Bringing Life Back To A Timber Floor

I have always loved the feel of timber on bare feet. It conjures up memories of a childhood in the country in our old family farmhouse with its beautifully made Brush Box timber floors. The floors had been fitted by my grandfather and I remember my mother being incredibly proud of how good they looked. When buying our current place, a huge selling point had been the look of the Blackbutt timber floors which had a special feel and livened up the room.

Timber floors have a certain elegance, but like all things with time and traffic they start to look worn and lose that liveliness. The traditional standard for bringing that panache back to your floors was sanding, which costs a small fortune and requires plenty of inconvenience.

Sensing a need in the market, the E-Dry team have spent the last two years developing a cleaning and restoration system for wooden floors. For the last few months we have been rolling out the process with remarkable results, which I was lucky enough to experience. For the past week I have been in the Sydney suburbs with Brad, a timber certified expert and long-time technician.

It’s 8.00 am when we meet Jim, a lively Sydney-sider entrepreneur who has recently acquired an old Victorian home in Double Bay. He absolutely loves the place and wants to get the floors freshened up before moving in with the family. Time is money and Jim is in a rush, which is why he has chosen to go with our Timber Refresh. The floors are not too bad, they are scratched in areas from a previous pet and you notice the dull traffic lines now that there is no furniture in the room.

Brad gets me helping out on the job, starting off with the vacuum and then working the Deep Clean machine. I am really surprised on how much dirt is coming off these 'clean' floors. An interesting detail is that, when I ran my hand over an area of the floor we just cleaned, it was silky smooth. In comparison, the floor we haven’t yet gone over feels rough and sharp. After the cleaning is finished we applied the Timber Refresh solution.

I asked how the Timber Refresh solution works. Brad firstly explained that the dull and worn areas on a floor develop because, as we walk on the floor, the dirt beneath out feet causes small scratches and abrasions. These micro-scratches stop light reflecting off the floor, causing the floor to look dull. The same thing happens when strong cleaning products are used on a floor and soften the finish.

Timber Refresh is a thin coating that fills in these micro-scratches, allowing light to reflect off the floor like it did when the floor was new, giving the floor back its natural sheen. He also said that because it’s a polyurethane coating it permanently bonds to the existing coating on the floor for long last results.

Brad was extremely careful and methodical when applying the coating. Once he finished the floor, it looked really glossy and I was taken aback by the shine, but he said, “Let’s take a break and come back in 90 minutes once it’s dried out.”

Wow! When we came back after lunch, the floor had dried and looked amazing. It had lost its excessive shine from the wetness and was ready to walk on in socks. It was almost impossible to find the worn, dull areas. It wasn’t quite a new floor but it was close. Even the scratches from the pet marks looked much, much better.

It came time to settle up the bill and, at $129 per room, I couldn’t believe how economical the service was. Jim was on cloud nine with the results and really thought the service was a game changer in terms of convenience and price. His feedback was extremely positive and he said a few of his friends would definitely be up for Timber Refresh.