*Mrs.Jacinthe* HW floors

[FoxInFiji]

I didn't get to post the other day but I wanted to agree with the pp that you want some amount of contrast with your floors and your trim.  Otherwise it all blends together.  Plus with dark trim a more medium colored floor will keep the place bright and not show as much hair or dust. 

Do you want to talk specifics?  What kind of wood are you thinking about using?  Oil based or water based poly?  What width board?  Water or solvent based stain?  Do you want to be able to refinish the floors in future?  Do your cats and dog scratch up the floors?...ie do you need a very hard wood and finish.

[mrs.jacinthe]

Oh, wow Fox. Here's where we are at the moment. We're going to start with the upstairs because it is where I will spend most of my time (my office, the master bedroom.)



Do you want to talk specifics?  Yes!  LOL  What kind of wood are you thinking about using?  Probably white or red oak.  Oil based or water based poly?  Probably water based, but we're still undecided.  We *have* to use low VOC products.  Your thoughts?  What width board?  5" plank is our minimum.  We're wondering if 7" would be better and if there'd be a significant cost difference per sq ft.  Water or solvent based stain? Again, we have to use low VOC.  So water-based?  Do you want to be able to refinish the floors in future?  We are hoping to never HAVE to, but it's likely we'll need to at some point.  Do your cats and dog scratch up the floors?...ie do you need a very hard wood and finish.  No, luckily, our cats are rear-claw only and although we don't trim their nails, they don't scratch up the floors much.  We keep the dog's nails trimmed tight enough she doesn't scratch things up either.

[mrs.jacinthe]

Feb 6, 2013 17:05:35 GMT -5 @callmefia said:

Feb 6, 2013 16:42:38 GMT -5 mrs.jacinthe said:

 What width board?  5" plank is our minimum.  We're wondering if 7" would be better and if there'd be a significant cost difference per sq ft.

Oy. I think I would do 5" mostly because of cost, but I can say with a fair amount of certainty that I don't think I've seen 7" in person. I think its more likely to warp at larger sizes, and most old homes have super skinny planks I have noticed. 

R's grandma had 12" planks in her house and it was BEAUTIFUL.  Obviously, we're not that crazy, but it's certainly tempting.

[FoxInFiji]

Sorry to post and run I got pulled into a meeting.

Merida is right 7" wide planks are huge! They are a specialty size and will reflect that in the price. Even 5" will cost a lot more than a 2-3". It is a very common domestic wood so the price will be better than other wood options at least. They will also be expanding and contracting a lot more than skinnier boards. For every inch of width you have a fraction of a inch more of expansion...which adds up over a big distance. White oak is not the worst when it comes to dimensional change coefficients but it's not the best either. If you're spending a lot on new floors you should consider do you really want to be able to stick quarters in between the boards at certain times of the year? Will not being able to easily clean between all of those cracks be an issue for you? Here read these links:

www.home-style-choices.com/wide-plank-wood-flooring.html
www.ericksonsfloors.com/specie_change.htm

When it comes to wide plank flooring engineered is often used because it won't be expanding or contracting near as much as solid wood. It's also a lot easier to make and more eco-friendly. It's really hard to find raw lumber that size now days. You can go reclaimed which is awesome but pricey.

I'm not sure what year your house is but I'd look into what a house that age would actually have. Based purely on the pictures of the trim and my knowledge of homes in my area I would think a house that age would have the skinnier 2-3" boards. The wide plank was more of an old farmhouse look.

You need to consider the layout of the rooms too. Wide plank looks cool in big open rooms but if you have a lot of tighter smaller rooms/hallways it can look odd.

If you still do want to go with wide plank this company is one of the leaders in them: www.wideplankflooring.com/how-to-buy/choosing-the-right-wood
Check out the buyers guide for some good wood species selection help.

We ended up going with 4" wide solid hickory from this place: www.sheogaflooring.com/

So with site finished floors in a long term home and an oak hardness you'll most likely be refinishing the floors eventually unless you don't mind wear. A prefinished engineered will last longer before it starts looking worn and be re-screened (no actually refinished). It's just good to think ahead about what you might want to do in the future.

Can I ask about the no VOC thing? Why? Is it really no VOCs or just low VOCs?

[SusanBAnthony]

Can a prefinished engineered be refinished as many times as finish in place?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of oil vs. water based finishes? My parents just put in maple with a water finish. It is really lovely. I am jealousE. But I had never heard of a water finish before they did it.

[FoxInFiji]

Feb 7, 2013 6:56:12 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

Can a prefinished engineered be refinished as many times as finish in place?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of oil vs. water based finishes? My parents just put in maple with a water finish. It is really lovely. I am jealousE. But I had never heard of a water finish before they did it.

Prefinished vs. Unfinished
To "refinish" a prefinished floor be it engineered or solid doesn't matter all you can do is re-screen the floor.  That is hire someone to put another layer of clear poly product specifically made for prefinished surfaces over the existing wood.  You can't realistically or safely sand down a prefinished floor because it's extremely hard and full of aluminum oxide which you are not supposed to breath in.  Prefinished floors can come with up to 8 layers or more so sanding all of that down is just not practical and would cost a fortune if you tried to hire that out. 

So prefinished floors = re-screen only and re-screening simply fills in the big scratches with a clear coat.  Deep scratches on a wood with dark stain will still show so pros try to take stain pens around and touch up those areas before re-screening but they don't look perfect.  Re-screening also leads to other issues in that the microbevels around all of the boards (needed on prefinished not site finished) will be filled in with poly but those boards will still be expanding and contracting as usual so eventually you get lots of small cracks in your new finish.  Some people don't mind it others do.  Also the re-screen is not nearly is hard as the previous prefinished surface because it's applied in the field and can't contain the dangerous aluminum oxide particles.  What was one a very hard finish is now equal to a site finished finish but with lots of cracks in it eventually. 

Because prefinished wood is not really able to be sanding down to bare wood spending extra money on solid wood that is prefinished is silly to me.  The whole point/benefit to solid wood is that you can sand it down many times before it needs to be replaced.  Engineered wood is cheaper, more stable (less warping and expanding/contracting), and usually more eco-friendly so if you're getting a prefinished wood engineered is the way to go.  It doesn't matter that you only have a thin veneer of top layer because you're never sanding it down.  Does that make sense?

Oil based vs. Water based poly
The oil based vs. water based poly is only really a discussion for site finished floors so if you're going with prefinished this won't matter to you.  Water based is the new norm for contractors.  Every single contractor I called uses water based on the vast majority of their work, recommends it, and some refuse to even use oil based. 

Water based
- has come a long way in the past couple years, today's water based polys are far better than they were 20 years ago

- dries much quicker so multiple coats can be put on in one day and less dust/debris falls in the finish as it dries

- lower in VOCs but there are some oil based polys now catering to that market

- easier to clean up applicators and tools

- dries clear and doesn't have an amber/yellow tint over time but it also doesn't bring out the richness of the wood grain like oil based

    - a special deep tone sealer can be used under the water based poly to help mimic the look but it's not quite the same

    - this is mostly an issue on unstained wood where the majority of the color is coming from the poly and you want the grain to pop

- is very expensive!  A can of Bona high traffic is $100-$120 and you need a sealer under it.  A can of top of the line oil based is $30.
   
    - contractors will still usually have a higher cost for oil based though because they have to make more trips and take more hours.  Oil based needs a day for each layer and there is more sanding/buffing involved on each layer since more dust can settle in the finish.  It is also not their normal product so they may need to buy different applicators or tools.

- it's still not as hard as oil based.  People will argue this both ways but in reality a good oil based finish is still a little harder than water based.

    - oil based is still what is used on most commercial applications because holding up to a lot of wear and tear is important.  Gym floors, bowling alleys, etc. they all use oil based.  The oil based poly we used was invented for bowling alley floors and is known as such.

- it is very hard to DIY without having a lot of previous experience.  Because it dries so fast it doesn't self level like oil based and you can't take your time or fix your mistakes.  Water based is often put on with a squeegee which takes a lot of practice compared to a lambswool applicator. 


To sum that all up if you're DIYing the poly oil based is the way to go.  If you're hiring it out it's your choice but you'll pay extra for oil based. 

HTH

[FoxInFiji]

To follow up on the richness that oil based poly gives here's our floors unfinished:



After a few layers of poly but during the sanding process:


And a different area after all 4 layers of poly:



Water based in contrast looks like wet wood.  We tried a sample of it on a spare piece of flooring and it was exactly like the unfinished wood when you put water on it. 

[Deleted]

Did the Victorians in NorCal often have inlays/parquets in the formal areas? Have you thought about that? Skinny boards, but gussied up a bit? I haven't been through many of the Victorians around here, but maybe you could find some good home tours either there or in SF? The gov's mansion is open for tours; I might go have a look at their floors if I were you. Or maybe some pictures of the insides of the painted ladies near Alamo Square? I think they are pretty well preserved. Just to get an idea of what was going on. Most of the c. 1900 places around us have 2-inch white oak strip (not tongue and groove but nailed from the top), but I'm not sure if that was original or if someone went through the neighborhood and re-did all the floors at the same time. One neighbor has 4 or 5-inch fir in the kitchen, oak everywhere else.

[mrs.jacinthe]

Wow. What a great discussion. I'm totally bookmarking this. And making R read it.

To answer some general questions: I don't know if our house could officially be called Victorian or if it's more farmhouse-y. If it was built when the current owners say (in 1850), it's literally a year younger than our town, which was a gold-rush town in the wildest tradition. There are some victorians in town, but they're not quite the same as this one. We've been calling it "victorian folk" style - which in our minds is a cross between a farmhouse and a true victorian.

We were thinking 5" floors because of the way they look more rustic but aren't quite all the way to a plank floor. However, we talked about it (again) last night and we may have switched to 3" or 4" instead. We were going with red or white oak because there are a lot of oak trees in this area and presumably would have been a popular building wood.

As regards low VOC, we *have* to use low or no VOC products a) because this is California and b) because the HOA says so, although I'm not sure how they'd enforce that. Although the development was built in the 90s, the HOA was pretty forward looking in their eco-consciousness - low water landscaping, low VOCs, certain materials not to be used, etc.

FoxInFiji - I thought I had brought R around to finished-in-place hardwood. Last night, he was still talking about using a nicer engineered flooring instead, due to both cost and stability. Are there particular things/brands we should look for or avoid? We've compromised on *at least* pricing that option to see if there's a substantial difference.

[mrs.jacinthe]

@callmefia - that's a valid point. We honestly don't care about continuity between downstairs and upstairs, provided we can pull off the transition between the stairs and the upstairs flooring. Again, we're not 100% certain if the current owners are 100% certain what's under the carpet either, although he said it's particleboard throughout,there's no transition from the top stair to the particleboard ... so either the top stair doesn't actually have a tread (hard to tell, there's carpet) OR there's actually hardwood upstairs.

We're also looking at replacing the particleboard with legit plywood underlayment while we've got the carpet up. This project gets bigger and more expensive every time I turn around. Not that we can't afford it, but still. *sigh*

[FoxInFiji]

Yes they make a lot of oil based polys that meet CA's low VOC requirements. LEEDs requirements were lower than CA's the last time I checked so it's in the manufacturer's best interest to have a line that meets that or they are loosing a lot of business. The poly we used (Fabulon heavy duty satin) comes in a low VOC version as well. They also have a water based poly line:
www.essex-silver-line.com/pro/fabulon.html

The top brands I found in my research were Fabulon and Dura Seal for both water and oil based. Then there is Bona for just water based...they make an oil based but I've read some poor reviews. Bona is the really expensive stuff but a lot of contractors use them because they market them. Fabulon is now owned by Sherwin Williams so I was able to order it from the commercial SW store and pick it up there. Saved a lot on shipping that way.

Ehh I don't have a big list of brands for engineered since we knew we weren't using it for the bedrooms. But we are going to be using prefinished engineered in the basement in our next remodel so you should follow up with what you find! I agree with Merida you can easily switch from one type to the other from floor to floor. You could do unfinished engineered on the second floor and unfinished solid on the first floor from the same brand. Like I've said previously we really love the manufacturer we got our HW from but I bet there is some similar manufacturers who are more local to you. No need to ship wood from OH to CA if you have some place more local. I was able to find a local B&M flooring wholesale place. They couldn't sell prefinished retail because of all the manufacturer requirements but unfinished was anyone's game. Unfinished is so much more flexible because any lumber yard can be turning out solid unfinished boards as long as they have a kiln long enough to dry it. We really wanted to get our HW from a local guy who is super sustainable with beyond FSC forestry practices and solar kilns. He only makes enough wood to install in a dozen or so homes each year. The only problem was hickory that can be harvested isn't as easy to come by in large quantities around here. Local places like that is where you find very low cost per sf prices.

For your comparison our 4" wide solid hickory was $3.93/sf from the wholesale place. With the DIY finishing it came to a little over $4/sf. If we had hired it out it would have been another $4/sf. Prefinished is anywhere from $6-8/sf maybe less since you're looking at oak. So though it was a lot of work our DIY site finished was actually pretty budget friendly.

[FoxInFiji]

Oh and we replaced the particle board on our subfloor as well. My FIL thought we were crazy but it's not something we could change later and two layers of plywood is without question better than one layer of plywood and one layer of particle board. It's just a matter of is it worth the time and money.

[SusanBAnthony]

Feb 7, 2013 15:13:47 GMT -5 FoxInFiji said:

Oh and we replaced the particle board on our subfloor as well. My FIL thought we were crazy but it's not something we could change later and two layers of plywood is without question better than one layer of plywood and one layer of particle board. It's just a matter of is it worth the time and money.

Thank you for all the info.  Very helpful.  Do you have an idea, off the too of your head, what the price difference is?  If finish in place is 4k (pulling a random number out of my butt) what would prefinished hardwood, engineered hardwood, and laminate cost, relative to that?

[FoxInFiji]

Feb 7, 2013 17:38:37 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

Feb 7, 2013 15:13:47 GMT -5 FoxInFiji said:

Oh and we replaced the particle board on our subfloor as well. My FIL thought we were crazy but it's not something we could change later and two layers of plywood is without question better than one layer of plywood and one layer of particle board. It's just a matter of is it worth the time and money.

Thank you for all the info.  Very helpful.  Do you have an idea, off the too of your head, what the price difference is?  If finish in place is 4k (pulling a random number out of my butt) what would prefinished hardwood, engineered hardwood, and laminate cost, relative to that?

Well that's really hard to say because it depends on what you pick.  Floor comparisons are normally done in $/sf since that is how everything is priced.  But here's some of my experience with floor pricing:

Our unfinished HW that we DIY finished on site came to a total of $4.43/sf.

The prefinished engineered we're looking at for the basement is in the $6-8/sf range.

The cheapo laminate we bought for the LR & DR (it's temporary for a few years until we can move a couple more walls) was under $1/sf plus the underlayment to help it sound and feel more solid so it came out to $1.60/sf.  It's a Shaw hickory looking product but IMO this kind of product doesn't even compare to the real thing.

HTH

[SusanBAnthony]

Ooh, that is right near my in laws. We could totally do that.

FoxInFiji did you install yourselves, or just finish it yourselves?

I just requested a quote for maple with imperfections from Sheoga    DH is like "who exactly do you think is going to install this, crazy lady?"  Hey, it doesn't hurt to start budgeting for it!

[FoxInFiji]

Feb 8, 2013 19:05:34 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

Ooh, that is right near my in laws. We could totally do that.

FoxInFiji did you install yourselves, or just finish it yourselves?

I just requested a quote for maple with imperfections from Sheoga    DH is like "who exactly do you think is going to install this, crazy lady?"  Hey, it doesn't hurt to start budgeting for it!

We installed and refinished it ourselves.  My FIL helped install it with DH while I was at work and I did almost all of the refinishing myself the following week.  My FIL has the nailguns you use to install floors and took them 2.5 days to install it in all 3 bedrooms and the hallway.