Looking after ancient bits of timber...

[xanthe]

Wondering if anyone has suggestions for looking after various bits of old house in particular, oak beams, oak floorboards and oak wall studs/timbers.

I rather like things that smell nice in a National Trust kind of way, and that don't have anything nasty in them that could damage the wood (or cover it in plastic). There's loads of lovely furniture polishes, but I don't know much about what's there for infrastructure!

Ideally I'd like to put a bit of a polish on the floorboards and stop the other bits of wood having that dry dusty look to them. Lots of the beams are quite smooth , but others have got varying amounts of wood-worm damage. The current owners removed the black crap off the beams by hand downstairs but then used a sand-blasting company (of the old variety) to do the rest of the house. The beams downstairs feel nice and have some patina to them, but upstairs they have that 'look' that sand-blasting gives.

I've got a team of cleaners going in on Wednesday and I bought them some bottles of Wheelers natural beeswax polish - apparently also has silk protein, chamomile and lavender :? - but sure there must be some super-dooper products out there.

Any product recommendations?

 

[xanthe]

Just thought...

On the ground floor, we have pitch-pine floorboards, but on the first and second floors it is all massive early C17th oak floorboards. Due to the previously mentioned seven cats, I imagine that they have been subjected to all sorts.

Is it a good idea to clean the boards down before applying a wax? If so, is something like hot water and a bit of dish soap correct, or sugar soap, or one of the proprietary floor cleaners (ie Liberon) a good plan? The end plan is to have everything properly protected and hopefully looking and smelling nice without causing any damage or doing anything inappropriate.

I'm looking at the expensive stuff, but I have heard that a cheapy method is to buy a load of beeswax pellets, melt them overnight in a load of turps, shake well and slap on liberally with a paint brush.

For the outside timbers, we've been told linseed by one person and NO linseed by another. :roll:

 

[livias]

Cheaper still ...

Find a bee keeper, they will have loads of unwanted wax looking for a home. I bought a bucket full for 20 pounds which was far more than enough to polish all of my last house. You will have to smash it up yourself - get it cold, wrap in old tea towel and hit with hammer - and the pellets will not be so evenly sized so overnight soaking in (must be real) turps is optimistic so just make up loads in advance. It will never be as fine quality as the bought stuff but it is excellent for floors. I am told it can ignite spontaneously in hot weather so I kept it in a glass jar, sealed it reasonably well to exclude excess air and stored it in the cellar.

Use sparingly, one coat is enough because you don't want to be skidding on the floor.

Anna x

 

[livias]

Wash / scrub down floors with soapy water as necessary which is what the lady of the house would have done in the past. Allow to dry before waxing

 

[88v8]

Many of the expert folk who used to post on this site have faded away, I guess all web forums wax and wane, but Toby Newell was/is head and shoulders when it comes to wood finishing.
Here , to give you the flavour, is a post of his on flooring.
https://www.periodproperty.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12114&p=160048&hilit=polish+beams#p160048

He also posted on a recentish thread about beams, but I can't find it.

Here's his website.
http://newellwoodworks.co.uk/guide%20to%20wood%20finishing.html

If you have a lot of timber, I would have him come and advise/finish it for you.

The stuff you have given the cleaners may be OK provided it contains no silicone, but the way you treat the wood is too important, imho, to be decided in a rush and applied by cleaners, whose aim and purpose is general cleaning and whose expertise in wood finishing is likely limited to say the least. In the case of beams and studs the cleaners will inevitably get the wood finish on the adjacent plasterwork with detrimental results when you try to decorate.

Wax is OK, but it has a limited life.
Boiled linseed & turps is OK, I have used some on he exterior oak of my new garage, but indoors it builds up to a sticky mess over time and I would not use it on floors.

I have the same problem as you - downstairs beams hand-stripped, upstairs blasted in the 70s. I have not treated any of them yet.
May, may not, but I certainly won't rush into it, small areas first and leave them a few months to mature, and I'm sure that treating all the beams without getting any on the plaster would take days and days and days.

Sorry not to be more helpful.

Ivor

 

[skier-hughes]

Lots of articles, and lots by Toby, on the main site, something many people miss
http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/ppuk_discovering_articles.shtml

 

[worms]

Boiled linseed & turps is OK, I have used some on he exterior oak of my new garage, but indoors it builds up to a sticky mess over time and I would not use it on floors.

We could digress again into the oft-repeated debate on boiled linseed versus raw but lets spare xanthe from that one! Beeswax and turps is tried and tested and probably no need to go beyond that.

A few years ago I did successfully treat my hard-wood floor with a home-made raw-linseed concoction. I think the trick is to use a suitable diluent/carrier for the linseed oil and probably any carrier that is cheap or that you have to hand will do. The range of potential carriers for exterior use is wider as smell and flammability are less of an issue and you probably can't get cheaper at the moment than central heating oil (and only 5% vat!). I don't think the memsahib would have let me get away with using kerosene for the floor indoors, so I guess the carrier must have been whatever I managed to find after a rummage at the back of the garage - probably turps or white spirit. Of course if you have a cheap source of gin...

 

[88v8]

.... I guess the carrier must have been whatever I managed to find after a rummage at the back of the garage ... Of course if you have a cheap source of gin...

Fantastic Just think of the aroma possibilities :shock:

Of course, there is risk: the fumes.... drunk in charge of a paintbrush.......

Ivor

 

[xanthe]

Gin... since BIL has just bought himself a still as a 40th birthday present that may well a possibility (especially if there are some dodgy first batches!) :lol:

Thank you for all the wonderful links - started reading them last night. Lots of good stuff.

88v8 - You've been really helpful

The stuff I've bought has no silicone at all. I got it as I don't trust the company not to send them with lots of silicone stuff. It's in a spray bottle which hopefully means they'll be happy to use it. I doubt they will touch the beams, but I have visions of Pledge being wielded about.

Once it's me doing it, I will find the right stuff and spend a lot of time trying things out.

Most of the plaster is going to have to come off - nearly all nasty modern stuff from when they did the DPC, or the last lot of decorating - and the fibre-board needs to come off the ceiling, so probably a good idea to slap stuff about liberally before that as it won't matter what state the walls and ceilings get it.

Moving day tomorrow - have spent all day with the packers and the house looks like a warehouse. Will be very relieved come Thursday night when everything has safely moved from one place to another - but I pick up the keys to the new house tomorrow and I'm going to take the opportunity to photograph it in detail while it's empty.

 

[mims&pip]

Nothing to add to all the sage advice on the timber front xanthe - our (much younger) timbers here have their own set of issues - but wanted to say I hope it all goes well with the move over the next couple of days

Mims x

 

[88v8]

Photograph when empty. What an excellent idea.
And I do admire the way you bash on with things despite your back troubles.
May the sun shine on your moving day.

Ivor

 

[Penners]

Wash / scrub down floors with soapy water as necessary which is what the lady of the house would have done in the past. Allow to dry before waxing

I agree. You'll be amazed at how much muck this process will get off. I should add, however, that it's advisable to try and dry off as much of the wet as possible with old towels before you let nature dry the remainder.

I would then polish with wax. As mentioned above, it does need redoing from time to time, but this is a relatively problem-free process. When modern lacquers/varnishes wear through, there's a huge amount of work involved in sanding and stripping before you can re-polish. With wax, you just apply another coat.