Special
Lacquers which finishes durably in one coat perfectly well
A FLOOR NEEDS MORE THAN JUST MAINTENANCE IS THE CHOICE BETWEEN LACQUER AND OIL NOW EASIER DUE TO NEW APPLICATION BENEFITS?
Photo – Blanchon
In opting for a lacquered floor, both your client and you as a professional have made clear choices. One of the main reasons for choosing lacquer is to have a floor with low maintenance (both daily and periodic maintenance), certainly because lacquer as a finish coat does not fade away and is rigid. Unlike with oil, this therefore means that you seal off the wood entirely from any dirt and fluid. In making this choice, you have intentionally discussed some of the drawbacks of parquet with the client, such as the fact that this finish is vulnerable to wear and scratches and the floor will have to be re-lacquered within a few years. You have also pointed out that wear
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Floor Forum International 113
in high-traffic places will become visible and that it is difficult, if not impossible, to restore a lacquer surface in patches since that would yield differences in gloss. And so, you really need to treat the whole surface again each time. You have to weigh up the reality of much easier maintenance against labour-intensive (and expensive) re-lacquering every so often. Now, it is simply a fact that it is much more bother to eradicate damage from a parquet floor. This means that, if scratches occur, you first have to sandpaper the floor to resolve this properly. It is impossible to eradicate even minor damage, so you have to re-lacquer the entire floor. Anyone who cannot face that really should choose oil, which, moreover, is often rather cheaper than lacquer.
