Getting to Know Pre-Finished Hardwood Flooring

Home improvement projects are the costliest and timeliest endeavors for many homeowners. They can be minor, like repainting walls, or massive, like adding another room, but the effort, time, and money spent are consistent factors. Installing hardwood floors is no exception to that, but the creation of pre-finished hardwood floors makes the process easier. Get to know more about the upsides of using pre-finished hardwood flooring in your home with this guide.

What is Pre-Finished Hardwood?

Pre-finished hardwood flooring is solid hardwood flooring that has been sanded, sealed, and ready to install on your subfloors. After professional hardwood flooring installers finish the installation, homeowners only need to sweep the place and can already use their new floors.

A typical hardwood flooring installation makes use of site-finished planks. Unlike pre-finished hardwood, they come with a bare surface and need sanding, sealing, and polishing after nailing them down. With site-finished hardwood floors, accessing your new floor would take days due to the other procedures after laying the planks. Wood coats or finishes would take a day or two to dry out and get rid of the smell from your space.

The main characteristic of a pre-finished hardwood plank is its thick layers of urethane coating. Each plank can have at least five coats of finish, which is uniform with the rest of your flooring. In a way, this type of hardwood flooring almost has an onion skin-like quality. Instead of the typical polyurethane finish, pre-finished strips have solid aluminum oxide-impregnated urethane finish.

Although site-finished flooring was the standard for the past decade or two, pre-finished hardwood flooring continued to gain popularity. In recent years, more flooring stores are now offering hardwood in the pre-finished category.

The Pros of Pre-Finished Hardwood Floors

Hardwood flooring comes with several benefits to homeowners. With pre-finished hardwood floors, remodelers get additional perks, especially in saving time, energy, and labor costs. The installation process of hardwood floorings is the most time-consuming part of owning them. Here are some reasons why using pre-finished hardwood planks is more convenient for you and your project.

No Odor

Pre-finished hardwood flooring has layers of factory-applied finish. Unlike site-finished hardwood floors, homeowners don’t need to apply any coating or finish on their new wooden floors after installation. By the time you lay the pre-finished planks on your floor, the odors from the urethane finish are non-existent because they were all applied and dried at the factory before reaching your home. Once you finish installing your new hardwood floorings, no chemical odors will permeate and damage your indoor air quality.

Better Coating

One of the issues some homeowners have with their hardwood flooring finishes is the uneven thickness of the coats in certain parts of the area. While this concern isn’t as problematic as other irreparable damage, it can be a repetitive minor inconvenience. Uneven coats often happen when you apply your coatings with a brush dripping with polish and drag it on the floor until the tip is free of excess liquid. The problem can also be refinishing old hardwood floors without properly sanding them beforehand.

Pre-finished hardwood flooring has an even coating of urethane finish with the help of factory equipment. In addition, the polish used for these planks is thicker, and with its layered application, it becomes a hard shell. Due to its uniform polish, the hardwood can resist scratching and gouges better than usual.

Quick Installation

The best perk you can get from buying pre-finished hardwood planks is how quickly you can install them. Once you finish laying them out and nailing them on your floor, you and your family can walk on and use them immediately.

With site-finished hardwood flooring, you need to invest more time in sanding, sealing, and eventually coating them with your desired finish. The process of cleaning, sanding, and polishing can take hours, and waiting for the coat to dry out and remove the chemical odor will take an extra day or two.

In addition, pre-finished planks don’t require sanding. During installation, floor sanding creates a far dustier environment and worsens indoor air quality. The sanding process also invades every part of your house, and cleaning every nook and cranny is tedious.

Easy Purchase

The gaining popularity of pre-finished hardwood flooring is mainly due to the convenience it provides to remodelers. The increasing approval rates from hardwood installers allow new flooring buyers to purchase these planks easier than unfinished wood strips. Nowadays, most flooring stores offer pre-finished hardwood floorings for buyers. While unfinished or site-finished hardwood floors are still available, you may need to get a special order that will take days to arrive.

Pre-finished Hardwood Floors and Hardwood Flooring Services in Austin, TX

Pre-finished hardwood floors are one of the most worthwhile investments you can have in your home. Besides the benefits of hardwood flooring, you can also enjoy the other perks of installing pre-finished planks. Unlike unfinished hardwood strips, the installation process is faster and more convenient. Due to this, you have twice the durability of your wooden floors and can enjoy them immediately.

Talk with the best hardwood flooring installers in Austin by getting in touch with Kelly Hardwood Floors today!