This is one of the most popular questions we have received over the last twenty years in the flooring business.
We believe this is a popular question for homeowners because you’ve made a substantial investment, and now you see some wear and tear on your floor, and you want to know: “How long will a floor last in my home? Have I purchased a ten-year floor, a twenty-year floor, or what?”
Answer: If you have purchased a solid wood or thick-veneered engineered wood floor then you have purchased a lifetime floor, and you can reset your floor like new without ever sanding it, simply by recoating it.
What? Is it really that simple? We believe it is.
Refresh your floor with a recoat, and without the cost and hassle of sanding.
From the 1940s through the 1990s, most floors were sanded and finished in the home. After a good deal of wear, a contractor came in, resanded, finished and stained the floor again. That was the only way to reset the wear and tear that happens naturally on the finish of a floor.
Today, that is no longer the case, many thanks to the rise of engineered flooring, and you can use a recoating process to make your floor look like new.
Recoating with finish removes surface scratches and marks, and refreshes the look of your floor, bringing it back to almost-new. By recoating, you don’t lose any wood fiber but instead preserve the design of the floor, including that specialty coloring you originally chose, while protecting the floor at the same time. You can essentially reset and truly have a lifetime floor.
How do you recoat your floor?
There are two ways to recoat a floor.
For you avid DYIers, you can do it yourself, but for most folks, we suggest going to a flooring tradesman. He or she will use a machine that lightly abrades the finish, preparing it to grab onto another finish layer. Then, a layer of urethane is applied on top.
A second way is through a cleaning procedure. This is a multi-step process which involves cleaning the floor and then putting down a formula that chemically abrades the floor, which prepares it for a new coat of finish.
Using either the abrasion or the liquid procedure allows you to get a new finish layer, thereby protecting all of your original floor’s texture and color, and giving the look of a brand-new floor.
If I really wanted to, can I sand and refinish my engineered or solid floor?
Answer: Yes, you can, if your top veneer is 3mm or greater.
On a traditional solid wood floor, the profile gives you a 6mm wear layer. If you sand it once, you take off about 1mm. Every subsequent sand will take the veneer down 1 mm or so. This figure partly depends on the sander’s method and expertise.
At Real Wood Floors, we’ve created some products with 3mm and more hardwood veneers, which allows for sanding following purchase.
You can have a lifetime floor by recoating.
You can have a lifetime floor if instead of sanding, you renew your floor through the recoat process. It has become more popular in recent years because recoating is a much faster method than a resand. Like resanding, you will have to remove items from your floors, but recoating is less invasive, and it won’t involve the dissemination of wood dust throughout your home. As well, there is less labor involved and it’s cheaper.
Recoating preserves all the value you have in your floor and gives you the same end result as far as finish protection and the ability to remove the wear and tear of the last decade or two. Recoating removes surface scratches, reprotects your floor, and gives you the much-desired appearance of a new floor.
If you have any questions about the recoating process, please get in touch via our website or by phone, 877.215.1831.