Prefinished Hardwood Floors- How Useful It Is?

We all know what benefits hardwood floors come associated with. And that is one of the chief reasons why a majority of people choose hardwood as a flooring option for their household. But installing hardwood floors is a costly affair.

Added to that, it involves a lot of mess and exposure to toxic fumes. So what can be a better alternative?

This is where prefinished hardwood floors come into action. Such kind of flooring has been a lot more common these days, and due to their easy installation procedures, have risen to fame quite quickly.

In this blog, we will discuss prefinished hardwood floors and whether it is the correct choice for your home or not.

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Table of Contents

What is prefinished hardwood flooring?

As the name suggests, prefinished hardwood flooring is nothing but normal hardwood flooring planks, that are already being coated with sealant and stain.

These kinds of hardwood flooring planks are available readily in the market and act as a far better alternative because of their aesthetics and their ease of installation. Added to that, installing these floorboards do not involve the discharge of toxic fumes, which is a piece of good news for hardwood floor contractors.

Is prefinished hardwood flooring better?

While installing hardwood floors, the challenge lies in the part where after complete installation, the floorboards have to be coated with stains and a sealant to cover the crevices in between.

This part of staining and sealing involves the discharge of toxic gases that is very much harmful to you as well as to the installers involved in performing the job.

These are absent when you choose prefinished hardwood flooring. What you need to do is, choose floorboards according to your taste and preference, and contact any hardwood floor installation service to do the last part of the job.

Therefore, it can be easily concluded that prefinished hardwood flooring is any day a better option to choose rather than traditional hardwood flooring.

How long do hardwood floors last?

Hardwood flooring, as we all know, is widely popular because of its durability and longevity. If maintained properly, hardwood floors are even said to last for centuries!

You just need to do proper sanding and refinishing at intervals of say 5 to 7 years to keep the floor condition optimal. This helps in two ways. One- the floor surface looks like new again, and two- it helps to get rid of scratches, dents, and splinters.

Therefore, it is preferable to contact professional wood floor repair for the effective completion of such kinds of jobs.

Can prefinished hardwood be stained?

Well definitely yes. Prefinished hardwood floors can surely be stained, even though the job happens to be arduous.

The tough part of this aspect is removing the pre-coated stain from the surface of the floorboards. Since the planks come finished from factories, it might get a little challenging to remove the factory-finished satin coating from the surface.

After the initial layer of the stain is sanded off, you can easily apply a new coating of stain on the planks.

Disadvantages of prefinished hardwood flooring

Now let us look at some of the drawbacks that you should keep in mind while choosing prefinished hardwood flooring-

Design options are limited

Unlike traditional hardwood floorings where you get to choose from a plethora of design options, prefinished hardwood flooring comes with only a few of them. Prefinished floor planks come with limited wood varieties (out of which most are maple and red oak), and grain patterns.

Durability

Well, durability is one of the aspects that comes under ‘benefits’. So why is it also a drawback now? Well, it is really difficult to sand and refinish the surface of prefinished hardwood floors. The surface layer comes factory-finished, and hence takes a lot of time and effort to wear off. So if you hire professionals, it would also cost you a lot.

Plank length and width

Prefinished floor planks come in limited plank length and width options. So, if your requirement meets its standards, you would have no problem choosing. But if it doesn’t, you might face difficulties owing to the limited plank width and length options that these planks come in.

FAQs On Prefinished Hardwood Flooring

Is prefinished hardwood more expensive?

No. On the contrary, the planks are expensive but installation costs are less. Therefore, what you would’ve spent on traditional hardwood flooring becomes equal in the case of prefinished hardwood flooring (including installation charges).

Is prefinished hardwood waterproof?

No matter what kind of hardwood it is, traditional as well as prefinished, the floorboards are not waterproof. They tend to soak moisture.

Is prefinished hardwood the same as engineered?

No, prefinished hardwood is different from engineered hardwood. The latter variant usually happens to be a collection of laminate floorboards that have a thin layer of hardwood pasted above them. Engineered hardwood flooring generally comes in floating floor variants.