While hardwood floors have a long lifespan, they can only be refinished around ten times before a replacement is due. When hardwoods have been refinished one too many times, the grooves in the planks and nails begin to show.
Refinish When:
Things like dents and dings from heavy foot traffic or pet claws may make your floors look dull and worn, but that doesn't mean that they have to be replaced. Simply sanding and refinishing your hardwoods should make them once more smooth and pristine without the hassle and expense of replacing them.
A quality hardwood floor can be sanded down and refinished at least six times, and up to ten times before you need to replace it. You can change the color, closely match and replace warped, stained, or termite ingested planks, silence squeaky boards, and fill gaps or patch knots.
Hardwood flooring can be re-sanded up to 10 times, depending on how bad the floor is and how skilled the person doing the sanding is. It costs about $2.50 per square foot to refinish a floor, plus $50 an hour for patching and thresholds.
In general, it will almost ALWAYS be less expensive to refinish your hardwood floors. If you replace them, you need to pay for additional wood as well as ripping up and hauling away existing hardwood.
Installing hardwood flooring averages between $6 and $12 per square foot. On average, wood flooring costs between $3 and $7 per square foot for materials and $3 to $5 per square foot for labor. An estimate for installation of 1000 square feet of hardwood flooring runs between $6,000 and $12,000.
If your hardwood floors have been sanded and finished with Bona Mega Clear HD, it is safe to sleep in the home about 2-3 hours after the project is finished, but again, only if there are other rooms that have not been robbed of their furniture – furniture should stay off floors for at least 24 hours after ANY project ...
On average, a hardwood flooring finish lasts approximately ten years. But with proper care and maintenance, it can last much longer.
Since most hardwood planks are manufactured with tongue and groove to interlock, it is necessary to leave at least 1/8 of an inch of wood at the top of the board, above the tongue and groove, for a complete refinish. It may be possible to refinish the floors if the boards are thinner than 1/8 of an inch.
You may be able to refinish your flooring up to three times if the wear layer measures at least three millimeters thick. A wear layer that's less than two-millimeter thick can sustain damage if you refinish it more than once. Essentially, the thinner your wear layer is, the fewer times you should refinish it.
"The two best indicators to tell if a wood floor is not salvageable are cracking or breakage along the perimeter of individual planks, and exposed nailheads—meaning the flooring has been sanded down so much the heads of the original blind nails are exposed," says Murray.
VOC Off-Gassing
Most finishes will be mostly dry after 24 hours fully dried after 4 days. Potential harm can be greatly reduced by simply allowing proper ventilation of parts of the home with finish applied.
A final sure-fire sign that your hardwood floors are in need of a replacement is extreme wear. While hardwood floors have a long lifespan, they can only be refinished around ten times before a replacement is due. When hardwoods have been refinished one too many times, the grooves in the planks and nails begin to show.
So is it possible to pull up hardwood floors and reinstall them? Yes, this is definitely possible. Since they are environment-friendly and extremely durable, hardwood floors are often reused when remodeling or building a home. They also offer better aesthetics and lower costs than buying new materials.
Once you start seeing signs of wear and tear in these areas, start thinking about adding another coat of finish for more protection. A general time frame is every 3-5 years or so, depending on how much traffic your floor sees.
You can undertake to refinish yourself — but the professional treatment is sure to leave you most satisfied. Resurfacing your floor involves more than just putting a layer of polish on top. It may require removing old floorboards, grinding down uneven boards, and reinforcing wood planks with new nails.
Since normal sanding will remove from 1/64 to 1/32 of the wood surface, the surface can be sanded from 6 to 10 times or more, before the floor needs to be replaced entirely. If the floor is resurfaced every 10 to 20 years, the floor will last for a century or more.
The acid in animal urine or vomit can damage the finish and the wood floor boards. Large, active dogs with long, sharp nails digging into hardwood can cause scratches and dents. Spilled food or water, when left for extended periods of time, can seep into hardwood plank seams and lead to unsightly water damage.
Unless your floors are very old and thin or have structural or water damage, chances are they can be saved. If you want a new or exotic type of wood or are unhappy with the current pattern or thickness of your floorboards, you may want to consider replacing them.
Your beloved hardwood floors' aesthetic can be easily upended by a rogue board with water damage, cracks, or grooves. But try not to fret—you can replace individual wood planks on your own without having to replace the entire floor.
It is a terrible idea to sleep or stay in a house after staining floors. The stain fumes are often overwhelming and highly toxic. In addition, exposure to such a stinky smell for long periods of time can trigger severe breathing problems and other health issues to both humans and pets.
Furniture should be removed if all floors in a house must be refinished. Moving the furniture from room to room is difficult and time-consuming. Instead, removing the furniture from the house requires only two moves, instead of constant shifting throughout the refinishing process.
As a general rule, we recommend leaving your base and shoe on when having your floors refinished, especially if it is painted. Depending on how the painters prepped your base, you can actually cause more damage to the base and walls by removing it.