A little more about Eukula.
I wrote about Eukula in my earlier posts. Now I just wanted to dig a little deeper into it and talk a little more about different Eukula products.
1. Sealer. Eukula produces their own sealer.The main advantages of it: dries fast(within 30 minutes), obviously seals great and pretty easy to apply.Main disadvantages: doesn’t give as rich amber look as Lenmar RapidSeal, you won’t be able to apply an oil-based finish over it, if ,for some reason you changed your mind and decided to go with oil rather then going with water and the biggest disadvantage- it stays tacky, so it is very hard to apply the 2nd coat over it. My personal opinion: use it only if you don’t have any other sealer (sorry, Eukula).
2.One-component yellowing polyurethane. My personal favourite. Easy to apply, dries quickly, gives an oil-based look to your floor, if applied over the right sealer, tough, and like I said earlier, you can actually add water into it without sacrificing the quality of the finish, if you need it to dry slower.With this finish(as well as with any other Eukula finishes) you can finish the job in one day. How cool is that???
3. One-component non-yellowing polyurethane.Almost as good as the previous type of poly. The only difference is, as you can tell from the name, it doesn’t yellow up the floor.You still can use it over the sealer and your floors will still have the amber look, but you have to be very careful, because if you will apply this poly a little thicker, your floors will look white, like you just bleached them.It is obviously the right choice for somebody who wants to pickle the floors.
4. Two-component non-yellowing polyurethane. The toughest stuff.As I mentioned before, great for commercial projects.Please, do not use it without adding the water: this poly dries FAST! On the other hand, if you will add some water into it, the coating will be easy as breeze.
Applying polyurethane (water-based)
“How many coats of poly should I put on my floor?” I’ve heard this question quite a few times, so let’s talk about it.
There are three types of polyurethane available if you decided to coat your floors: water-based, oil-based and introducing (unfortunately)- low VOC oil-based poly.Oh, almost forgot: there is one more type of poly available.It’s not that popular, since it’s more expensive( around $120 a gallon) and tough to get(I only know 2 places in Southern New England that sell it), but yet one of the most durable and long lasting types of poly: moisture cure. Let’s take a quick look at all of them.
Water-based poly. Regular amount of coats – 4.When we apply it, we normally put down a coat of Dual purpose Lenmar sealer to give it an amber look and apply 3 coats of poly on top of that.We do this because water-based poly is not that thick, so we need to do a little build up for it to look solid.I have to mention, thought, that you can actually get away with a coat of sealer and 2 coats of good water-based polyurethane if you’re working in the rooms that don’t get heavy amount of traffic, such as bedrooms. The brand that I personally like the most is Eukula.In my earlier post I mentioned that you can see the difference between oil- and water-based poly because of it’s look(water-based doesn’t have as rich amber look as oil-based poly has), well with this polyurethane it’s almost impossible to tell the difference. It comes in one- or two component finishes. They say, that two component finish is harder ( component1: actual poly, component 2: hardener), but one component finish is hard as hell too. I would recommend to use it in residential projects and use a two component in commercial ones. The main advantage of Eukula is that you can add up to 12 Oz. of water (believe it or not) into it without having to worry about the quality of the finish. This makes it dry a little bit slower , giving you time to come back and fix whatever you need, not to mention that you won’t have any ugly looking brush marks that normally there when you work with water-based polyurethane. Eukula is the ONLY brand that allows you to add water.
Now the price. Comparing to other brands, such as Bona, or Duraseal, one component Eukula cost the same or even less. Averge price for it is about $45 a gallon. In comparison: good type of Duraseal( which is not as good as Eukula anyway) cost about the same, and Bona(the 2nd best after Eukula in my opinion) cost even more- around $80 a gallon.Two component Eukula cost is around $90 a gallon.
Next time we’ll take a closer look at oil-based poly.
P.S. If you have any suggestions for topics to disscuss, please feel free to contact us.
Polyurethane
As we all know, there are two types of polyurethane: water-based and oil-based.Both have their own pro’s and con’s.Let’s take a little closer look at both of them.
1.Oil-based polyurethane.The most popular so far( of course, with the new law that makes it more expensive and harder to get, things are going to change quickly).Durable, two coats of it on top of a coat of sealer, is normally more than enough.Gives an impression of thick buildup(it’s just an impression, though.In reality it’s much thinner than you think, which doesn’t make it bad in any way), and that deep amber look that everybody love.Most of the floor companies and the homeowners prefer to use this type of poly, because it is also very easy to apply.
Now here is something every homeowner should know.There are two types of oil-based poly: high VOC(Volatile Organic Compounds), which is affected by the new law and the low VOC, which is not affected.All the information above is about high VOC poly, which you, dear homeowner, cannot get anymore in 1 or 5 gallon containers.The only way to buy high VOC poly is to get it in quarts.So next time you’re going to the hardware store, make sure, you are buying your poly that way, unless you want all sorts of trouble, that low VOC poly gives you: heavy brush marks, very fast drying time on the surface, while you’re applying it, but very slow actual drying time(sometimes it’s still like a gum even after two days of wait)- all the good stuff.
Ok, where were we? Oh, yes, oil-based poly.Here are some minuses: dries much longer than water-based, smells a lot(and I mean it) and not safe for the environment, which, I know very important for more and more people day by day.
2.Now let’s talk water. This is very durable polyurethane.With 1 coat of sealer and three coats of water-based poly your floor is going to be much harder, than with oil-based.Dries very quickly: in half an hour after you applied the first coat, you can go ahead and put another one.You can literary finish the whole flooring project in one day, where if you would use the oil-based, it could take you 2-3 days.
By applying it without using a sealer, your floor is going to look milky, although, over the years it will yellow up a little.I would recommend to use a sealer first(Lenmar quick-dry sealer is perfect for that purpose): that will give your floors an amber look, not as rich as you would get with an oil-based finish, of course. This, the price of it(on average twice higher then the price for the oil-based poly) and a little bit complicated application process, are actually the main minuses.Otherwise it’s great.