Dog-proofing hardwood floor - DIY Chatroom

BoxmanOKC · 10-16-2009, 09:31 PM

I'm preparing to do a glue-down installation of engineered hardwood flooring. We've got two older dogs who sometimes fail to "hold it" during the day when we're at work. I'm concerned about urine getting down into the planks.

What if I glue the tongue-n-groove joints, using Titebond or a similiar product? I know Titebond is intended for glueing T&G on laminate floating floors, but is there any reason I can't use this on glue-down hardwood?

My hope is that I can provide some level of "waterproofing" to my hardwood floors, so that when doggy goes pee-pee on the wood, the urine will simply pool on the surface of the wood until I wipe it up.

Would this work? Anybody ever tried this?

Shamus · 10-16-2009, 10:21 PM

I hesitate but here goes.

In my opinion, you will not be able to seal it with glue. I doubt seriously if anything short of several coats of a clear oil-based finish applied over the installed floor will keep it from soaking up anything wet. And even then, as the floor expands and contracts with changes in temperature/humidity that coat over the top will eventually fail.

If you have no way of blocking the dogs out of the new floor area while your away I'd look for a floor type that is fool proof. Say vinyl or sealed tile.

JazMan · 10-16-2009, 11:07 PM

It's not going to work. Old dogs, large dogs, dogs that drool when they drink, and wood floors do not go together. You should be thinking of some other kind of flooring.

Jaz

sdsester · 10-16-2009, 11:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shamus

I hesitate but here goes.

In my opinion, you will not be able to seal it with glue. I doubt seriously if anything short of several coats of a clear oil-based finish applied over the installed floor will keep it from soaking up anything wet. And even then, as the floor expands and contracts with changes in temperature/humidity that coat over the top will eventually fail.

If you have no way of blocking the dogs out of the new floor area while your away I'd look for a floor type that is fool proof. Say vinyl or sealed tile.

I agree. And many flooring manufacturers will void their warranties if you apply any sort of finish over that they applied at the factory or you could try something like a gym or industrial finish.

ccarlisle · 10-17-2009, 10:38 AM

Being flippant, I'd say get "Depends for Dogs"...

I'd reconsider hardwood - or just live with the consequences of owning two dogs. Look you coop up two older dogs all day long while you go on with your own lives, expect them to hold it in, and then you expect to come home and clean up the mess with a Scot towel?

Sure.

BoxmanOKC · 10-27-2009, 05:10 PM

You all were correct. Partly to satisfy my own curiosity, I did some tests to see if hardwood could be "urine-proofed". I took some planks of hardwood and tried the following methods to seal them:

Titebond T&G glue applied inside the groove
Titbond T&G glue applied to top of tongue
Silicone sealant applied inside the groove
Silicone sealant applied to top of tongue

In all cases I used a good amount - enough that some excess squeezed out when the boards were tightly pressed together and had to be wiped off. My sealed planks were allowed to sit overnight, then tested by carefully pouring a small puddle of water on top of each set. I then checked the boards every few minutes to see how well they resisted the water.

Here's what I found. The glue didn't help much. Water stayed pooled for a short time on the surface, but quickly made it's way around and through the adhesive, penetrating all the way down to the bottom of the planks within 10-15 minutes.

The silicone fared better. Water stayed pooled on the surface for 30 minutes, at first giving me hope that a true watertight seal had been created. But after another 10-15 minutes went by, I noticed the water was slowly disappearing. It didn't seep down and pool under the planks, like it did when glue was used as the sealant. Instead, the water simply absorbed into the unfinished wood of the tongue & groove joints themselves, right at the top layer. All along the joints, the top 1-2mm of wood became waterlogged. So the silicone did it's job, keeping the water from penetrating down to the subfloor, but it couldn't protect the the topmost layer of wood.

So there's just no way to effectively waterproof (or urine-proof) wood. At best, you can use silicone to buy yourself about 30 minutes of real protection, but beyond that the water (or urine) will start absorbing into the top 1-2 layers of wood (at the joints). Left long enough I'm sure it would get completely saturated.

Therefore, hardwood is out. I'm going to go with a wood-look vinyl product like Konecto or Flexitec.

sdsester · 10-27-2009, 06:30 PM

What about wood look vinyl sheet flooring if you are set on that appearance? That way you will have no gaps like you would with vinyl tiles or planks. It will not fool anyone into thinking it is real wood but would be a compromise in your situation? There were 100 or more possibilities just in the Armstrong line. This is just one possibility I found quickly. Obviously Armstrong is not the only game in town either.

http://www.armstrong.com/flooring/vi...loor-99648.asp