floorstyle.com Blog

This is from an e-mail sent to the Great Lakes States manager and reprinted by permission:

Hello

I was given your website from Fred Dorrance who has done wood floors for me in Maryland. I have a cabin outside of Atlanta MI and I am putting in maple hardwood floors in. I asked Fred about the best finish and he suggested several coats of some type of emulsifier and then a couple coats of street shoe. He said that this finish is difficult to apply and we would need a contractor who does this to apply the finish. My brother wants to use Fabulon but it gets quite dark and I would like to preserve the lighter color but still have a floor what will hold up with sand and water and high traffic. What do you think? Thanks for your time. Susan F.

By Mike Hoy – sales manager for the Great Lakes States and surrounding area.

#10 Wall Jack — The perfectly designed tool for finishing up the installation of a floor or for working in tight areas. Too many times I’ve seen great flooring installations go awry around the edges, where a flooring jack would have been used to tighten the floor up. Board Pullers fall in this same category and for the same reason, but board pullers require a hammer, where a Wall Jack just requires a wall to push against

#9 A Vac System – It doesn’t matter if you’re a small job specialist or a high-end, big job, multi-crew contractor, if you’re working jobs without a dust containment system, you are behind the power curve. Dust matters. Indoor air quality matters. A vacuum system for equipment is a must have these days.

#8 Bostik’s Best Adhesive in the 28 oz. Tube – This is one product that is sorely under-used. This adhesive will eliminate the need to go through all sorts of contortions when trying to face nail the last board.

#7 Stair Jigs – If you do a lot of stairs, one use of this and you’ll ask yourself what you’d do with all the time you wasted in the past. This is the jig you’ll keep on every jobsite as it works for both treads and risers.

#6 Vent installation kits – For the same reasons for getting #7, vent installation kits make your life easier, especially on retro fits of venting into older floors. The kit is put into place and the hole routered out for the new vent. It’s almost too simple and quick.

#5 Round-over router bits – I always had several of these on my job truck. They are perfect for making a custom reducer if they are kept sharp and available. Grooving and Plunging replacement router bits go along here as well. It’s one of my personal “most often failed to do things” was keeping extra router bits on the truck. Sure, when I restocked I knew I was good for a few weeks to maybe a month before I’d run into a situation where I needed a sharp router bit, but heaven knows when I needed one the most, I’d find myself with nothing but dull or broken bits.

#4 Tape. I know this sounds very basic, but I can not count the number of times I failed to have the tape I needed. Not only for gamelining, but tape is one of those things everyone seems to overlook as the product that is essential to a job, but always seems to be in short supply.

#3 Applicator Storage Containers – this could be one of the top money savers on the truck. I stopped wrapping my applicators in plastic bags from the store after the first time contaminates had me refinishing a floor for free. Mark the containers for your sealer applicators and the other for finish applicators.

#2 A heavyweight t-bar for the E-Z Way Gym Floor applicator. Another product you’ll use once and say “Now that’s nice.” Gives much more consistent coats than other finish heads.

#1 The Back-up.

When going on a big or very important job, I always have back-up help, in case my primary crew can’t be there for whatever reason.

I back up my computer data every week because my IT guy demands it.

As a sales manager, I am the back up for hundreds of Floor Style clients who have questions concerning hardwood flooring, everything from choosing the proper or best wood to put down, all the way to the final coat of finish and beyond.

But I don’t know everything, so I have back up from the vendors who provide products to Floor Style. The vendors host schools to continue my education, just as Floor Style puts on schools to continue the education of their clients.

This is a copy of the article written by Dave Posey, an expert in the field of hardwood flooring and reprinted by permission.

1. Did you know that after using a sanding belt in one direction, it can be turned around to run the opposite direction to get longer life from the belt?
2. When using Bostik’s glue for your wood flooring, make sure to use the proper trowel size for the wood flooring. Always follow the adhesive’s guidelines not the wood flooring guidelines. Use blue tape on the bottom of the trowel for easy adhesive removal. At the end of the day just remove the blue tape and clean the notches.
3. Basic’s StreetShoe has a coverage rate of 700 sq ft per gallon and can be re-catalyzed. Adding up to 12 ounces of water per gallon to any of Basic’s water-based products increases flow and dry times. Knowing how to get the most out of your finishes can save you thousands every year.
4. Did you know you can get into the dust control game with just the CAV 12? It will easily work with edgers and buffers and give any jobsite an inexpensive increase in dust control.
5. Did you know by using double-sided sanding discs on buffers, you can get a smooth flat floor with no dish out? Using double-sided discs also avoids swirl marks left by a traditional hard plate.
6. Is the dust collection starting to fall off? Try changing the dust bag. The bag is the dust control and once it is clogged, its performance drops significantly. It is a small investment with big results.
7. Try buffing stain in with a carpet pad made just for that purpose. A carpet pad will use about half of the stain and will dry twice as fast. This also helps avoid bleed back issues, the piles of rags, and it’s easier and faster because staining is done standing up. Do not use just any piece of carpet because stain buffing carpet pads have not of the treatments, inks or dyes regular carpeting has, giving a cleaner application.
8. You cannot tell if a concrete slab is wet by looking at it, touching it, or assuming it is
because it’s old. A moisture test must be done. The only two tests that are allowed by ASTM standards and that will stand up in court are a calcium chloride test and a relative
humidity test. The new Wagner Rapid RH test can give an accurate measurement with the quickest results. Within an hour, a digital result can show the general contractor or homeowner where the moisture is at in their slab. Proper testing provides peace of mind and shows due diligence in heading off future problems.
9. Are you having issues with floors staining evenly? Try “water popping” the floor first. Water popping raises the grain of the wood, allowing the stain to penetrate evenly into the grain. It will also be considerably darker than a floor that is not water popped. Water popping also helps hide swirl marks and sanding scratches as well. Use a quick drying stain like bona Drifast or DuraSeal quick coat stains for a consistent even color.
10. When using water-based finish products to help avoid grain raise, use an oil-based sealer like Bona DriFast or DuraSeal Quick Dry oil-based sealer. Using one of these for the first coat not only gives the deep color of oil-based products, but also helps to seal the wood against grain raise on successive coats of finish.
11. Did you know the number-one complaint to the National Wood Flooring Association help line, or by Floor Style technical experts, is moisture related? Buying and using a quality wood moisture meter, like the Wagner 220, can save time and money. Strip flooring must have no more than a four-percent moisture content difference than the subfloor. Plank flooring must have no more than a two percent difference. Taking pictures of the measurements and keeping good records for each job can save thousands of dollars in the future. Contractors have lost their business over moisture issues and poor record keeping.

I really hope this works. I don’t want to see this blog used as a sales tool, rather a place for hardwood flooring specialists and regular people to talk about hardwood flooring.