Hardwood Floors October/November 2017

AT THE SITE

By Ethan Erickson

Love and Care of Your Finishes and Sealers – Part 1

heads o to the job site. In even moderate outside heat, the inside of a van/truck will o en act like an oven, both trapping and radiating heat inward, elevating temperatures signi cantly above the outside/ambient temperature. Consider using a cooler to store your nishes, particularly waterbornes.

You pay a lot for nish and sealers, so take care of them! is care includes both storage and use since either can result in the dreaded call-back and the demolition of your tidy schedule, while you burn time and money xing the issue. DECODER RINGS Pay a ention to expiration or best-use dates. First, know how to read your product’s code; if it is not obvious, then call the manufacturer and ask how to interpret the batch/date code. Manufacturers are required to have this batch information somewhere on the jug. If the product has expired, and you are in a pinch, call and ask them if the batch is still OK to use. Most manufacturers will keep actual mini-samples, called retains, of every sealer, nish, stain, and cleaner batch throughout the mandatory one-year shelf-life date. If a manufacturer does tell you that the batch still performs as it should, you will likely hear the caveat that it is not an “o cial yes.” Translation: since our retain still performs well, yours should, too. However, we know that our retains have been stored and cared for properly, but no idea how yours has actually been handled (even if you tell us that you’ve drawn a face on it and named it, taken it bowling, and kept it under your pillow). A STORAGE STORY Manufacturers o en preach about storing your nish properly. ere is a good reason for this: Waterbornes, in particular, are emulsions of a host of ingredients carefully added in speci c steps during the manufacturing process, including resin, rheology modi ers (thickeners), defoamers, ma ing agents, and solvents. To keep everything where it belongs, it is important to store it at the recommended temperature and relative humidity levels. Every time a nish is heated-cooled or cooled-heated, the process induces a driving force to unbalance the mixture. Defoaming is one property that may be a ected – in extreme cases, defoamer can either “come out” (cratering upon application) or “go in” (reducing e ectiveness = application bubbles that may not pop). Remember that storing should not be forgo en once the nish leaves the distributor, your climate-controlled garage, etc., and

Coolers are very useful because they slow down the speed at which their contents come to ambient (whether hot or cold) temperature. us, a more appropriate description for a cooler would be “an enclosure that bu ers the contents against outside/ambient temperature.” However, note that a cooler only slows down the process – eventually, its contents will reach ambient temperatures. Obviously, then, pulling a cooler out of an already-hot/cold garage to store nish is not going to help you; keep coolers stored close to “inside” conditions (i.e., 60-75 °F) before use. Although it might mean leaving a six-pack behind, a cooler, when properly used, can help keep your nish “happy,” which means fewer problems for you on the job site. What about job sites that are not su ciently heated or cooled (i.e., some new construction scenarios)? Plan accordingly. Even if you use a cooler, if you do not plan to coat until several hours later (i.e., by which time the cooler will reach outside/ambient temperatures), consider not bringing it until later or having it delivered later. Remember, once you decide to coat, you own the results: do not coat unless job site conditions are as they should be (refer to both manufacturer recommendations and NWFA job site information). e oor and the nish should be at the same temperature at time of application.

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