Refinishing Hardwood Floors how will it effect tank?

MnFish1 · Mar 18, 2019

William DeCoursey said:
I'll be facing this same issue myself, so following with interest. Refinished the hardwood floors upstairs last year and it is a MESS to do. Crazy sawdust, loud, loud noises, runaway sanders, and heavy current draw. Are you just light sanding and re-doing the polyurethane, or going down to bare wood, filling, and staining? Before I set my tank up, I thought I'd be able to finish around it, but the more I think about it now, I think it will actually be less work to disassemble and hold my livestock in totes for a few days.

I like some of the above ideas about tenting and maintaining positive air pressure with an air intake from outside. That sounds good. I'm just thinking about Murphy's law when your sander hits a nail and the 60lb machine jumps a foot and punctures the tent. Also keep in mind that you and your hands are going to be covered in really toxic stuff, so any tank emergency will have to be handled by someone else. It could all go just right, or it could go all-wrong. I just worry that if it starts to go a little wrong and the tank needs an intervention, you can't access it because you are poisonous and even opening the tent to say, add more carbon, only increases exposure.

Here is another perspective - it might be more 'expensive' - but unless you really know what you're doing - protecting your stuff including your tank and yourselves - When we do it this summer - will hire the company that put the floor in to do it. But - we have hardwood in our whole house so its a bit more involved...l

ingchr1 · Mar 18, 2019

With that many dogs have you looked at just going over the top with an engineered product vice refinishing?

PEP12 · Mar 18, 2019

Blackice615 said:
Replace with tile that look like hardwood ;Happy

i have been in the flooring industry for 50 years you are taking a big risk not worth it, I agree with Blackice615 lay a vinyl wood plank, no more sanding, dust, fumes, and a good one will last for years

Hemmdog · Mar 18, 2019

Do not even risk it, it will not end up good for your tanks inhabitants.

Ocelaris · Mar 19, 2019

I'm going to call bluff on oil based poly being harder than today's two part catalytic water based finishes. Check out bona traffic or street shoe, nobody in the industry uses oil based anymore. I've refinished two houses myself and used street shoe both times. Go to your local refinishing store and talk to the guys behind the counter. I'm going to bet they reccomend water based catalytic. There is a misconception about the chemistry of water VS oil based. Sure, home depot based water finishes won't hold up, but a good water based catalytic is demonstrably harder than a poly. I've done two houses and over 4000 square feet to put my money on it.

Water based street shoe and bona mega etc. Have a much lower voc and should be fine if lightly vented.

http://blog.basiccoatings.com/2015/08/26/basic-is-better-streetshoe/

sde1500 · Mar 19, 2019

Ocelaris said:
I'm going to call bluff on oil based poly being harder than today's two part catalytic water based finishes. Check out bona traffic or street shoe, nobody in the industry uses oil based anymore. I've refinished two houses myself and used street shoe both times. Go to your local refinishing store and talk to the guys behind the counter. I'm going to bet they reccomend water based catalytic. There is a misconception about the chemistry of water VS oil based. Sure, home depot based water finishes won't hold up, but a good water based catalytic is demonstrably harder than a poly. I've done two houses and over 4000 square feet to put my money on it.

Water based street shoe and bona mega etc. Have a much lower voc and should be fine if lightly vented.

http://blog.basiccoatings.com/2015/08/26/basic-is-better-streetshoe/

Interesting to know, hows the finish look? I have one more floor in my house to do, and it is a VERY old pine floor. Not sure 100% yet how I plan to go at it since it is a few hundred years old, but it gets the most traffic in the house so would like a good strong finish. But does it get that amber color finished? I do like that.

Ocelaris · Mar 19, 2019

You can buy tinted water based finish or do natural. Pine sap naturally is amber, so I didn't feel it was necessary, but it's a non issue, just pick your tint. The stairs to the basement and from the garage are our most heavily trafficked areas and I sanded and applied the non tinted to them and they've held up remarkably well for the past 6 years. Here's a shot of the pine stair treads right next to me. Please ignore the dirt, they're outside in the covered porch.

Skedaddle · Mar 19, 2019

I went to the millworks who provides all the hardwood for our county. They had displays of the Bona products. They looked good. I am meeting with the local hardwood floor installer/re-finisher tomorrow. He has been doing this for the last 30 years and is familiar with most all the finishes including Bona and Fabulon (which is the one I was originally going to use). The only complication, and it is able to be overcome, is using a different finish I will need to do all adjoining floors since the color and finish will be so dramatically different. That means 3000 sq' instead of 1400. And basically moving out of the house except the bedroom wing vs just cordoning part of it off.

Sometime the joys of this hobby can be a little tough to take.

McPuff · Mar 19, 2019

Good post. My 3/4 maple floor was a pre-finish. After a whole bunch of leaks from my horrible horrible refrigerator, parts of the floor (and likely subfloor) need to be replaced and I'm not sure how it could be matched. Truthfully I'm hoping to have the whole thing sanded and then refinished. The pre-finish the builder used it terrible and flakes off when it gets wet. Definitely NOT something I would have chosen, nor would I recommend to anyone else. Thankfully, the wood is on the main floor only and the reef is in the basement. Hoping that would help quite a bit.

Ocelaris · Mar 19, 2019

You can tint the water based Bona Mega or other water based finishes:

https://www.woodfloorbusiness.com/floormasters/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5543

Basically you get a clear finish and then tint it at the paint store. Get a few samples until you get it close to your desired color. We used bought the tinted version the first time with Bona accidentally, but then did the clear on the second house. The nice thing about water based is that the universal colorant is compatible with the finishes. The only thing I will caution about water based finishes, is that it raises the grain a bit more than oil based as wood is naturally water soluble. So make sure that you do a good in-between sanding after the coats.

Skedaddle · Mar 19, 2019

Just want to say THANKS to everyone for all the great information.

Been researching finish choices based on all of the input here, I have a headache, but its a good headache.

I will update this thread as I learn more.

Blackice615 · Mar 19, 2019

Keep us posted on the outcome!

Maplehillreef · Mar 20, 2019

I’m in the same boat, following

underwaterfirefighter · Mar 20, 2019

Look into Bona Mega or Bona Traffic. Both are excellent water based finishes and don’t have the harsh odor.

vetteguy53081 · Mar 20, 2019

Cover tank well with plastic and painters tape, cover that with blanket and run a fan across the tank to repel the fumes away from tank

WallysWorld · Mar 20, 2019

I had a friend with a 90g reef that refinished his hardwood floors two months ago. His engineering was amazing! Here's what he did:

Purchased a plastic queen sized mattress cover. Covered the tank and duct taped mattress cover to the floor. Purchased a 4 inch flexible dryer hose vent with a 4 inch duct fan. Attached the dryer hose to plastic cover and sealed with duct tape. Then used to duct fan to force outside air from a window across the room into the covered enclosure. Creating positive pressure in to the covered enclosure. He has an automatic feeder, so he did not need to open the mattress cover until several days after the job was completed.

His biggest issue was the outside air temperature was significantly cooler than the house, and his tank dropped about 5°F over the 10 days. He said if he did this again he'd invest in a second heater, but really didn't loose anything in his tank.

Blackice615 · Mar 20, 2019

Love that!

Skedaddle · Mar 22, 2019

Alright so here is the plan for the new improved, expanded, much more expensive refinishing of my hardwood floors. After all the comments here and doing a lot of research including a 1/2 hour discussion with my local flooring guy. What a fantastic individual to give me so much of his time and knowledge.

I am going to use waterbased BONA Traffic HD(3 coats), over BONA DriFast stain(color TBD).
This is all "green" low VOC stuff and even though it should not effect the aquarium, I am going to tent the tank and use a computer fan to push outside air via a 4" duct from outside the house into the tent. I needed to tent the tank anyway because of sanding dust so building a duct/plenum is not that much more work.

It turned into a lot bigger job because recoating with poly would have required sanding the main field but the edges could have just been hit lightly and it would not have been necessary to get everything 100% down to bare wood. Now quarter round has to be removed and old finish needs to go completely, including things like under the toe kicks of the cabinets and all corners will need to be hand scraped.

The Finish has a 2-3 hour dry time so after it is tack free(about 30 min) I can turn on the whole house fan to remove anything in the air.

Assuming good weather and my back holding up I plan on doing this project starting late next week. I will update this thread with the results.

WallysWorld · Mar 22, 2019

Skedaddle said:
Alright so here is the plan for the new improved, expanded, much more expensive refinishing of my hardwood floors. After all the comments here and doing a lot of research including a 1/2 hour discussion with my local flooring guy. What a fantastic individual to give me so much of his time and knowledge.

I am going to use waterbased BONA Traffic HD(3 coats), over BONA DriFast stain(color TBD).
This is all "green" low VOC stuff and even though it should not effect the aquarium, I am going to tent the tank and use a computer fan to push outside air via a 4" duct from outside the house into the tent. I needed to tent the tank anyway because of sanding dust so building a duct/plenum is not that much more work.

It turned into a lot bigger job because recoating with poly would have required sanding the main field but the edges could have just been hit lightly and it would not have been necessary to get everything 100% down to bare wood. Now quarter round has to be removed and old finish needs to go completely, including things like under the toe kicks of the cabinets and all corners will need to be hand scraped.

The Finish has a 2-3 hour dry time so after it is tack free(about 30 min) I can turn on the whole house fan to remove anything in the air.

Assuming good weather and my back holding up I plan on doing this project starting late next week. I will update this thread with the results.