Hardwood Floor Recoat in Calgary

What a recoat actually is

A recoat, or a screen and recoat, is a light job. We abrade the existing finish just enough for a fresh coat to grip, clean everything down, and roll on one or two new coats. The wood is never taken back to bare timber. That makes it faster, cheaper and far less dusty than a refinish, and in most houses it is a one day job with the room back in use the next.

The limit is that a recoat only renews the finish on top. If the wear has gone through the old finish and into the wood, or there are dark stains and gouges in the timber itself, new coats seal that in rather than fixing it. Then you are looking at a full sand-back.

The water drop test, and what we check

Put a drop of water on the worst looking traffic path and wait a minute. If it sits there and beads, the finish is still doing its job and a recoat will take. If it soaks in and darkens the wood, the finish is gone in that spot and a recoat has nothing to stick to. That one test answers the question for most people before we ever arrive.

What we look at on top of that is the tone. A floor that is dull but even in colour is a recoat. A floor with pale grey traffic lanes running through a darker field has lost its finish along those lanes and needs sanding. We also check whether anything has been put down on the floor that a new coat will not bond to. Acrylic mop-and-shine products are the usual culprit and they are everywhere on Calgary floors that were maintained through the 1980s and 1990s. They have to come off chemically first, and if they will not come off, the floor gets sanded instead.

We push recoats harder than most because they are the answer more often than people expect, and because every full sand-back spends wood you cannot get back. If a recoat will hold your floor for another decade, that is what we will quote.