The flooring throughout our house is proper American Maple (it was in a church originally) and has previously always been varnished but it now needs redoing.

This time I was going to do it with Bona Mega (Swedish 1k flooring ‘varnish’) but I also got a small tin of Osmo Polyx high solid to renovate a table.

I’ve sanded a spare plank and coated each end with both products and the Osmo is by far the better appearance – the colours of the wood looks fantastic. The Bona is okay in comparison.

The house doesn’t get much traffic as we don’t have kids but do have a jizz droplet doggo wandering around (🤮).

Any comments on Osmo for flooring duties? Is it durable? Dries evenly? Etc

Thanks in advance!

Affluent mate has oak flooring and a big dog. Osmo has served him well.

Pretty sure Bona traffic was used on ours. It looks great and seems to hold up really well to the dog trying to accelerate from a dead stop when the postman arrives.
UV stability is a big one, the old finish was PU i think and had gone from lovely wood colours to a wretched orange over the course of 16 years. The Bona stuff is supposed to be UV stable.

Looks like the Bona is PU. Maybe the old one was something else. Might it have been solvent based rather than water?

Looks like the Bona is PU. Maybe the old one was something else. Might it have been solvent based rather than water?

the original varnish was PU solvent based and has lasted well but has worn through in a few high wear areas. I can’t get any more of it hence my intention of using Bona.

The issue is the Osmo has made the fibres of the sample plank ‘pop’ with colour and contrast – it looks fantastic whereas the Bona is merely sitting on top of the wood like a varnish.

It’s a big floor and I don’t want to get it wrong!

Hard wax oil for me.

We have HWO semi Matt on one floor and Bona Traffic on another.

HWO looks nicer and feels better under bare feet.

After 4y I refreshed the hwo with a single coat. Mine has a 5h dry time. All good.

I’ve used The osmo hard wax oil designed for flooring on our wooden worktops, looks great, but to get a hard wearing finish you have to put down multiple thin layers (3-5) and let each one ‘soak’ in for a fair few hours. Needed re-doing after a couple of years. Course, we could be talking about different stuff (they’ve got a big range) or I’m using it wrong, but that much work over a large floor area every couple of years would put me off

Edit: thinking about it, the work tops proper get a harder life than a floor, so would likely last longer on the floor, but still a lot of work every 3-5 years

We used OSMO on the oak kitchen floor and it looked fantastic, for a while. The high traffic area around the sink dulled quite quickly and has hat to be redone every few years while the rest lasts maybe a year or so longer.

Doesn’t sound much maintenance but clearing, cleaning, recoating and leaving to dry is a right pain in the proverbials when it needs doing. Especially being in the kitchen which gets a lot of use, especially in the evenings. This tends to mean clearing everything in readiness, cooking dinners and clearing away, then cleaning the floor, leave to dry, a coat of oil and go to bed. Up early for a second coat of oil, leave to dry, then put the kitchen back together. Assuming we start this on a Saturday, it basically becomes most of a weekend where you can’t use the kitchen and you are stuck doing the oiling and is repeated every few years, forever.

I’ve recently done the kitchen worktop with osmo polyx hard wax oil and it looks great.

but the wood where you apply it has to be completely clear of varnish or oil else it won’t be absorbed into the wood and won’t look good and won’t be water resistant. So depending on what your floor is like, it might mean alot of sanding.

Osmo is great.
As said, it’s only a wax so does wear. I never found it too onerous to redo – allowing drying time was the biggest pain.

Big job getting rid of all the old varnish.
Osmo is fantastic, but it does need maintenance.

Thanks for the feedback – I think I’m going to stick with PlanA and use the Dura.
The removal of the original varnish was one of my concerns with the Osmo. I’m using my trusty sandvik tungsten scraper rather than fully sanding.

Think ours was Bona Traffic? The guy restoring it broke his sanding machine on day one so was behind schedule so we got an upgrade from whatever we’d asked for which took 2-3 coats to the ‘commercial’ version which only took 1 or 2 so he didn’t lose a day.

It was 7 years ago so I cant remember the specifics, but it was Bona, it was the high traffic version, and it still looks good.