Hi all, I am getting maple strip flooring on my floor. i'm not sure if its pre-finished or not. i heard that pre-finished is not good and that if you scratch it or spill water on it, you can't fix it. is this true? what have you heard about this?
and what exactly happens if you spill water on it?
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I can tell you that flooring came from a very well regarded store that's been in business a long time, major manufacturer (Canadian) so unless the mfg slipped in some lesser goods, it was supposed to be a good quality floor with a 20 year warranty and all but the warning is fair game.
Re: engineered floors. Most engineered floors have the same thickness of solid wood as you will find above the tongue and groove assembly on solid. This means most engineered floors can be refinished similarly to solid. The "veneer" concept is a popular misconception.
Reading DBDs bad experience with prefinished brings to mind that while she paid for high end, she was probably not given it. A nasty little contractor trick that applies to many materials esp. roofing and flooring. There is a bustling black market for hardwood floors and the counterfeit stuff comes complete with look-alike packaging for the real deal! You need to be very careful who you are dealing with and what you are getting.
I got a very bad taste for prefinished in one new build I had. It was a dark stain, good company, good quality, and it drove me nuts. The company finally pulled it out and replaced it because of the problems I had with it but it annoyed me to no end for them to say I should get a light colour just so I wouldn't notice the type of issues the floor had. This, to me, is not a something you tell a customer. "you know you won't see the defects if you get a different colour". Give me a break. How about no defects?
Anyway, I did get water on that floor (the dishwasher overflowed the first time I used it) and it seeped between the joints even though I was right there mopping it up. That was the kill point for me as a site finished floor doesn't have that issue at all as the joints aren't there to let the water seep . A few drips aren't an issue but a full glass of something spilling could mean you get that seeping.
Anyway, because the finish is basically only on the top of the boards, they swelled and the finish came peeling off. Along with that, the gaps in the floor boards (they are allowed to leave up to the width of a credit card between boards) and the stain/finish only going so far down the sides meant I saw stripes of natural wood colour shooting across my floor. They also were visible where they cut the length of the board as that stain ends on the top when that happens. Again, that wouldn't happen with a site stained and sealed floor. The little grooves also meant vacuuming to get the dust and crumbs out vs just dry mopping.
Now the house I have now has a pre-finished floor but it has no bevels and is laid tight, no spaces of any sort. Even being a dark stain it's not got the same issues as that higher priced one I had in that new house. So installation and edge type is everything but the folks who did that new house were well regarded, had done it all as per normal standards, and it just didn't cut it at all.
In two houses I've had the site stained and sealed and it was a breeze to live with. I think the finish was harder too although I have no idea if that was because they were older floors (and maybe had a more durable finish on them) or what, but they didn't scratch the way the one in this house or that new house did. They still scratch, just not as easily with me living about the same way in all of them. Three of those floors of mine were oak, one was maple (the one in the new house).
What you may run into is builders and installers prefer the pre-finished as it's a lot less work for them. It's actually getting quite difficult to find stores/builders who will even consider site stained/sealed installs because it takes them 3 or 4 days vs 1 to do and the place has to be dust free for the finish to be right. So way more hassle for them.
Meanwhile if I can warn you about anything, when you are picking out floors, if you go with pre-finished take a look at the samples they make up very closely. Just looking from above will not show you how the stain is on the sides. You need to bring it up to eye level and look across the sample to see it. Yes, keeping the stain close to the original wood colour helps a lot but that does limit what colours you can choose. Also educate yourself on the hardness of each type of wood.
For refinishing, all wood is limited by how thick it is. They can refinish pre-finished just as with any wood but the number of times is the same issue when it comes to how much wood will be removed. So the engineered floors have almost no chance because they are more of veneer, while solid wood gives you the option. Unless you are really hard on floors you shouldn't have to refinish more often than every 10 years or more. Also there are new products out now that can be applied to 'renew' finishes if they are applied before the top coat is totally worn off so that can save some time and expense I suppose.
And when it comes to that parquet... yes it's usually glued down. I would imagine a call to a flooring store would get you info on how they remove it. It might make more sense to cut it out, subfloor and all and take it out in sheets. That would save labour time and I guess you'd have to price out that and laying a new subfloor vs trying to keep the existing subfloor intact. You can hope the original install was not up to par and maybe it will come up easily...
Ha! Well we've been renovating for about 15 years now, and I tend to research the heck out of anything I do, so I've picked up a few things here and there! I know parquet is normally glued down. "Ruined" would be a bit of a gamble. If its really well glued, you'll end up with a lot of residue and probably some bits of parquet stuck to your subfloor. With some effort I imagine you can get the subfloor to the point where you can either refloor directly over it or you can put down another layer of sub over it to start fresh. In some situations you can put a new floor over a finished floor, but personally it would never be my first choice.
since you know so much about this stuff, let me as you another question. i heard that if you remove parquet, it willl ruin the subfloor because the parquet is glued on. is this true? does the subfloor generally have to be replaced when removing parquet?
Old school snobbery mostly! It costs more and is more work so it must be better, right? Actually, early prefinished floors (like the first generation of just about anything) really were not very good. The technology and methodology has come a long way and it is by far the most common installation now. But there are still lots of people who like the old school way of doing anything. Other reasons for site finished is that you can be very custom in terms of stain colour and finish (eg just oiled, different levels of gloss on poly, etc.), there is no micro-bevel between the boards, and the film of finish goes right across the joints between boards. On that last point, this can be a plus or a minus. All wood floors expand and contract with fluctuations in humidity levels. Because site finished floors have the finish (poly) going right across all the boards, expansion and contraction can cause some cracking of the finish on the joints. The more stable your humidity, the less of an issue that would be.
so why would someone want hardwood floors finished at the site instead of having them pre-finished and then installed? it seems to me its better to have it pre-finished because finishing them at the site means finishing them in a dusty area.
For sure. As long as you are talking about real hardwood (ie not laminate). Real hardwood (both solid and engineered) can be sanded and refinished, generally up to 3 times. With pre-finished, the first time is a bigger job because of the harder finish and the bevel, but its all doable. Refinishing floors is a job for the pros anyway. We did our own once. Then we found out what it would have cost to have it professionally done. It really was not worth the time and money we put into it ourselves!
hi, thanks for your detailed reply. I bought my house from a builder so the house is still not built yet. i'm picking my floor from the samples they have so i'm not sure what quality i'm getting. but i do know that i'm paying for good quality. ;) I just hope i get it. but i'm not so sure i will.
so you're saying even with pre-finished maple hardwood, i can still sand it down and stain it again? i thought I couldn't with prefinished stuff.
Nothing happens to it. Most hardwood installed these days is pre-finished. It just makes life easier. Also, prefinished hardwood generally has 5 - 7 coats of finish and is UV baked on. Site finished generally has only 2 - 3 coats, air dried. Both can be refinished on site, generally 2 or 3 times. The "downside" of prefinished, if you consider it one, is that there is a slight groove at each joint, though most good companies are using such a micro-bevel now that it is pretty irrellevant. I have prefinished hardwood throughout my main floor, including by three entrances and in the kitchen. I spill water on it daily. Also coffee, food, road salt and a million other things. It still looks great. Small spills have sometimes sat for a day or so before being noticed. No problem. If you have a big sprawling spill, just clean it up right away, which I would hope you would do anyway! The real catch is - buy good quality and install it right. A good quality pre-finished floor will look great for years! There are $2.50 per square foot floors and there are $20 per square foot floors. Generally, if you go to a good flooring place, expect to pay in the $6 - $8 range for decent prefinished flooring in a non-exotic wood, plus installation (generally $2 - $4 per sq foot, depending on the details of the job). We got Mirage flooring, generally considered to be a good consumer brand. Vintage is another, and also Mercier.