refinishing hard wood floors

[BLUEMANDJ]

I am bout to refinish the hard wood floors in my house and wanted to find out peoples experience with this process?

What kind of finish can you use?
What about the dust?


I would really like to use an Acrylic finish or a polyurethane finish. The company that can finish the floors the fastest does not use a dust containment system so there is going to be a lot of dust.

I was thinking about sealing the tank in a sheet of plastic and running air hoses from outside into the tank. Shutting down the tank for about 4 to 6 hours so the chemicals can dissipate.

Any help that you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Chris

[COreefer]

Any way you slice it it is a serious risk. Sealing it off is a start, but keep in mind the risks involved and run carbon just in case.

[murfman]

i would buy and run a hepa air filter system to pull as much dust out of the air as possible too.

[Crit21]

Use a water-based finish if possible. According to Consumer Reports online, "Water-based varnishes also tend to have lower levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Along with their distinctive aroma, VOCs pose the possibility of headaches and nausea for those particularly sensitive to chemical odors. If that describes you—and you're applying either type of varnish yourself—consider wearing a respirator with organic filter cartridges (about $20 to $40) while applying varnish. Yet another water-based advantage is easy cleanup of brushes and varnish spills with water. Solvent-based products require mineral spirits, which are combustible and generate still more VOCs.

Ratings for water based finishes can be found at www.consumerreports.org. Membership is really cheap and you can see years worth of reviews. The down-side of water-based finishes is that they're not as durable to foot traffic as solvent-based finishes.

Regardless, open the windows and start up the fireplace. You may want to wait for one of those really nice days to do this, or possibly until spring.

I've refinished a floor before. I can tell you that the dust from the old finish will be in every square inch of your house, even if you close the doors and use a vacuum. having open windows everywhere and a fan blowing the dust toward the closest window/door could help.

If you're really concerned, get plastic-laminated flooring by Formica, Pergo or Mannington. Pergo has a 25 Year warranty against wear-through, stains, fading and water damage from everyday spills and damp mopping. It looks great too. My neighbor has dogs that run on it every day since he installed it 5 years ago. It looks like new.

[Crit21]

Murf, HEPA only works if you can get all of the dust to the filter. Generally, the dust goes everywhere. We're about to replace our old hardwood floor (looked great when we moved in 6 years ago) with Pergo. I plan to put tile at the doorways, and Pergo everywhere else.

How's the sailfin doing?

[Crit21]

Blueman, why not just seal off the living room with floor-to-ceiling plastic, then put a fan in the living room window blowing inward (seal the window around the fan) to create a "clean room"? Any size fan will work as long as it's enough to pressurize the area. The dust and fumes won't be able to get in beause of the positive pressure and air flow.

This will work great unless you plan to do the floor in the living room though.

[COreefer]

I like Paul's idea of running the filter...

[murfman]

Dan, Sailfin is doing great. loves his new digs and eats like the pig you created!

Chris just put in 139 year old hardwood, dont think he wants to change to pergo. Chris, you might want to run a vacuum cleaner right next to the guy sanding to cut down on the dust. i would cover the tank and run the Hepa to get any fine dust out of the air. run fans from the hall and dining room toward the front door to keep the dust in one area.

[BLUEMANDJ]

update:

I actually had very little dust in the air. I checked on the tank last night and all was well.

We decided to go with the poly finish. I have the widows cracked and the heat up to 76 in the house. I wraped the tank up tight with plastic yesterday and rewraped the tank today. So far so good. (knock on wood) ( no, pun intended.)

I will post an update tonight on the progress of the tank and floors.

[Crit21]

The dust will contain 2 things--the wood fiber and dust from the old finish. Depending on how old the old finish was (is the old finish 137 years old?), it might be shellac (probably not likely) or varnish, as well as any oils used for stain. I'd expect old dried varnish and stain would be pretty inert after the initial cure. Shellac is alcohol-soluable, but I'm not sure how it would react in the pH of your tank. If the wood is oak, it would still contain a lot of tannic acid (tannin). As long as no significant amount enters the system, I wouldn't expect a problem.

Did you use solvent-based poly? Even though they say that it's safe to walk on after XX hours, it will still outgas for quite a while. The solvent trapped below the surface will work its way out through exposed pores and seams/cracks between the boards.

Until recently I haven't kept hard corals, so I can't speak from experience there, but I have never had a problem with solvents, fireplace smoke, pet dander, wood finishes, etc. with the fish and many inverts in my tank.

[Crit21]

Murf,

Ii told you he was a pig. Did the pigmentation change since then?

[BLUEMANDJ]

Update:

My 180 is doing well. No changes in water peramiters. All is looking well.

My 29 I lost both of my sea horses. Not sure of the reason. One died a few days ago from lack of eating. The other died today. She quit eating the day theother one died.

[Crit21]

bummer

[Crit21]

how far was the tank to the new floor?

[BLUEMANDJ]

basement.

[murfman]

that sux, Chris, I am sorry!