The floor has been sanded, coated and signed off. The trades are back on Monday. The instinct is to roll plastic over the whole thing and forget about it, and that is the single most expensive mistake we hear about.
A new coating is still curing
Water based and oil based coatings both keep hardening for days after the last coat looks dry to touch. During that window the finish is still giving off solvent and moisture. A sealed plastic film traps all of it against the surface. What you get when you lift the film is a floor that looks cloudy, blotchy or slightly tacky, and the fix is another sand and recoat.
Ask your floor sander how long they want before anything covers it. Then ask what they want used. Most will tell you the same thing: let it breathe.
Use a breathable covering
A breathable membrane lets the coating keep curing while still taking foot traffic. It is the right answer for the first stretch after coating, and it is what we would put down on a finished timber floor almost every time.
- Overlap the edges rather than butting them together.
- Tape the joins flat with cloth joining tape so nothing lifts underfoot.
- Do not tape directly onto the finish itself if you can avoid it. Tape to the covering, and run the covering to the skirting.
When to switch to rigid board
Breathable covering handles foot traffic. It does not handle a trestle leg, a dropped hammer or a loaded trolley. Once the coating has cured and the heavier trades come back in, move to rigid protection board over the traffic routes and anywhere people will be working.
Board is also what you want under scaffold, ladders and anything on castors. Two millimetres of rigid sheet spreads a point load that would otherwise dent the boards underneath.
The bit people skip
Grit is what actually scratches a floor, and it walks in on boots. A covering with sand trapped under it works like sandpaper every time someone steps on it. Sweep or vacuum before you lay anything, and again if the covering comes up partway through the job.
Taking it up
Lift from one edge in a steady pull rather than ripping it. Pull the tape back on itself at a low angle. If a covering has been down far longer than intended, take a corner up first and check before you commit to the whole run.
If you are not sure what suits the coating that has just gone on, call us and tell us what the sander used. It is a two minute conversation and it is a lot cheaper than a recoat.
