Hi,

I'm new to this forum. We recently bought a house that was built in 1962. It has only had two owners. The first owner who lived in the house for about 12 years used the wood floors. The second owner lived in the house for 32 years, but covered all of the floors with carpet (except for the inside of closets).

There are wood floors in most of the rooms and I'd like to remove the carpet and use the hardwood floors. My questions:

1) from my research, 1962 wood floors are most like lacquer finished. Would people agree? I haven't done the any testing yet, but will.

2) Would the finish most likely be sound with 12 years of use?

3) If I determine the finish was lacquer, but is sound, what is the best product to clean it with? (I found BonaKemi Freshen Up, but appears to be mostly sold in England)

My hope is to be able to remove the carpet, remove the tack strip and then clean it / improve it without having to re-finish. Actually, I don't have the time/money for a re-finish at this time.

Any tips/guidance would be appreciated.

I did a short soundness test this afternoon. I put 1/2 tablespoon of water and let it sit for 30 seconds. The water beaded and stayed the same after 30 seconds. When I wiped up the water, there was perhaps a very slight change in color. Is that normal? Is 30 seconds too short for the soundness test?

I am also trying to determine if it has a lacquer finish (being a 1962 installed floor). Some websites advise you to see if you can feel the grain. I would say, yes, I can feel the grain.

If I don't want to refinish at this time, is the only way to care for the floor is to clean and wax it? I contacted Basic Coatings and they said I can clean a lacquer coated floor with IFT. I've been looking at all of the products (BonaKemi, Basic Coatings, Bruce, TreMax, etc) and it's still confusing. I'd like to do thiat logically so that when I do re-finish I haven't screwed things up!

Thanks for your input.