Solid Hardwood, Engineered and Laminate Flooring - water over oil based finish

Hi, a friend of mine is going to refinish his hardwood floor. Currently the finish is oil based. He is going to sand it down, and he wants to put water base poly over it. Just want a double check to make sure that you can put down water based poly over an oil based poly.

I assume the sanding would get rid of all or most of the oil base poly.

thanks

seth

If he is sanding the floors back down to bare wood it doesnt matter if he puts water down as all the finish will be gone anyway. if he is just doing a light sanding then refer to the label to see if it can go over oil. It should say.

why a water based poly on a floor ?

That is my question !!!!

Marc

I cannot speak for the original poster but water products now are far superior to the ones that were out not too long ago. I do not hesitate to recommend water based poly on any of my jobs. There are a lot of purists who disagree with this. Water based can be more finicky then oil but the way they both work they are very similar ie. the "liquid" evaporates and a resin is left over. I refinished my 1000 square feet of oak floors with a water based finish (and it gets a LOT of traffic as it is in my main living space and I have heavy dogs) and it has held up perfectly. We also refinished over 2000 sqft of old wide pine floors at a church rectory with water based and it receives a huge amount of traffic and it has held up great (and I have not been hit with any lightning:)).