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Hardwood floor sealer time

Fueler

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Jun 22, 2006
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Location
Urbana, IL
Time to do the home floors again which are oak. Sanding not an issue. Been there.
Floors were oiled and buffed in the past.
This time I want to do some kind of sealer and be done with it. Polyurethane? or something else?
Looking for recommendations please.

I do have some urine stains from a sick cat to deal with this time. Ideas?
 
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duneslider

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Jan 20, 2013
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2,296
Location
Riverton, Utah
Time to do the home floors again which are oak. Sanding not an issue. Been there.
Floors were oiled and buffed in the past.
This time I want to do some kind of sealer and be done with it. Polyurethane? or something else?
Looking for recommendations please.

I do have some urine stains from a sick cat to deal with this time. Ideas?
Urine stains can be tough, hopefully they sand out. If they don't sand out your only real option is to replace those boards.

I used Duraseal on my house and really like it, good product. There was a part of me that really wanted to try Rubio Monocoat but its a bit more pricey, a little more work, and a little more upkeep but looks to produce beautiful results.

I have been using Duraseal for years and years and really like the product. There are other great Polyurethane sealers though, that is just the one the supplier carries that I shop at.
 

rlitman

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Oct 18, 2010
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Long Island
Good luck with any finish over a previously oiled wood.

As for the urine stains, I'd first wash with enzyme cleaners, and then bleach with oxlalic acid and peroxide.

Bona Traffic is the current top of the line urethane, but it's water based, so I don't know how it will handle wood that may have oil in it.
 

MoonRise

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Nov 5, 2010
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Location
NJ
re: urine in hardwood

Stains are one issue, the urine smell is the other.

You can try to neutralize the urine with an enzyme product (Nature's Miracle is what I've used for various stains and odors, but not on urine that has soaked into a hardwood floor), but that may or may not work.

After neutralizing the actual urine, then you can maybe attempt to bleach out the water/ammonia stains (from the urine and then from the water-based enzyme neutralizer products). Wood bleach (oxalic acid usually) and/or hydrogen peroxide are two common wood bleaches (do NOT mix them! They are two DIFFERENT bleaching products, you would use or try them separately.)

And if the urine has soaked into the seam between boards and/or otherwise gotten down into the subfloor, the only real fix is to remove and replace the urine-soaked areas. IMNSHO

(surface staining is one thing and bad enough, but unless you originally cleaned up the urine almost immediately you are almost certainly dealing with urine that has soaked into the wood and will really NEVER 'go away' no matter what you do to it short of remove and replace)

Applying a polyurethane varnish over an oil finish may be iffy. If you sand far enough to completely remove all of the old floor finish, then you should have no issues.

If the oil finish was a "drying" oil, then you should have no compatibility issues with top coating with a polyurethane varnish. Test first.

Your bigger concern with the old floor oil finish is probably the buffing wax or silicones that may have been applied. Those for sure will mess up any attempt to top coat or recoat with any varnish (polyurethane or whatever).

But what you can usually do if dealing with possible incompatible finishes is to apply a sealing coat (or 3 :lol: ) of shellac. Within limits, shellac sticks to almost anything and almost anything sticks to shellac (with regard to finishes). Shellac by itself is not all that durable, especially for a floor finish, but it MAY be just durable enough to let you get a successful bond between the different finishes (old oil in/on the floor to shellac, and then the polyurethane to the shellac).

Test first and maybe reach out to the floor varnish maker(s) and their tech info (chat, call, email, carrier pigeon, etc).
 
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mike93lx

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Dec 9, 2013
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Location
Richmond, VA
We did our last house in Bona water based and it worked very well. No odor and a quick dry time, but I doubt that will work over a floor that was oiled
 

MoonRise

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Nov 5, 2010
Messages
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Location
NJ
More info about polyurethane.

Oil-based poly (solvent based) smells (VOC solvent smell, dangerous AND flammable), adds a 'warm' glow to most woods (amber color of the poly), dries slower.

Water-based poly is usually clear (no amber color, unless the factory or you added stain/color to the poly), minimal smell (no VOC solvent), dries much faster than oil-based poly (usually can recoat in about 3-4 hours), and is actually usually a little bit harder than oil-based poly.
 
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