| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| Jonnyboy |
Floorboards and concrete floors.To save some money we are having floorboards for most of downstairs, I'm planning on sanding and sealing them but the wood will alwasy be a bit soft. Is there any type of varnish that will help toughen up the wood?Also, in the kitchen and back hall we are having a concrete floor, as it will be a few years until we can tile I'm looking to seal and paint this. Has anyone tried painting an internal concrete floor and with what success? I've seen examples of fake tiles and quite exotic designs in a concrete floor. |
||||
| sean |
Not sure about anything to toughen the wood. Having stripped and sealed floorboards in the past (dancing with the devil's vacuum cleaner, as a friend of mine called it), I'd go for waxing them, then you can repair any local damage to the surface without having to do the whole floor. | ||||
| tahir |
Painted concrete floors can look great but why bother? Just get some nice marmoleum? A totally natural and sustainable product with inbuilt antispetic properties and a huge colour range I was going to use it as the flooring of choice in all the wet areas of our new build.
Lasts really well too. |
||||
| tahir |
What wood are the boards? | ||||
| Jonnyboy |
I'm assuming redwood or pine, fsc of course.
I'll have to google that marmite stuff. |
||||
| tahir |
http://www.completelyflooring.co.uk/index.php/cPath/82_123
It's made from linseed oil in Scotland |
||||
| tahir |
This is the manufacturers site:
http://www.marmoleum.co.uk/ |
||||
| Treacodactyl |
I'll have a dig to see if anything can be used to toughen them up. You can buy wood hardeners but I bet they are very expensive to use in large amounts and they are solvent based. There must be an old method.
You could try oiling the floors, something I intend to do with ours when I get one of those 'round tuits'. |
||||
| Jonnyboy |
Looks nice, it will be a better option than tiling but I still need to cover the subfloor with either concrete or floorboards first. | ||||
| tahir |
I've asked at AECB, might get an answer, then again might not. |
||||
| tahir |
Marine ply? |
||||
| Behemoth |
Lovely stuff - I looked at this as an option in the past. Feels warm to bare feet unlike lino. |
||||
| judith |
Yeah, marmoleum is lovely stuff. We put it in the bathroom at our last house and it looked great. Not all that warm underfoot though - mind you our bathroom was a bit on the chilly side at the best of times. | ||||
| tahir |
We've used it loads at work, a really excellent material, and like B says warm underfoot, I'll definitely be using it in bathrooms, kitchen, bog if i ever do a newbuild. |
||||
| tahir |
Well it's not carpet, I don't reckon it's any chillier than say wood floors. |
||||
| judith |
Must be me and my poor circulation, then! | ||||
| Blue Peter |
Being stupid as usual, but I thought that marmoleum was a type of linoleum? Is it something different then? Peter. |
||||
| tahir |
Linoleum used to be the non marbled version of Marmoleum but the term has been hijacked to cover all sorts of plastic floors. |
||||
| Blue Peter |
The marbling refers to just colouring of the basic (linoleum) product? I know that the term lino is abused. I thought that we had lino at home when I was a kid, but now I suspect not, Peter. |
||||
| tahir |
I've been recommended hardwax oil on the AECB | ||||
| tahir |
It's one of those generic words like hoover |
||||
| Behemoth |
By the power of google:
"Linoleum was invented in England in 1863 by Frederick Walton who coined the name linoleum from the Latin name, linum, which means flax, and oleum, which means oil. Later in the century, Michael Nairn, a flooring manufacturer in Kirkcaldy, Scotland perfected the flooring, introducing qualities such as inlaid patterning — a feature seen today. Linoleum is a flooring that is manufactured by oxidizing linseed oil to form a thick mixture called linoleum cement. The cement is cooled and mixed with pine resin, and wood flour to form sheets on a jute backing. The term, linoleum is often used incorrectly to describe any sheet flooring, when in fact flooring can be made from other materials such as polyvinyl chloride. " Old lino, the real stuff, tends to snap when removed. Modern oil based 'lino' tears. |
||||
| tahir |
Another more detailed reply from AECB:
I have a vested interest in OS Hardwax Oil (now Polyx Oil) - my company sells it. However there is a number of products which do the same thing - any debate will be over durability/ ease of application etc. The alternative will be a conventional floor varnish, which will basically comprise a synthetic polymer skin (whether polyurethane, acrylic). This will, in my opinion, be physically tougher (if one of the better products is used) and more resistant to abrasion. If, however, an area does wear through you will generally need to resand the whole floor before refinishing. A laborious process. The argument for Polyx Oil, which I imagine can be applied to all wax/oil type products, is that although they require more ongoing maintenance, any abraded areas can be dealt with topically, without the need to resand. Long term, therefore, these floors may actually require less maintenance time. Certainly Polyx Oil (to cite the example I know about) has been chosen for commercial foyers, shops etc for precisely this reason. Wrt pine floorboards, yes, much of this is fairly soft. My choice would be to use these in less heavily trafficked areas, and if I could afford it, install oak or other temperate hardwood in halls and kitchens etc. Might also be worth considering something like larch floorboards, which are harder but much lower price than oak and so on. |
||||
| tawny owl |
And that makes it quite expensive to install, as it needs time to acclimatise, it needs to be rolled out to stop it cracking, and it needs specialist installation. You can usually at least double the price of real linoleum if you include the fitting, which you will have to - it's not a DIY job. An alternative is Karndean (cheaper version of Amtico), which is rigid vinyl tiles; not as environmentally friendly as linoleum, but because they're far more hardwearing (sheet vinyl rips and dents very easily, whereas these won't be damaged even by sharp knives landing on them), they won't end up in the landfill every couple of years (my Karndean floor looked like new after 7 years of hard wear - it was the first floor met on the way in from the garden). They're about the same price as Marmoleum (about £20/m2), but a lot cheaper to lay. Don't be put off by the stripping/sealing guff the manufacturers witter on about - ours was stripped and sealed when it went in, and after that it was just mopped with a mild detergent. When I felt like it (very infrequently), the polish went on. I'd agree with Tahir on an oiled rather than varnished finish. Another wood you might consider is bamboo - it's come down a lot in price (it used to be about 80 quid a square metre and is now down to about 20), it's environmentally friendly and very hardwearing. Rubberwood is also an alternative - again, environmentally friendly (as it's basically a waste product of the rubber industry), but it's not as hard. If you want to save money and DIY, choose structured (engineered) flooring, whcih has a base of cheaper wood with tongue & groove, rather than solid wood blocks or a nail-down board. HTH |