Only the Best Hardwood Flooring in Cincinnati
I cannot count how many times we’ve heard a new client say “I don’t want prefinished hardwood floors and I don’t want engineered hardwood floors.” Through the years, these terms have earned a negative connotation when it comes to hardwood flooring in Cincinnati, and possibly for good reasons. Early prefinished floors had a cheap appearance and a limited selection. Most early engineered floors had a thin “rotary peeled” veneer that looked like plywood, could not be refinished and often delaminated. Early prefinished floors had a cheap appearance and a limited selection.
Hardwood Flooring in Cincinnati
Although there are still many “cheap” floors on the market, there are many excellent quality prefinished and engineered floors available today. My best advice is to avoid the carpet stores, the big box stores and the clearance stores and visit a store that only sells hardwood flooring. There, you are more likely to bypass all of the misinformation and receive the correct facts.
For starters, “engineered” and “prefinished” are not the same thing. They refer to two different aspects of wood flooring. “Engineered” refers to the way the flooring is manufactured. Engineered flooring consists of perpendicular layers of wood (usually Baltic birch) with a top wear layer of hardwood. It is designed this way to help prevent movement during varied levels of humidity. This makes the floor much more structurally stable and allows hardwood to be used in many more areas such as below grade and over radiant heat.
Higher quality engineered products that can be found at custom wood floor showrooms, like Mansion Hill Custom Floors, feature a thicker wear layer that can be refinished as many times as a solid wood floor.
“Prefinished” simply means that the stain and finish are applied to the flooring before it is installed. Many finishes that are used on a prefinished floor are stronger than finishes that can be applied on the job site. Prefinished floors lack the imperfections that can be left by job site finishing such as sanding scratches, dust, dirt and application marks in the finish. Installing a prefinished floor can also eliminate the “downtime” on a project. If the floor is glued down, the floor can be walked on after approximately 24 hours. If the floor is nailed down, the floor can be walked on immediately therefore eliminating any time that the area cannot be used. In other words, you do not have to stay off of the newly installed floors or move out of your house while the floor is being sanded and finished. This method also eliminates the sanding dust, strong odor, dry time and cure time of a site-finished floor.
In summary, the next time that you need a hardwood floor installed,
do not be afraid to consider engineered or prefinished hardwood floors!