Elisabeth Stubbs

Refinishing hardwood floors every six to eight years helps keep the home where we live and play looking its best.

Did YouKnow?

7 Fun Flooring Facts

BY ELISABETH STUBBS

We are deluged with information every day. No one can retain it all! When you are shopping for floors, it’s especially hard to know what’s really important among all the information being circulated. Here are seven facts to help you decide what to prioritize when shopping for flooring:

Elisabeth Stubbs is one of the owners of Enhance Floors and More, one of Atlanta’s top-rated flooring dealers, located in Marietta. 1. Wool is considered the premier fiber in carpet construction, and it also is the most expensive. It is soft, with excellent resilience and durability, and it’s the greenest fiber that carpet is made from.

2. Site-finished hardwoods are installed raw (unfinished). Then, they are sanded, stained and coated with polyurethane in your home. You are able to select the stain color and gloss level of the floor.

3. Prefinished hardwood floors are fully manufactured and finished in the factory. A prefinished floor offers a quicker and more convenient installation, however you have fewer choices in stain color, etc. Both types of wood flooring (site-finished and prefinished) are available in solid and engineered wood.

Prefinished wood floors are real hardwood floors. Prefinished floor is composed of 100% hardwood. Most engineered wood floors can be sanded at least once, except veneers and heavily scraped/distressed floors. All ¾-inch solid, prefinished wood floors can be sanded numerous times.

4. Only a commercial loop carpet or a very low, tight Berber carpet will not show footprints. Textured carpets, friezes, cut and loops and loose Berbers will only minimize footprints.

5. How often you refinish a hardwood floor depends on the amount of traffic in your home and how well you take care of your floors. Generally speaking, the average homeowner needs another coat of polyurethane every six to eight years. Totally refinishing a floor only happens if you want to change the color of the floor or if the floor has been abused (deep scratches, gouges, discolorations).

6. Wood slowly changes color over time. It is very hard, if not impossible, to match a new wood floor to an older wood floor. For this reason, if you add more of the exact same prefinished flooring, no one will be able to guarantee a perfect color match. If you choose site-finished hardwoods, the stain color will be blended to match as closely as possible, but the most important thing to match is the wood grade, species, etc.

7. A floating floor is not attached directly to the subfloor. Panels are attached to each other and are installed over a pad. The floor is held in place by gravity, shoe mold and transitions. All laminates and most luxury vinyl planks and luxury vinyl tiles are floating floor systems.