Prefinished Hardwood Flooring vs Site Finished Hardwood Flooring

Which is better. Prefinished hardwood flooring or site finished hardwood flooring? Well, there are pros and cons to both.

Prefinished hardwood flooring is a wood floor that is finished at the factory. Unfinished hardwood, whether engineered or solid hard wood, will have a urethane finish applied at a finishing facility. This urethane wear layer will be infused with aluminum oxide and UV cured. This system produces a very hard finish that is resistant to scratching and gouging.  This type of system will provide the hardest surface for a residential hardwood flooring job.

A site finished hardwood floor will consist of an unfinished solid wood floor of any wood species installed. After installation of the unfinished wood floor, the floor will be sanded down and sealed. After sealing the floor, 2 or more coats of urethane will be applied to finish the floor. One advantage to this type of system is the floor itself will be totally sealed (at least at first it will be). This keeps water from getting between the boards which can cause damage. As time goes by and seasons with varying humidity levels pass, the wood floor itself will expand and contract causing cracks between the individual boards. Now the floor is no longer totally sealed from the top and probably negates the only advantage to this type of wood floor.

Another advantage of a prefinished hardwood flooring product is that the finish is already applied and dry so you can walk all over it once its installed. A site finished product will take days to completely cure and most people will have to stay out of their house during the finishing process. This can be very inconvenient.

Lastly, unlike in the past, prefinished hardwood flooring is more cost effective. It costs less to install a prefinished product than it does to install, sand down and finish an unfinished wood floor. So overall, I would almost always recommend a prefinished wood floor over a site finished wood floor.






Jeff Dean
Dover Floor Covering
http://www.doverfloorcovering.com