Water-borne vs oil for new oak floor?

[epicxt]

I'm installing oak and cherry solid hardwood flooring in my parents' new house next week. This will be in the dining room and kitchen, and I'd like people's suggestions for the type of finish that would be the most durable.

Dalys has a new water-borne product that someone recommended, but I figured I'd solicit the collective wisdom of the FOG.

 

[Brice Burrell]

I happen to like the amber color of oil finishes but waterborne finishes are very popular now.  For waterborne I'd recommend Bona Traffic.

 

[Stone Message]

Can you get Osmo products in the US? They are very popular over here, especially with the professional crew.

Peter

 

[Holzhacker]

My flooring guy uses the Bona products for normal jobs. They hold up and look good pretty well for a good time span. They don't however hold up very well with dogs or heavy traffic in my experience. For houses with dogs or lots of kids I won't allow him to use Bona. I just haven't been impressed with durability under heavy use. He uses another product, can't remember the name. He would prefer to use oil base but nowadays one usually can't due to jobsite demands.
If the job allows I would recommend using an oil base if you need the added protection. Drying times and stench tend to be longer with oil base. Trying to keep people off of floors for 3 days doesn't work so well these days. Everyone wants rush, rush.

 

[Deansocial]

Can you get Osmo products in the US? They are very popular over here, especially with the professional crew.

Peter

Much better to go with bona i think than osmo. They have a much wider range of finishes for flooring

 

[duburban]

one coat oil for color and finish with water based poly whey for protection.

 

[tjbnwi]

Gilsta;

http://www.glitsa.com/

Bona;

http://www.bona.com/en-US/

Synteko;

http://www.synteko.com/

All are very good products. A sample board may be in order.

Tom

 

[nehardwoodfloors]

Our favorite is Vermeister water based finish.
Many examples of both oil and water can be seen here
Flickr.com/ecooptions
Www.ecooptionshardwood.com

Not a plug but a good resource.

 

[WarnerConstCo.]

Bona makes an amber sealer.  to add to the durability of bona mega, you need to add the traffic to it.  That will hold up to commercial applications or hard usage.

 

[nehardwoodfloors]

Duburban is closest yet.
Bona has sold their soul to the devil(home depot). We try not to use their finishes.

 

[epicxt]

Loving the responses! Checking into a few of the options listed above.
Cheers!

 

[nehardwoodfloors]

Waterbased finish for floors has been proven time and again to be 4-5 times harder than OMU.
I did my oak floors 8 yrs ago with wb(traffic as rec. above). It still looks great!
It darkens but doesnt get ugly.
Oil finihses turn piss yellow in a few yrs.

The best oil finish IMHO is made right here in USA. Poloplaz makes some great finish!

 

[Michael Kellough]

Our favorite is Vermeister water based finish.
Many examples of both oil and water can be seen here
Flickr.com/ecooptions
Www.ecooptionshardwood.com

Not a plug but a good resource.

I'm very interested in your thoughts on floor finishing materials but sometimes I have a hard time following you.
For example, this quote from your web site, "We figured this might be a good chance to see how Rubio Monocoat holds up under traffic. The colored maple is a double dye'd waterbased finished section. It was dye'd with transtints dye and finished with our favorite, Vermeister Idro 2k."

Are Rubio Monocoat and Vermeister Idro 2k the same product?

I went back and looked again...think I figured it out now. The main floor inside the door is finished in Rubio Monocat but an attached hall section is dyed and coated with Vermeister. That right?

I'm also puzzled by this, "Waterbased finish for floors has been proven time and again to be 4-5 times harder than OMU."

First, can you provide a link to such tests? And second, what is OMU?

 

[nehardwoodfloors]

Omu- oil modified urethane
Rubio hold up under traffic. Not traffic finish but foot traffic.

Vermeister makes Idro 2k.

Rubio Monocoat is a one coat hard wax oil type of finish. Derived from natural ingredients it is zero voc and can provide an old world look, with modern style.

Floor waterbornes are light yrs ahead of general finishes WB finishes.
The best WB finishes are 2 component and are proven in scratch and abrasion testing, to blow any traditional oil urethanes away. Picture having moisture cure urethane strength, with little smell and a 2 hr dry time.

Can't seem to find the article from nwfa rating the hardness levels. Vermeister also used to post many different stats as well.
Often Ads for the WB finish companies. But my experience has confirmed this.
We recently left a traffic HD coated job for a few days. When we returned to buff, the floors were like marble! Really tough to get scuffed up!

 

[nehardwoodfloors]

Forgot to mention Vermeister has released "Zero". I think this will be the finish at which Bona will have to answer too.
Hard, no odor, fast drying and zero voc waterborne finish.
http://www.vermeister.com/modules_cms/prcatpage.php?cc=8&pc=0

Here's vermeisters take on abrasion and scratch
http://www.vermeisterus.com/_assets/docs/EndUserHomeownersGuide.pdf

 

[sheeschen]

I've used Rubio on my oak floors, and I'm really happy with it so far.  I can't comment on durability yet, since it's only been a few months, but it seems to clean up well if something spills on it.  Water beads up on it, and seems to dry up faster than it has a chance to soak in.  My girlfriend and I like the matte look and feel, it really just colors and protects the wood, instead of adding the typical layer of plastic.

Since it's just an oil coating,  any imperfections in the floor remain there, they don't get covered up/smoothed over.  If there's a small gap between boards, it's still there.  A spill in those places could get under the floor and cause some trouble, but no problems so far.  I like the idea of spot patching if an area does get too worn over time.

As for application, can't get easier - I did half the house (about 800 ft2/70 m2) in an evening by myself, and slept there that night.  I used the standard stuff in the bedrooms to save a little money, but it took a few weeks to get rid of the oily feel.  A few months later I did the other half of the house with the accelerant - much quicker drying, but with a honey kind of smell that lingered for a few days.  Not bad, just odd.

A nice thing they've got is tiny samples of the different colors (I think I only had to spend for the shipping), so it's easy to figure out which one you like.

 

[Michael Kellough]

I used Rubio Monocoat clear (or natural, can't remember what they call it) on furniture for a client that wanted a matte finish with that warm color an oil provides. The client is very happy with the finish and I was happy to only need to apply one coat (Monocoat) and also that the odor was merely a natural oil aroma that reminded me of paint-by-number colors.

I figured if it's tough enough for a floor it's good for a table too. It's very expensive to buy but you really only apply one coat so there is a lot of labor saving.  Also, it's pretty much all solids so there is no loss from solvent evaporation. All in all it's quite cost effective.

 

[Jaybolishes]

Having sanded and redone many many homes with oil base and then tried twice to use water base, I have to say hands down oil base for me is the best.  Water base does not flatten like oil and is much harder to spread and apply with lambs wool.  Oil goes on smoother and water base seems thicker and many unneeded problems arise because of this. In corners you must be careful that the water base isn't thick or it will stay a darker bluish color for a while.  And since the water base doesn't flatten out as well you can find thicker spots that will never harden, it will still be soft to touch many months later and look very ripply and ugly if it's too thick.  My Benjamin more paint salesman told me nothing is harder than oil base, and only advantage of water base is fumes, so that is not enough for me to ever use water base again, applying water base is a nightmare after doing so many in oil.  Also water base is much more expensive.  The oil base seems to darken the wood grain more over time and i really like that.  I have never had any issue with dry time using oil.  I always appy the next coat after 18-24 hours with perfect results.   There are spots on my own floors over  6 months old that are water base which are still not hard,  I hope to sand the ugly ripples out if it ever does. for this guy who's done a lot of flooring, oil base is king by far

 

[Michael Kellough]

Having sanded and redone many many homes with oil base and then tried twice to use water base, I have to say hands down oil base for me is the best.  Water base does not flatten like oil and is much harder to spread and apply with lambs wool.  Oil goes on smoother and water base seems thicker and many unneeded problems arise because of this. In corners you must be careful that the water base isn't thick or it will stay a darker bluish color for a while.  And since the water base doesn't flatten out as well you can find thicker spots that will never harden, it will still be soft to touch many months later and look very ripply and ugly if it's too thick.  My Benjamin more paint salesman told me nothing is harder than oil base, and only advantage of water base is fumes, so that is not enough for me to ever use water base again, applying water base is a nightmare after doing so many in oil.  Also water base is much more expensive.  The oil base seems to darken the wood grain more over time and i really like that.  I have never had any issue with dry time using oil.  I always appy the next coat after 18-24 hours with perfect results.   There are spots on my own floors over  6 months old that are water base which are still not hard,  I hope to sand the ugly ripples out if it ever does. for this guy who's done a lot of flooring, oil base is king by far

Try this stuff, Norton 3X universal abrasive disks. It has the best release agent of anything I've tried. Paint corns usually self release. In the worst case a scrape with a scrap of old credit cards removes any stuck paint. Only comes in 5" but the hole pattern fits my old style ETS 125 pad. If you are having problems with everything else it would be worth enlarging the holes on a new style ETS 125 pad to accommodate this abrasive.

 

[Jaybolishes]

Thanks mike, great advice I'll give it a try!