Parquet flooring.

Hi

We have a 1930's semi, the whole of the ground floor, apart from kitchen has the origional oak block (parquet) flooring, this is one of the reasons we chose the house.

We've spent 3 years renovating, including having a kitchen extension built last year, now that we no longer plan to do any big jobs I was looking to renovating the floors, although it looks like there has never been carpet laid ther have been various rugs, these have led to colour variances & some (not many by several small areas) have seperated from the origional tar.

What does anyone think the best way to renovate would be? Bearing in mind the following:-

1/ Over time there is some shrinkage, leaving gaps of up to 2-3mm in some places.

2/ Although I think there will be an element of stripping back & sanding I don't want to get rid of all the age.

3/ I don't want a gloss finish, I'm not even keen on satin varnish, I'd like to reproduce the origional type of finish.

Also I may not be able to do all the work myself, has anybody had this type of work done, what was the cost & results like?

Thanks

Dave

Reply to
dave.roe
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My guess would be originally there was polish, polish and more polish. All beeswash polish. probably explains the colour differences as it would have been unsafe to put polish under the rugs. There may subsequently have been stains and/or varnishes. Ideally I would start by experimenting in an inconspicuous area, and ideally do nothing but add more polish. Hire a floor polishing machine to make life easy. If it's just one or two blocks that are loose I'd try and do nothing more than re-glue them (PVA maybe?). If it's areas that need to be reset then get the professionals. I'd be loathe to spoil that patina by sanding if it could be avoided.

Reply to
dom

I'd agree

Doubtfull they would adhere to wax.

Try wire wool & white spirit on an inconspicuous area.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

Old wood floors usually dont need sanding. Just strip and clean clean clean. With mine I only needed to sand a tiny percentage of the floor in one corner, which I did with a hand held sander.

Re finishes, if you wax it you'll need to re-wax monthly or so. Beeswax does look best but the extra work's not my cup of tea. Life's short enough.

AFAIK almost nothing sticks to bitumen, so I'd use more bitument, melt it and put the blocks back down.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

I thought this regarding waxing of the ceramic tiles in my conservatory, until I bought a second-hand refurbished industrial floor polisher off the internet. Cost nearly £300 all in but works brilliantly and will last for ever with domestic use. You can hire these but it's £40 a day or so and you have all the inconvenience of hiring (plus it's a big and heavy bugger and awkward to get in the car). Now I just vacuum, wax by hand with a cloth, let it dry for an hour or so and polish with the machine - takes a few minutes and dead easy.

I got mine at

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- excellent service by the way - but they don't seem to be advertising any refurbs at the moment. You could call them or just google or check ebay for other suppliers.

Before that I had a £100 Hoover consumer-level floor polisher which was an almost total waste of time.

Reply to
rrh

Thanks guys, some good ideas, I was thinking of trying "no nails" type adhesive to re-lay the lose ones as NT pointed out it's diffecult to get anything to adhere to the bitument.

Dave

Reply to
dave.roe

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