags: Fir flooring, hardwood refinishing
Posted in Project Videos | 5 Comments »
