Hot rolled steel floor for home. Q&A, Problems & Solutions

! Please send a picture, Mark, I've never personally heard of such a thing and wouldn't have guessed that it would be successful, but apparently people know yet another thing I haven't learned yet :-)

Thanks.

A. I believe that if you had it thick enough it would work out rather well (provided you don't mind those cold feet mornings).
I am sorry to say that you are probably out of luck for keeping the "natural" look of the steel without it rusting. Hot rolled black steel generally has surface oxidation from the rolling process. The cheapest and best solution to your problem I can think of that will protect one side of your flooring would be wax, lots of wax. Somewhere between 3-5 coats would probably work. This will probably be a high maintenance floor.
As Ted said, could we see the floor?

A. I saw the Debbie Travis show repeated today and she sealed her floors with a combination of Murphy's Oil Soap ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] and bees wax ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] . I, too, would love to know who manufactures and installs these floors if anyone knows!

A. Here's a link to Debbie Travis's episode with the steel floors.

www.painted-house.com/episodes/12/160/?view=all ⇩

I too would like to know how to seal where each sheet butts up against the next one. I don't want water getting through to the floor. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Ed. note: The above link is broken. Thankfully, the Internet Archive preserved a copy here
Please consider a donation to The Internet Archive. Don't follow abandoned links, old URLs are sought out by hackers!

A. I saw this episode also while I was looking for a non-conventional flooring alternative. After contacting a local steel company and discussing it with them, I am going with a 16 gauge cold-rolled sheet. 16 gauge is about 1/16 inch thick and weighs 2.5 lbs per square foot. They come in 4' X 8' (4' X 4' was used in the episode) but can be cut at the mill. The difference is that cold-rolled has an improved surface finish (mill scale is removed-but you may want the mill scale) and is usually more squared and has better thickness tolerances.

I would recommend going to a local steel-mill and getting a sheet of both. That way you can clean and test different wax solutions to get an idea of the finished product.

They also have colored wax that would look great in the seams. But try different ideas to get what you want.

I am going to try the beeswax ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] ...

A. Hot Rolled Steel can be purchased from just about any local metal shop, someone that sells structural steel, iron bars, general metal for construction, etc. I found that if I typed 'hot rolled steel' and my local area (Toronto or Ontario) I came up with numerous suppliers.

A. What about J B Weld? They have a marine application [adv: JB Weld Marine on eBay or Amazon [affil links] that looks like it would be perfect!

A. I installed steel floors in my home over 2 years ago. I used cold rolled steel, it is about 1/8" thick and they are in 5' x 8' sheets ... yeah, super heavy! I used an adhesive that bonds metal to concrete on the underside. Eventually I ended up welding all of the joints. To top it off, I have a sunken living room, so the steel for the stairs is bent and seamless. I also have steel stairs from my first to second story of my home.

When you first get the steel down on the floor, you will need to use Murphy's Oil Soap ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] and a light amount of water. This process is very nasty, but it will get all of the black gunk off the surface of the steel and it will end up very clean to the touch. Then, simply apply a thin layer of automotive wax and buff off. I ended up buying an Oreck buffer to apply and remove the wax. Makes it very easy. I do this about every 2-4 weeks. I am pretty happy with final product. You do have to be careful with certain substances staining the steel though.