Oiled vs Lacquered Wood Flooring

Every oak board in the range comes with one of two kinds of finish, and the choice matters more than the colour, because it decides how the floor will be looked after for the next twenty years. An oil sits in the wood. A lacquer sits on it. That one difference explains almost everything else.

What each finish is

Oil, whether a UV oil, a plain oil or a hard wax oil, soaks into the top of the oak and hardens there. The surface you touch is still wood, with a thin, matt protection inside it. The look is soft and close to bare timber, and the grain reads as texture rather than as a picture under glass. Hard wax oil is the version used on the deep-brushed antique boards, where it settles into the open grain; an invisible oil is one formulated not to add the amber tone a conventional oil gives.

Lacquer, whether UV lacquered, matt lacquered or invisible lacquered, is a film cured on top of the oak. The surface you touch is the film. It is harder than an oiled surface against abrasion, it is wiped clean rather than cared for, and it can be specified matt enough that most people cannot tell it from oil at a glance. An invisible lacquer keeps the pale, sanded look the same way an invisible oil does.

The maintenance difference, which is the real difference

An oiled floor wears where it is walked on and can be repaired where it has worn. The worn patch in front of the sink or at the foot of the stairs is cleaned, lightly abraded and re-oiled with the manufacturer's maintenance oil, and the repair blends into the floor around it. The rest of the floor is left alone. That makes oil the finish for a hallway or a kitchen, where wear is local and predictable.

A lacquered floor wears more slowly and cannot be repaired locally: a patch of new lacquer shows as a patch. When the film has worn through, the whole floor is sanded and refinished, which is a bigger job but a rarer one. That makes lacquer the finish for a living room, a bedroom or a dining room, where wear is spread and slow and the floor is mostly wiped clean.

Both finishes dislike standing water, and the trade guidance for cleaning wood and multilayer floors is low moisture throughout: a damp mop, not a wet one, and no pooling. The industry statement of that rule is quoted at the end of this guide.

Which rooms get which finish

Hallway and kitchen: oil, and brushed rather than smooth. The wear is local, the repair is local, and brushing hides the fine scratches that grit leaves. The natural oak boards and the dark oak boards both carry oiled, brushed options.

Living room, dining room, bedroom: either, decided by look and by how much attention you are prepared to give the floor. Lacquer if you want to wipe and forget; oil if you like the softer surface and are happy to re-oil a patch every few years.

Homes with dogs: oil, brushed. Claws mark any wood floor; on an oiled brushed board the marks join the texture and can be oiled over. The guide to floors for homes with dogs goes into the detail.

Rental property: lacquer, usually. Between tenancies a lacquered floor is cleaned; an oiled floor may want re-oiling, which is work nobody schedules. The rentals guide weighs it up.

Sanding and refinishing

Both finishes are removed by sanding when a floor is refinished as a whole, and how many times that can happen depends on the depth of oak above the core, the wear layer, not on the finish. The engineered boards in the range carry 3 mm, 4 mm or 6 mm; the solid boards are oak throughout. No trade body puts a number on how many sandings a wear layer allows, and the one manufacturer figure that could be sourced is quoted below with that caveat. The wear layer guide covers the choice.

Colour, and the invisible finishes

Both oil and lacquer add an amber cast to oak, which is the colour most people think of as oak's own. An invisible finish, oil or lacquer, is formulated not to, so the board stays close to the pale, dry colour of freshly sanded timber. The light oak boards use both kinds. A white oil goes the other way, adding a pale pigment; the white oak boards are all oiled for that reason, and the maintenance oil for them has to be white as well, because a clear oil darkens the patch it is applied to.

Common questions

The same finishes appear across the engineered oak and solid oak ranges, and on the parquet blocks. How much traffic a floor gets, and how much grit comes in with it, depends on the house and the street as much as on the household. Browse by town and region.