I disagree. Prefinished hardwood flooring, especially the dark colors, are very susceptible for showing fine scratching to the furniture-like finishes that you usually find on these products. Plus, your warranty will not be worth the paper it's printed on. All warranties in the flooring business are very limited documents and the exclusions and conditions will amaze you.

Just make sure you know what you're buying; you do usually get what you pay for. Look for well-established brands.

Site finished hardwood does perform a little better in kitchens. The finishing does help slow down the seepage of topical water between planks, but it doesn't totally prevent it.

Put tile where you want it, although it is my experience that most prefinished will perform well when a walk off mat is placed by the door to catch grit and debris brought inside on soles of shoes. Site finished flooring finished with a quality finishing system will also perform well when walk off mats or rugs are strategically placed and used.

site finished flooring finishes have improved but prefinished usually are more abrasive resistant than site finished. Pros and cons are many but if you had a spill on site finished and there was damaged you have to resand the entire floor. with factory finished you just reploace the damaged board or two. FF can be screened and recoated so if you notice 'wear' you can easily recoat it without the need to resand. Thinking site finished will create a solid layer of impervious urethane is simply not true. Either will probably do a good job for you, but I wouldn't want you to base your decision on wrong info.
Finish warrantys deals with walking thru the finish to bare wood. It doesn't mean it will 'look good' for the life of the warranty.

Site finished hardwood is also recoated by a screening technique and/or preparation chemicals and abrasive pads. Once a site finished floor is properly sanded and finished in the first place, it is as good and serviceable as most any prefinished.

A skilled hardwood flooring professional can also make seamless repairs to site finished flooring; I have done that in cases where a homeowner damaged a few boards. The exact same materials have to be used.

I would always choose site finished floors over a prefinished floor. The hold up VERY well. We live in a house we build 15 years ago. Our site finished floors are still going strong.

I don't know how true it is, but it was explained to me by my floor guy that site finished (using urethane) floors can't quite meet the level of protection in factory finished (using aluminum oxide) floors. He wasn't trying to push us to one or the other, but just included this in the pros and cons of the two types.

flooring decisions are always a series of tradeoffs. Site finished provides a uniform flat surface. Factory finish can achieve quality that site finished can't. How many posts have been posted here re: air bubble, brush marks, etc in site finished. Not everyone wants a flat 'panel' type look. FF allows individual boards to stand out as a design option. Lastly when tested Aluminum oxide provided approx 10 times the abrasion resistance over site finished. I'm not saying it won't scratch but the alum oxide finish is very durable. There is a downside as alum oxide tends to make the finish look a little 'murky'. Its all trade offs.

We have had two on site finish with select and better, random lengs, kiss bevel (great place for grit to go) oak hardwood. There were dogs, cats, rollerblades, football players, teenagers and the floors in both houses still look great. Now we are building a house in a small town and it looks like we will have to buy engineered unfortunately. What we find in engineered is how short the boards are, no matter what the length is. The floor slook like a quilt and do not resemble a good looking hard wood floor area. Does anyone know an engineered product with lengths longer then 4 or 5'. I have my fingers and toes crossed. Thanks so much. The little town is Point Roberts, Washington, which is landlocked between two borders and Canada before you can get back into the U.S.

Use Owens Plankfloor engineered unfinished and then have it finished on site. Plankfloor comes in a 5/8" thickness with a 3/16" sawn veneer face...you will not be able to distinguish it from a solid product. It installs just like a solid. The milling is so precise that a simple touch sand is all that needs to be done before applying the finish of choice. NEVER use cheap finish...it wastes your time and money. If you can't find a competent and skilled finisher, then DIY only after becoming familiar with finish offerings and all the instructions that come with the product.

UA makes a similar product, although it is 1/2" total thickness and made in Taiwan.

I just checked Ownes Plankfloor and I love it. They have lengths of 7' and a variety of widths. glennsfc thanks very, very much. I have been on their website and will now find a dealer and go visit or have a sample sent out. Have you used this product yourself?

Owens is nice.

We just got a quote about random lengths up to l0' in 4" edge grain white oak engineered, unfinished for $l0.00 per square foot. Ouch! That is a Canadian price. I need to start surfing the net because $l0.00 plus installation would amount to too expensive for this family. We will get that Owens come h--l or highwater though. You guys have convinced me that it is the way to go. Thank you and thank you. If you know any internet sites that are trustworthy and less money I would love to know them.

floorguy and glennsfc what would you use. We need l000 square feet of hardwood. Our island will be in a dark stained rift quarter sawn oak. The hardwood will go in the kitchen, eating area, living room (great room for those three rooms), den and one bedroom. We would like to use oak on the floor to match the island, but have it stained in a medium brown color.

In the past two hardwood finished on site floors we used glitza water based finish. I don't know if glitza is still allowed because of the ureaformaldyhydes (sp??) but would like a satin finish. Maybe we shouldn't be so close minded about unfinished. Maybe we should buy finished but we have to get longer lengths then are usually offered. In VAncouver, B.C. all we see is 4 to 5' at the longest. Just looks like a quilt.

And for a l000 square feet of mostly open area that could be deadly. My mind is open and I look forward to your opinions. I know you know a lot more then I do.

Can hardly wait to hear your opinions.

Was this a custom quote? Or, did you a ask for a quote on a readily available offering?

glennsfc, I phoned the company that we bought our hardwood from for the last two houses we built (over 20 years) and he gave us the quote. I would consider that a custom quote.