Gee Boxers, why do we resand so many ALOX floors? Truth is they do not wear through rapidly but they do begin to look bad from the very issues you list. I personally have 2000'+ of Trustor WearMax life time warranty site finished flooring. We are certified to use it by the manufacturer. It is a great product but I no longer use it because of the difficulty's involved with touching it up. Maintenance of the finish is much easier with site finished floors. Screen and recoats will not always do the trick with ALOX. It is too iffy to get a proper bond because the profiles of the prefinished floors are seldom flat enough to be physically abraded. A Ty-coat type chemical system is the better bet. Dents can be epoxied and recoated. Scratches can be sanded out and the finish matched. Many prefinished floors are no longer available to replace damaged boards.I tried to find a Hartco product just yesterday. It's been dropped, but we can match the wood, color and gloss level, everything but the micro bevel. There are strong points for both types of floors but in the long term prefinished floors will end up being sanded and finished.

I need help. We recently had our new unfinished Brazilian Walnut Ipe flooring finished professionally with a water based Low Lustre Acrylic Polyurethane as recommended. The problem is it already looks terrible after 1 month. There are numerous scratches and scuff marks in the finish (not the wood) that I can not get out. I am looking for any suggestions. This type of wood will not take an oil based product which I understand is more durable.

MY HORROR STORY!! Do not get any exotic floor from LL, they use inferior grades and they 1) cupped, 2) split and 3) buckled all within 6 months of installation. The installer got stuck with the re-do (complimentary) and he wants to install domestic woods only from this outfit (to whom I am still obliged if I want this re-do complimentary). Home, humidity, were not issues-- the product we believe is milled too quickly and without time for drying and curing. So stay away from Brazilian, teak and other imports. We are going with white oak and staining it.

Find out the wear layer for the engineered hardwood. That will help determine which is the better deal and product for the $$. Annied75 is right in that pine is a soft wood. It is not as hard as oak flooring. However, with that being said, all hardwood is susceptible to wear and tear and will show it over the years. The reason I ask for the wear layer is because it will help us determine how many sandings this engineered floors can withstand. The engineered floors we provide for our customers have a wear layer the same size as solid hardwood and therefore can withstand the same amount of sandings before reaching the tongue of the hardwood. If your engineered floor has a thin wear layer, the solid pine flooring just may be the better product for the money you are going to be spending since the pine floor will be able to withstand several sanding and refinishings. However, I read that you are going to be installing this over a slab floor in Florida. Since that is the case, engineered flooring is the way to go unless the pine flooring is going to be milled in an engineered version. Ask Hardwoods for Less if they can send you some samples before making the large purchase.