What is the finish used on my floorboards? Stripped by dog urine!

Hi folks,

I'm trying to figure out what finish has been used on the floorboards in my house. The house was built by alternative folk, so it could be anything. I think the boards might be pine, but the finish is a warm Oregon type colour which matches the Oregon beams and cedar window frames - however it appears that the finish hasn't 'soaked into' or stained the wood, but is just sitting on top of the wood.

There is a soft sheen to the finish which has become dull in high traffic areas over the past 4 years (but is still satiny under rugs and in low traffic areas) so I'd like to refinish/rejuvenate the floors.

But my main issue is that we had a dog stay over and it peed on the floors, and where it has peed ipthe finish has been completely stripped bare, leaving these pale patches on the floor.

So I'm wondering if you guys can suggest what sort of finish might sit 'on top' of wood without soaking in/staining the wood, would give a low sheen and warm Oregon colour to pine, and would be completely stripped off with something like ammonia or some type of acidic/alkaline substance? I'm at a loss!

I think we've just found an alternative to nasty chemical cleaners. Collection of it may be problematic....

I'll order a 4 litre bottle :)

Bad news Libertine, have a look at this link - What pets can do to your hardwood floors

I've always held the view that dogs live outside and from the tone of your post it wouldn't surprise me if you are of the same view, but were compromised by a friend or relative? It sounds like the flooring is probably cypress pine or maybe a softer baltic type pine. Google them to see the difference. Dry Cypress cracks and splits like a b?@#h if you try to take it up. Most floor finishes darken over time so it sounds like a clear, satin finish has been used on your floor. For a modern, hard wearing floor finish I don't think you can go past the polyurethanes.

Good luck with it.

Cheers,
David

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Originally Posted by Evanism

I think we've just found an alternative to nasty chemical cleaners. Collection of it may be problematic....

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Follow them round with a saucer - has been done here when our old dog was unwell and specimen was needed for testing.

My floor at home was finished with a product like Feast Watson's Tung Oil Floor finish -- it's softer than 2 pack estapol and more easily repaired.

The floor was then "polished" with a mop on water based polish -- from memory the product name was Gemini polish.

It sounds as though the dog's urine has stripped the polish rather than the finish. You should be able to clean the floor and reapply a new coat of polish.

Hi Libertine,

Lots of jokers here! but all well-meaning jokes aside, some photos of the effect might get you some more definitive answers. It is hard to comment on a description but a good photo says a lot more.

David

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Originally Posted by Xanthorrhoeas

Hi Libertine,

Lots of jokers here! but all well-meaning jokes aside, some photos of the effect might get you some more definitive answers. It is hard to comment on a description but a good photo says a lot more.

David

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Thanks David :) Here is a pic, as suggested. The lighter parts are where the wee has stripped away the finish. Don't know if you can see from the pic, but the slightly raised parts of the grain still have the finish on them, but the lower parts (where the wee settles overnight, I guess) are raw wood.

Can you guys tell from the pics what type of wood this is? It is very soft and dents easily from couch legs etc, but the grain looks very similar to the Oregon that the rest of the house is built from. Is Oregon soft?

I guess there here is a possibility that it could be Oregon and the dog wee has actually bleached the wood...? I feel that's unlikely though.

The difference some pictures make! Good thinking Xanthorrhoeas. :)

This floor certainly appears to me to be some type of pine, not Cypress, and I would imagine it was laid at least 50 years ago? It is definitely not an Australian hardwood. If that is the case the field is wide open as to what the finish could be. The slight sheen on the finished boards (top left of second pic.) would make me think the floor was finished with an Estapol type product.

I've never seen Oregon used as floorboards, architrave and skirting yes, but timbers used for different jobs can vary enormously in various parts of the country. Oregon is soft, as are many of the other pines and I'm not surprised that the floor marks easily. From the looks of it the only way you would get an acceptable result would be to sand and refinish the floor using one of the polyurethanes available. These come in both oil and water based types. Your finished floor would be much lighter than the current colour though. You may be able to add stain to some of the available finishes, but I know that others recommend pre-staining the floor. Regardless of which method you used you'd have to be careful with the application to prevent the floor looking patchy.

Others may have some different ideas and you can always have a look at the various paint company websites and the information and samples available in your local specialist paint store or big box hardware.

Cheers,
David

It does look like Oregon and it is a soft wood. Pines of various kinds was used a lot in older homes for flooring before chipboard sheet became the thing. These floors are usually meant to be covered. That is not to say it cant be resealed but it wont stand up to abuse like a hardwood floor. If you go that way a full sanding would be needed to get the best result. Almost impossible to do a patch and not be noticed. Been over 25 years since I did a sand and seal so I am not up with the latest finishes. I only know there are plenty to choose from. Anyhow the stuff I used all that time ago is still going strong on a cypress floor. I think it was Cabots and a hardening agent was added to the final coat. Kids played on it, also we are on dog No3 now. I guess it depends on the look you want and budget. Last option is chuck a rug over the bad bit.
Regards
John

Are you sure the house is only about 50 year's old.
I know it seems strange, but 1965 was 50 years ago.
From what I recall residential timber floors were well out of fashion then and "alternate folk" weren't around -- Nimbin was still a few years away.

Your floors could quite easily be one of the pines -- softness would not be an issue for a floor intended to be carpeted or covered in lino.


As to the finish.
it could be shellac and wax floor polish.

it could just be a wax -- do you recall what the floors looked like when you moved in?

I recall an era when 2 pack estapol was all the go for floors -- but that has an almost glass like appearance -- and I think your floor predates its introduction.

Since its ruined, lets try a test. Put some water, thinners, metho and turps in different areas and tell us what moves the stain. If nothing does, then we move to an alkaline solution to test.

It looks like soy sauce to me.

Perhaps a good opportunity to give it all a good sanding and seal?

It looks like Kauri Pine to me - we have it here - bloody useless as flooring. Given that the dog pee stripped it back so easily I'm thinking it's just wax.

Hi,

It looks like Baltic Pine to me. But the finish, I'm not sure. The fact that the urine has totally cleared the boards of colour seems to suggest to me that it was an acid wee that did the deed. Maybe you could buy some weak Hydrochloric acid and see if the result is the same. There are of course many chemicals in a dogs urine, but you have to start somewhere.

Regards,

Rob

When I suggested to sand and refinish I meant the whole floor not just the problem areas. Or you could open a laboratory, conduct extensive testing on the stain, then test various methods/solutions/materials for a suitable repair!!! Where does it all end? :?

Yes it may well just be a wax finish, didn't think of that. It may seem like a lot of work to sand and refinish, but you're virtually guaranteed a good result. :2tsup:

Cheers,
David

Baltic pine. The finish could be anything from wax to lacquer to oil. All are prone to dog piddle stripping.
Needs a full sand and refinish if you want to expose it. Not the best of timbers for an exposed floor as it is very soft and will damage easily.

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Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

It looks like Kauri Pine to me - we have it here - bloody useless as flooring. Given that the dog pee stripped it back so easily I'm thinking it's just wax.

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Kauri makes an excellent floor...Under carpet etc.

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Originally Posted by rustynail

Kauri makes an excellent floor...Under carpet etc.

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Yes, I meant as exposed flooring. It just disintegrates with low wear.

The floor is definitely a Northern Hemisphere conifer of some type - judging from the early/latewood patterning. If the rest of the house is Oregon Pine then it is quite likely that the floor is too. I had an 1880's house in Hobart with some Kauri floors and that looked quite different and was harder than Oregon.

I'm with ian and FenceFurniture - could be just a waxed floor, possibly with shellac first for sealing and colour.

Sand the lot and finish with something tough. Be careful of the two-packs though as I seem to remember they release isocyanates, which are poisonous. You have to vacate the house for a few days at least.

Thank you to everyone for your advice!

Some details about the house - it was built in the late 70s/early 80s by a Permaculture guy (which is a type of 'grow your own food/don't use chemicals' type of person) and he was an owner builder so did a lot of it himself. The timber used to build the house was 'reclaimed' (see: pinched) from the old Dunlop factory in Abbotsford (built in 1924/25) when it was demolished, so the timber pre-dates the construction, but the finish does not - all the other timber beams/posts have been sandblasted and left raw, and the floorboards upstairs (under carpet but exposed as ceiling boards from downstairs... If that makes sense?) and ceiling lining boards have just been left bare. They are a similar colour to the finished floorboards downstairs.

so the downstairs floor in the pics could well have come from another property and be a different timber. But the grain looks very similar to the rest of the timber in the house, it's just that the stripped colour is far lighter.

given that the place was built by this anti-chemical hippie guy and has been lived in by mainly hippies since then, I would agree that some sort of mop-on wax or lacquer finish is a likely culprit on the floors (you can see around the bottom of the large posts about an inch or so of darkened timber, which makes me think it was applied with a mop, not by hand).

will I have to strip the entire floor and refinish if this is the case, or is there some way to repair/patch the affected areas? The whole floor could use some refinishing/spruicing up and I'm totally fine with a more rustic look given the rest of the house is pretty rustic in style, but I'm just concerned about how these really light patches would come out if I just went over the top of the whole floor with a fresh coat of wax/oil/polish.

there is also a lot of "height difference" in the grain (if that makes sense? Some of the wood sticks out up to 4 or 5mm higher than the pattern in the grain surrounding it) so if sanding is the only way to go a LOT of sanding would be required to sand the finish off the low patches. Plus the wood is so soft it is dented a lot and has worn down in high traffic areas. So if the only solution is sanding and refinishing, then I'd probably just consider laying a different flooring material over the top instead.

Thinking about those knots, that timber strongly reminds me of Baltic Pine, the very inside, just before you get the soft core when sawing small trees. The ring pattern is certainly tight enough for it, but not grown here in Oz, which makes it a mystery.

By the sound of things you may be better laying something over the top. The timber sounds pretty worn and would require a lot of sanding. taking off more than 5mm is a big job and perhaps not worth doing as you then start getting a bit thin over the T&G joints. Has to be the whole floor unless you want hollows. If you have never sanded back a whole floor then you would be paying someone to do it and that cost would likely compare with some of the floor coverings around.
Regards
John

Let's run with the floor being Baltic Pine.
I believe it was fairly readily available in SA and Vic up to WWII as it came out as ballast in the wheat or wool clippers a few of which were still plying the trade 'round cape Horn in 1939.

As you can see it's too soft to use as a bare floor, the 4 - 5mm difference in height across the grain you mention is most likely differential wear between early and late wood.

If you want to keep walking on what you have, there are mop on strippers for removing mop on polish.
One of those would take you down to bare wood, then you'd be able to decide how much sanding you'd do before applying a new finish.

However I think your best course is to cover the floor with something -- either carpet or a floating pre-finished floor

From all my years in working with a vast range of timbers, I would bet my bottom dollar that it is Baltic. The grain and colour is a dead give away. In regards to what has happened, the dog urine contains, like all urine, uric acid which tends to have a ph of around 5.5 (mildly acidic). However, water, let alone liquids with an acidic nature will if left to soak in cause damage to surface finishes, and especially organic finishes, oil and/or even some poly finishes.

In terms of what to do and how to repair your floor, the best approach would be to sand back the whole floor, apply a surface stain (pine) or alternatively apply an oil or shellac based finish to the worst areas and then re-surface the whole floor. However, if this is too much to contemplate, using the same treatment to the affected areas should give you a reasonable fix. My recommendation for floor finish is as previously noted, eg. Feast Watson Floor seal (tung oil based). It works a treat, is easy to repair and over time dulls down a little to give a really warm appearance. I have used this extensively on both hardwood floors, Baltic and even Radiata pine floors.

I note the various comments about Baltic being soft, and the need to sand it back hard to get an even finish etc or even laying a new floor over the existing one. Having recently finished and sold a early colonial property (1826), which had an original section of very wide (300 mm) Baltic boards in the hall, while they initially seemed rough when I took the carpet up, in fact, they were hard as given their age and with some judicious care using an orbital sander, (note not a belt sander) I not only managed to preserve the history (patina) of the boards but also once sanded actually very little timber needed to be removed to obtain a fine finish. Old timber floors should be treated with care to bring out their best. New Baltic flooring is soft but equally with care will come up just fine. Again I know this from first hand experience.

So my recommendation is (a) repair and look after the floor as (b) it will look far better once repaired than any "new" timber, carpet or vinyl surface treatment.

I agree with Horsecroft. There is no doubt in my mind it's Baltic.
Some years back, a boat load was lost off the Sydney beaches and washed ashore. It was rapidly scrounged by the struggle junkies and used in their homes all up and down the NSW coast. For some time it was known as "hippie wood" in the trade.
Yes it is soft, but if you treat the floor with respect it would be well worth a resand and polish. I too would opt for an oil finish and a yearly wipe over with Gemini floor polish. These finishes can be reapplied as and when required. The Gemini will keep the floor looking like new with a simple swipe with the wet mop.
Much easier to get a pro in to sand it with a dust free machine, then do the oil and polish yourself.
There are plenty of folk here that can steer you through it.

The timber appears to be Baltic pine. You would need to sand the whole area rather than just trying to patch up certain parts. On one hand you do not know what was used before, and if you have any other stain, e.g. black japan around the perimeter of the room, it will be near impossible to achieve an even look unless all comes off. If you do have black japan around the boarder, if you stain, remember that the timber under this area has been "preserved" and can appear slightly lighter than the rest of the floor. The older Baltic pine floors were 22 mm whereas later ones were 19mm...not much difference but it will influence wether it is sandable or not. Insert a thin metal ruler and check how many mm you have. From the pictures, the boards look like the are in a good nick so hopefully the have not been sanded too many times before.

Re a coating. A varnish is hard but will only look good till the first scratch appears. Especially with older timbers, consider penetrating oils that nourish the timber and can be spot repaired or rejuvenated. This not only saves the sanding process another time, but will also save taking more timber off in the sanding. If the you had a similar issue with dog urine, you would be able to sand that area only, buff in the existing area and re oil.