Case Study Using OSMO 3169 Black

Case study.

The owners of a hotel and restaurant were doing up a character older pub/restaurant and they really wanted to have some specific features. This was not to be some run of the mill location but something upmarket and professional with the anticipation of high traffic. Travelling around to different places some of the owners had seen black floors used in similar establishment in other parts of the world and noted how the colour black works in well with the sorts of fittings you normally see in a hotel or pub.  For example, consider the timber paneling generally in use and the timber bar top and this works well with the colour black as flooring colour of choice.  Similar tones are used in several restaurants.

They had a problem that they needed to overcome and that was the fact that when floors are generally covered black, the maintenance issue becomes a real concern.  Because the black coating is only on the surface of the timber and because of the amount of traffic that passes through a hotel, wear becomes the real issue.  You can imagine how easy it is for the surface to wear.  Then too, consider the fact that tables and chairs are moved over the floor.  No one lifts a chair and moves it from one spot to another.  Very often they are dragged or pulled over the surface.  So, if a black floor is used in a busy hotel, the floor is bound to be damaged in time and this will require maintenance. 

With traditional coating solutions the maintenance option involves closing the building and having the surface fully re-sanded and redone.  For a busy hotel this can essentially mean that they will lose a week’s worth of trade which is not acceptable.  Having looked at a number of options they had pretty much decided that they weren’t going to go ahead with a black floor because every solution offered required the sort of maintenance just mentioned.  Downtime just wasn’t acceptable in the deal that was being done for the refurbishment and fit out.  They had looked at certain coating options and rejected them on the basis that they were surface coatings of polyurethane that would require a full re-sand.  They also looked at some products that didn’t stain the floor black but then need to be over coated with a polyurethane style coating.  Again the same problem.  Maintenance would require shutting down the operation and losing at least a week’s business.  Not acceptable.  They had looked at tinting coatings which was one option that was suggested to them whereby a clear coating is used with an added tint.  However it was demonstrated that even using the toughest coating available from Sweden and Germany, they would still reach a point at which they needed to close down and redo the flooring.

By this point you can imagine that they were moving away from the concept of a black floor.  It was at this point that they were introduced to the concept of Osmo black.  Osmo produce a range of black coatings from jet black coatings through to black tinted coatings.  This is because some people want in jet black floor while others may want to have a hint of the timber colour coming through from underneath.

The advantage in using the Osmo system was that the maintenance was something that could be done in-house.  It was simply a matter of maintaining surface with some black tint on the floor.  So they looked at the subject very carefully and did some experiments.  It was demonstrated that they could easily maintain the black surface themselves.  They also didn’t need to recoat the entire area when they wanted to maintain the black up to scratch. They could apply black in wear areas such as, for example, near the bar.  There is bound to be significantly higher where in front of the bar, and in fact that this is the highest traffic area in a standard hotel and compares very closely to the amount of traffic in the entry.  Tests demonstrated that they could simply apply a little oil to the surface themselves using a process that did not require any sanding or remedial work of that kind.  Cleaners could do the job in-house by applying a little black tint to the surface to maintain the black colouring.

So finally they went ahead with the refurbishment and they used the Osmo 3169 black on the floor.  And the results have been impressive.  The location has been using this black coating on the floor now for over three years.  This is twice as long as most coatings would last in this sort of situation, regardless of the type of coating employed.  So, the use of Osmo has more than justified their faith in the idea.  Osmo has consistently provided them with the result that they wanted.  It has more than paid them back for the time spent carefully considering this subject.

Interestingly, Osmo is now used in lots of hotels around Perth and has been chosen due to its excellent appearance [which gets away from the plastic look] and also for its ease of maintenance.  It is a fact of life that all floor coating options need to be maintained and, that being the case, the next question has to be whether or not the maintenance is easy.  In the case of Osmo there is no doubt that the coating is very easy to maintain.  And as a result it is used in bars for timber features, bar tops, tables, chairs, flooring and all manner of areas that, in time require easy maintenance.  Once again, we see the benefits of using meanings OSMO.

It is widely used in homes for the same reasons as noted above. It looks great and is easy to maintain.

Coatings Used

2 x Coats OSMO 3169 Black