Pros & Cons Of Pre-finished Hardwood Flooring?

tnt specialty

WE've got 750 sf. of wood flooring to do on a remodel project. I have an employee who has considerable experience installing wood floors. He says the pre-finished is actually superior to the standard install/sand/finish method. The HO is being tugged at in different directions by other "experts", (sales professionals)....

What say you?

Thanks!

gideond

Unfinished can get you a smoother floor since you can sand the whole thing smooth once it's installed. It also seals better since you are putting the poly over the entire surface at once, allowing it to soak in between the boards as well as on top of them.

Prefinished has a much tougher wear layer on it. Most good companies use 5-9 coats of acrylic urethane with Aluminum Oxide in it to toughen the finish. This cannot be done in the field to unfinished floor at this point. It's also less labor intensive and faster to install. You nail it down and you are done. No sanding or clear coating afterwards. You do not get as good of a seal though since no poly is applied to soak between the boards. You also have a microbevel on the edges so the floor with lot be as smooth overall. You have to have that bevel so irregularities are not noticed, since you can't sand the whole thing smooth.

tnt specialty

Thanks gideond.
My client is extrtemely anal....He's worried about the beveled edges collecting "dirt". The tougher finish would be the only benifit to this particular client.
Appears there's more cons than pros......for the pre-finished.

gideond

Yep, I sell a lot of hardwood in our store and the biggest complaint I run into with the customer is about dirt in the microbevel. I've seen plenty of these floors that have been down for years and I don't notice any dirt collected there. The bevel isn't huge. Maybe if you never sweep or damp mop the floor it could be an issue.

There are also products like Khars to consider. Engineered but extremely good. These floors have a real hardwood top layer with the aluminum oxide wearlayer but since they are a locking product they allow for a smooth floor with no bevels. Of course you customer will probably have opinions about an engineered product being sub par to a solid wood product.

PrecisionFloors

There are prefinished products out there without a bevel, just an fyi.

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Mike Costello

You can tell him he isnt that anal if he has enough dirt in his house to collect in the grooves

hammerwhipped

It sometimes depends on the use of the space and how wide the planks are.
If the planks are 5"or wider it's best to use the engineered flooring because its less likelly to cup. But if this is for a kitchen go with the unfinished because it's better against spills/stains. In my opinion I would go with an unfinished product because it's eaiser to install and can be sanded and refinished many more times.