Types of Hardwood Floor Finish

Posted by luzette on Mar 24, 2011 in featured, Hardwood Floors | 0 comments

The right hardwood floor finishes can deliver both functionality and aesthetics. These floor sealers do not just make your flooring look good and complement the color of your floor to the room. The correct finish shields your flooring from dirt, moisture and deterioration as it makes durable wood even more lasting. With technology making headway today, the assortment of finishes for hardwood floors has grown in variation offering their respective looks and advantages.

Hardwood floor finishes can be classified according to its base, either oil-based or water-based. The time-honored Oil-Based Polyurethane or OBP hardwood floor finish, which have been in use for more than 6 decades, is still widely used today. It displaced the high-maintenance paste wax. Owing to the notable durability that it provided, Oil-Based Polyurethane eclipsed paste wax and sent it to its resting place forever. OBP remains to be the top-of-mind among hardwood floor finishing specialists because of its cost-effectiveness and its ease of use since it is slow to dry. However, its slow drying quality also translates to prolonged working days. It is also infamous for the powerful odor that it emits which could hang around for several days.

The serious rival of OBP is the Water-Based Polyurethane or WBP. It was developed to address the drawbacks of OBP. Many brands of WBP are certified low VOC. Because it is fast drying, more coats can be applied in lesser number of days resulting to a shortened curing period. However, its price is its biggest drawback as its cost could be more than double or triple than that of the OBP. For this reason, not all in the flooring trade were convinced to shift to this newcomer, albeit its strong points have been recognized.

If the criteria for judging are cost and wood floor condition, oil-based polyurethane clearly emerges as the winner. Would you be willing to spend $440 to seal your red oak floor with water-based polyurethane, or make do with $220 using the oil-based polyurethane? Both can bring out the same results in terms of appearance. If your budget is limited, the answer is obvious. Two to three coats of oil-based polyurethane will give you that lasting beauty and durability that you wish for in a floor finish without the extra cost.

As earlier mentioned, the issue of OBP being slow to dry is both an advantage and disadvantage. It is a disadvantage because it prolongs the project period, hence adding up to labor expense. However, floor specialists like to use it because it is not taxing when applied as it is slow to dry. Additionally, its slow drying quality also ensures that it deeply penetrates the wood, hence, reinforcing durability of the floor. You may not be able to achieve this with WBP.