Question: We are having our hardwood floors professionally sanded, stained and sealed with 2 coats of polyurethane sealer. Two questions: 1. How long should I wait after the polyurethane sealer has been applied to lay down carpets, i.e., how long will it take for the sealer to completely cure. I have heard that some types of carpet pads can damage the polyurethane finish on the hardwood floor. Do you have any recommendations as to what types of carpet pads I should, or should NOT, use on my newly refinished floor ?Many thanks. Susan Answer: Dear Susan I am surprised that your floor company didn’t give you all this info. But if you are referring to an oil modified polyurethane, it will take up to a month to cure. You must keep it uncovered for as long into that month as you can. The only carpet pad I recommend these days is the Might Gripper available at your local Home Depot store. You only need small boarders pieces of this pad to keep even large area carpets from slipping, truly amazing stuff. My son has it on his hardwood floor (that I refinished) for 2 years now with no signs of deterioration. But again wait a month before using even this pad. I don’t use carpet pads under my wool area rugs, there seems to be no need in my case, the furniture keeps them in place. During the first year or two be sure to shift the carpet a few inches in each direction every month or so, to prevent a “aging border” from showing up in the finish. As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.

Question: We just had our beautiful heart pine floors redone, with two coats of polyurethane to finish. We are seeing abundant surface scratches in one room not even a month later. Is there any product that will hide existing scratches and help prevent future ones? Answer: Dear Keith I have always used at least 4 coats of poly on all my pine floor jobs, and never a lacquer sealer as the undercoat. This may be why you have such a weak finish, just not enough film. But if they used a lacquer or shellac based sealer, you will always have a problem. If that’s the case read my article about Lacquer Floor Fires, which can be found at the top of the web page in the search box. So, I would say add more finish, and then be sure to read my floor maintenance article, which can also be found at the top of the web page in the search box. The article will suggest all the various solutions to scratches, and the advantages and drawbacks of each.

Question: Rick We have dogs but would like to put in a hardwood floor. What type of flooring is best for dogs, scratches, etc. Answer: Dear Rick No type of wood floor nor any commercial finish will resist the scratches these critters will make. But that said here are a few guidelines. Avoid the prefinished floor. The perfect factory finishes will look pretty bad with a few scratches, and it is difficult to touch up and re-coat these factory conversion finishes. Choose a ring porous wood that is fairly hard, Hickory or pecan would be the hardest. But white oak and red oak have a more prominent grain pattern, so they will show the scratches the least. Stay away from fine grained wood like maple, or beech, the mars in these floor are visible a mile away. Choose a finish that you feel comfortable re-coating yourself. Hire a pro to do the sanding, but do all the finishing yourself, to save money and become a floor finish expert. That way every 5 years or so you will feel more than qualified to screen and re-coat the floor yourself. Read about how to maintain a wood floor in the Floored News section of this site. As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.

Question: Never use OSB, chipboard, or any type of particle board, as the nails will loosen and floors will squeak. I did not know this and this is what my contractor used when putting down my floor. How can I fix this? I hope there is an answer? Thanks Rich Answer: Dear Rich I can only make the following suggestions if you have not yet installed your hardwood floor over the OSB. At the very least you should nail down 5/8″ plywood (over the OSB) hitting the joists with 4″ spiral nails. I say this is the least because the hardwood flooring nails will still penetrate the OSB 1/4″. But I would hope this would not cause too many squeaks in the future. And this will keep from raising the final floor level too much, so as making too high a rise to the various stair cases. But 3/4″ plywood would be better, as the flooring nails will almost only contact the plywood, and be as if the OSB wasn’t there at all. And the very best thing to do is to remove all or most of this substandard building material (OSB) and replace it with 3/4″ plywood, or even 1 by 4 Southern Yellow Pine laid diagonally to the joists. This last suggestion makes the very best nailing surface for hardwood flooring, if you’ve got really deep pockets. But if you have already installed the hardwood over the OSB, be sure to keep your house relative humidity within 40-60 %, and hope for the best. If you find squeaks develop before your new home warranty is up, but sure to complain early and often to the builder.

Question: Parquet flooring laid just over 12 months ago has become much darker, where it has been exposed to the light. Is there any treatment that can be used to bring it back to it’s original lighter colour. Wood used was Merbuau.It was sanded and sealed using three coat finish of Ronseal. Elsie Answer: Dear Elsie The finish that was applied on this rather light (and dark grained) colored wood will have the tendency to darken in a short time. But the wood is a very common flooring material and is great as long as you keep it from damp conditions. Nails will rust in this wood if allowed to get wet, but this should never happen indoors. So in your case the best solution is to let the finish age evenly over the whole floor. Remove all area rugs and try to expose the whole floor to moderate sunlight until the shading evens out. Then it should be no more problem. This means it will all remain dark. I’m assuming the Ronseal finish is their interior oil modified polyurethane. They make so many different kinds of finish (mostly for the furniture trade), great stuff generally. But if perhaps if happens to be a water borne finish, let me know as this may not be so good with this type of wood. But a lacquer nitrocellulose would be fine also. This last type of finish would not have darkened as much. As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.

Question: Actually Brazilian Direct has 3/4″ x 3 x 18 unfinished Herringbone Santos Mahogany. That is parquet – correct? I think that should be fine. Cindy Answer: Dear Cindy Yep, that’s considered to be a special parquet, and is glued directly to the concrete. Just be sure to hire a really good professional floor mechanic to sand this perfectly smooth, and consider doing the finishing yourself.

Question: I have recently discovered parquet flooring under my carpet and it’s badly scuffed and marked. How can I bring it back to its best? Regards Ian Answer: Dear Ian Uncover the whole floor, and then read my floor maintenance article available in the search box at the top of this web page. The second part of the article deals with older floors like yours, and how to identify the finish, and possible re-coat, or maybe just wax it.

Question: Sorry, but I must paint the hardwood, badly stained and damaged floors in the old farmhouse that we just bought. Please tell me how to do this and what paint to use and how to protect the painted floor. Thank you so much. Answer: Dear Sylvia Don’t be sorry, you will still have a wood floor, but with a wonderful painted finish on it. Feel free to browse my web site to get some book titles on this topic. But in short, have the floor PROFESSIONALLY SANDED. Don’t do this yourself. It will need to be sanded at least to 100 grit sandpaper, then screened, as if they were going to stain the wood (yes, that smooth). Find a company that knows how to do this. Then you can either apply (you or a professional painter) 3-4 coats of the Flecto Co. colors in plastic polyurethane paint. Their web site is at http://www.flecto.com. This is an oil modified polyurethane paint, and will take several days for each coat to cure, and scuffing well, and cleaning between all coats will be required. Or you can use an acrylic paint (from a paint store allowing more choice of colors and less fumes), and apply 3-4 coats of a water-based finish on it. You can go to http://www.basiccoatings.com or http://www.bonakemi.com to find out what paints are compatible with their finishes. If you go the acrylic paint and clear finish route, try each company’s Street Shoe and Traffic finish respectively. But I should say this will prove to be an expensive way to do it, and no more durable than the Flecto paint, just more choice of colors.

Question: What type of scraper/tools are used when hand scraping?I am having a hard time achieving the proper look. The sample I’m trying to duplicate has a very smooth flowing look to it. The end result of my work looks very rough. It doesn’t have that running water look.Any advice or direction on where I could get some help would be appretiated. Rich Answer: Dear Rich You can either use the normal paint scrapers with the replacable blades. They are easy to sharpen with a 10″ mill bastard file. I personaly use the w-14 model made by Richard at www.richardtools.com. If you sharpen these with a slight rounding of the corners you can get a very smoooth scrape. It will still need a hand sanding, screening or vibrator machine sanding after. But if you want to learn how to sharpen a cabinet scraper, you should be able to achieve a smooth surface right away, no sanding. I’ve just bought one made by Lee Valley tools especially made for doing floors. It’s patterned after a version made almost 90 years ago. You can see it and order it at www.leevalley.com. It’s prod. #05K21.01. But you have to order also a file, a file holder, and burnishing tool. And possibly an extra blade. I spent about $100 CDN on all this, but you will also have to learn to sharpen such a tool. Either read the chapter on this matter in the book Understanding Wood Finishing, listed in the Hardwood Authority section. Or go to Lee Valley Tools again and check out his books and videos on sharpening. It’s going to take me a while to sharpen these scrapers perfectly, but the results so far have been really encouraging. I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it sometime this winter. As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.

Question: Hi, I am having my building contractor install Bruce Hardwood flooring…contractor is saying that it is OK to lay down hardwood on OSB and that I do not need to upgrade subfloor to plywood. I know this goes aginst what you are saying but what are the pitfalls of OSB. Remember Bruce hardwood apparently is also agreeing with my contractor that OSB is ok as a subfloor when applying hard wood strips. (They are nailing hardwood & not using any glue) What are your thoughts on this matter? much appreciate you help and advise on this topic. thanks Ken Answer: Dear Ken Oh boy here we go again with the old OSB / Plywood debate. I stand firmly on the 3/4″ plywood or pine board subfloor side of this issue. I am not interested in what works well in the short term. My hardwood floors are going to last 100-300 years because I refuse jobs that are to be installed on the OSB. And I have lots of research to back this up. Studies done by a famous wood science university, and lots and lots of antidotal information. Plus a web site of an OSB manufacturer themselves, which shoots holes in their own argument. Oh, also a class action lawsuit involving a mass failure of this product made by a well known southern lumber baron. This material has a really checkered past. That all said, I felt so strongly about this negative effects of this product, I wrote another Strip Floor article, meant to influence the minds of the professional floor installers. I don’t care to influence Bruce or your builder, they may be stuck in their past habits. I devoted about a third of this article to the pitfalls of this material. As always your Most humble servant, Joseph, the Wood Floor Doctor.