Unfinished vs. Prefinished...

13 years ago

Trying to decide on our new kitchen flooring. Would like some opinions. Right now, our first floor has 3/4" white oak floors that we refinished 4 years ago when we moved in. We want to do the same wood floors in our kitchen. We found Bellawood white oak prefinished and it matched perfectly.

My husband is concerned about the ability to refinish prefinished flooring. Can anyone offer any advice?

The Bellawood is 3/4" hardwood, except that it has a factory finish vs. the finish we had applied after our other flooring was sanded and refinished.

Thanks for any advice.

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Comments (4)

boxers
13 years ago
factory finished is up to 2 1/2 times more abrasion resistant than site finished. The aluminum oxide can only be applied in a factory setting. If you get to where you see a loss of gloss or lots of scratches, small dents etc. you can do a screen and recoat with new finish. You should never really have to ever sand them. In the case of damage you can do a board replacement without resanding the whole area as you would with site finished. Far more pros than cons.
woodfloorpro
13 years ago
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.
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I was going to send Jones 60 an e mail but he doesn't have that as an option. I appreciate those who understand. I think you should all be grateful that several professionals take the time to actually read a lot of these and give you the 'right' answers. You may not all want to read them. I'm retired from flooring now and generally avoid specific issues dealing with product unless I'm pretty certain I know what I'm talking about. On another board someone wrote in and asked how to improve the looks of their old hardwood. The suggestion were to add a coat of wax, and my favorite was to use a bucket of hot water with alcohol as that will 'melt' the old finish and fill in the scratches. I know that sounds crazy but some of you will listen to that sort of advice. Sweetby and Redbezel, and Glen who always gives good advice I appreciate it.
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I just went through the same decision. My KD recommended having the hardwood finished after the install. While the prefinished has many more coats of finish on it, it can't be refinished if need be. My installer said we can have the floor repolished every 4 or 5 years to maintain it, and if some boards become damaged, it's possible to replace just what's needed - that can't be done with prefinished. Friends who did the prefinshed noticed that in winter the boards contracted and they could see the unfinished sides of the wood. Water can get between the boards, but if it's finished in place that doesn't happen. We did the family room and the kitchen. It's only been a week or so - I hope this helps you. It's all about what's best for your situation.
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Refinishing hardwoods every 5-10 years is probably about right for heavy use. That is the beauty of floors that can be refinished. Scratched sheet vinyl or laminate is just ripped out and thrown away. Solid hardwood is generally cheaper than good quality engineered hardwood. You can buy lower quality material with either. For example, I saw 5" wide solid pre-finished hardwood (Russian white oak- made in China) at Menards the other day. The first thing I notice is the obvious seams on the planks where two 2.5" strips are edge glued together like furniture. I sure hope the glue holds up over time! The price was low at $3.50/sf, but Menards also had pre-finished solid red oak strip on sale for $2.40/s.f and that product is made in the USA with quality standards. Engineered is more dimensionally stable than solid. Rift and quarter sawn solid flooring and/or narrow solid floorboards are more dimensionally stable than flat sawn and/or wide solid planks. Pre-finished is quicker and less mess, but you get bevels or micro-bevels between the strips or planks. Unfinished gives you more stain and topcoat options and a floor with no bevels due to sanding. Both types of finishes can be scratched and will require refinishing the top coat at some point in time.
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Comments (18)
If you want the STRONG GREY colours shown in your photos, you will need to work with factory finished. If you like the liming or cerusing effect (the white in the grain) then you will need to work with the factory finish. I've heard of a small handful of HIGH-END professionals who can achieve these looks on a site-finished floor. If you think that the population of the US+Canada is around 375,000,000 that is a SMALL amount of humans....like 100-150 professionals who can handle a job like that. Imagine the price tag! We will see this level of workmanship on $25Mill homes. The price of the professional is not at issue in a home that has multiple millions of dollars in financial backing. I understand your Project Manager's concerns. Repairing damage to a factory finished floor isn't fun...but it isn't difficult either. The worst case scenario = cut out the plank and drop another one in. A bit of glue...a bit of waiting and everyone's happy. I'm not sure why the push back is so hard (the PM has probably had something go wrong in the past and had it bite him/her in the arse pretty hard). So long as you assure him/her that you will pay for all the damage control (ram board, etc) you should be fine.
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boxers
13 years ago
when I was with Bruce many products had urethane on the top coat and aluminum oxide on coats underneath specifically to make recoating easier. Benefits of factory finished vs site finished has been discussed to death. I live in the most site finished place on earth and my father owned a hardwood company. Out west even some of the most hesitant builders have switched to factory finish. While I won't argue the merits however the OP simply asked if they would be ok with prefinished and the concern was resanding and the quick and truthful answer is they can be rescreened if they start looking beat up.
glennsfc
13 years ago
Most builders have switched to factory finished for basically economic considerations. They can get the house ready for closing sooner and the end result is consistent.

However, no prefinished can equal the finished look of a site finished floor that is done by an expert. Yes, I know, we are a select few...

Unfinished vs. Prefinished...

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boxers

woodfloorpro

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