Oiled or lacquered oak floor?

[barnster]

Hello all, 1st post

Having my house renovated and looking to put down a wood floor for the whole ground floor, including the kitchen, total area is 70m2 on a concrete screed.

I've pretty much made my mind up to go for the Duoplank engineered prime european board (looks good for stability and kitchen use) but am being given different advice about going for either the oiled or lacquered variants.

I've got 2 small kids who will be spilling stuff and running in and out of the garden (sometimes at the same time). We are also not the most careful of people so the floor won't be treated especially well.

I'm looking for something that can cope with this as well as maintaining its looks and which doesn't require constant cleaning or regular maintenance.

I've been told that oiled is the way forward because it's much easier to maintain often. Every 6 months or so I could relatively give it a quick oiling.

But I've also been told that lacquered is the way forward because it won't need attention for years and that oiled will show stains from spills etc.

Does anyone in the same circumstances have any 1st hand advice?

Many thanks

 

[WoodYouLike]

No matter what type of finish you choose, all wooden floors need maintenance!

Advantages of oil: brings out the character of the wood better, easy to maintain, plus most important when 'dealing' with kids, small damages can be repaired more easier without having to sand the whole floor. In the event you have to sand an oil floor due to an 'accident' you can do this locally and re-oil it locally. with lacquered floors local sanding and local re-lacquering creates a patchy floor.

With the Duoplank, which has been treated with HardWaxOil, you don't need to re-oil every 6 months, you apply a suitable maintenance products every 5 - 6 months. Re-oiling only has to be done when you have those little accidents where you sand the floor.
Proper maintenance (as said before every finish type needs maintenance, lacquered included) will prevent most stains too

 

[Symptoms]

Spot on advice from WoodYouLike. Been doing timber floors for 25 years and oil is the answer in your situation - kids (& dogs) will hammer the floor finish and re-oiling can be done in an hour or so. Lacquer get worn off and is a horible job to redo, sanding the whole floor, x number of coats of lacq, floor out of use for a day or so, dust everywhere (& I mean everywhere; my experience shows that to keep a lacq floor looking good you'd have to re-coat maybe every 2 to 3 years (depending on traffic). Oil is a quick wipe over job and as WoodYouLike says spotting is a doddle. If it was just you & your partner wandering around in carpet slippers then maybe lacq.

 

[barnster]

Thanks chaps. Am officially persuaded

Anyone know of a supplier/installer of duoplank who can service north surrey?

 

[WoodYouLike]

We can supply every where in the UK
And the quality is such that it almost installs itself

 

[barnster]

Thanks - will liberally throw boards around the area If they don't self install can you recommend an installer?

 

[WoodYouLike]

DIY forum? = DIY try?
(I can do it, am of the 'feeble' gender - lady installer, so am pretty sure you can too)

Honestly, good quality with proper T&G construction, a bit of forward thinking, getting your preparation right is 3/4 of the job, hence our 'claim' that it almost installs itself

 

[barnster]

I would do it myself, it's just that I'm not confident I would do a good job, especially around 'problem areas' such as door furniture and other places where I couldn't use skirting to hide the edges.

Do you have any tips and tricks for this? For instance, I've seen before where a cut seems to have been made into the base of door frames to 'slot' the board in.

What would be recommended when going up to a raised PVC door frame, where it's not possible to use skirting?

How do you gracefully work around radiator pipes - the only way I can think of is by cutting a chunk out of a board, then fitting it back in and use filler to fill the cut.

Lastly - anyone got a list of recommended tools for the job? I've got a fairly basic and viscious circular saw - is a mounted circular saw a better idea?

 

[WoodYouLike]

For starters: a list of tools, the preparations you need to take, plus some tips and tricks of the trade.

You can even ask more questions there