Finish & Floorcare
Once you’ve specified a premium-engineered wide-plank floor, there are other important decisions to be made. The choice of finish, for instance, will affect the aesthetic appearance of the floor and determine the method of its maintenance. The wide variety of available options – varnish, lacquer, paint, wax and oil – can be quite confusing, however.
Element7 is firmly in favour of natural oil finishes. The look of an oiled wood floor is unrivalled, as is its tactile feel. An oil finish does not sit on the surface of the wood but rather penetrates the grain. Consequently, when you walk barefoot on an oil-finished floor, your feet are in direct contact with the wood; if you choose a surface treatment, on the other hand, there will always be a layer of plastic between you and the wood.
Oil finishes also have enormous maintenance advantages. Most importantly, they never have to be sanded, which means you can bypass the mess, inconvenience and health issues that accompany a programme of refinishing your floor every three to five years. They are also easy to clean: soap and water are all you need. In addition, avoiding the need to re-sand considerably extends the life of a floor – from perhaps ten years to a hundred and more. And Green is good too: an oil finish is of course the best choice for the environment.