Flooring Solutins
Wood Flooring Prefinished
When most people say prefinished hardwood floor, they mean solid wood strip floor. These are generally in widths of 4″ or less. A prefinished plank floor over 4″ is a poorly designed product, and I’ve been hearing all winter of these amazing shrinking floors. Go to the plank floor section of the Hardwood Authority and you’ll soon realize that you cannot screw and peg a prefinished floor.
There are a few things to look for. One is the fit, do the pieces slide together easily by hand? Are they well-milled, and stored in a dry environment? Look at how well the side edges fit, is there a bumpy feeling when you run you hand across the boards, or is it reasonably smooth. You should be aware that this product will look it’s best installed on a perfectly flat subfloor. Check to see if your subfloor is really that flat and level. If it isn’t, you should consider a sand-on-site hardwood floor.
After you’re quite convinced that you’ve found the floor with the right fit, let’s now discuss finishes. All the manufacturers claim to have the best, longest lasting, more coats, less coats but harder, and on an on. What’s one to do? The only real test for scratch resistance, (and isn’t that really what we’re concerned about) is to bring along a piece of extra fine steel wool. This may alarm some sales people in the showroom, but they will have some cut off samples for you to work on. So far the only finishes that will resist the scrubbing of extra fine steel wool are the Polynium ®, or aluminum oxide conversion finishes. SHOP IN USA
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