FLOORS : When a Floor’s Too Beat to Refinish, Consider Pre-Finished

If you can’t face the thought of refinishing your old wood floors, this advice is for you. The sanding, dust and fumes associated with this time-consuming, messy job aren’t something most folks look forward to.

Although a properly maintained wood floor can last a lifetime, years of neglect and abuse make some old floors practically beyond repair. In extreme cases, a floor can be so worn that another sanding will expose tongue-and-groove joints.

There is an alternative to floor refinishing that may appeal to some old-house owners. It involves installing a new pre-finished laminated wood floor right over the old. (Some folks even go as far as installing a new pre-finished solid wood floor. But this usually involves pulling up the old flooring).

While using new flooring won’t appeal to purists, some of today’s products look quite authentic and will be perfectly acceptable to many old-house owners.

No matter how abused your old wood floor is, it must be sound to successfully accept a new wood covering. That means that old floor must be flat with no buckling or loose boards. The boards must be repaired first, along with any cracks or spots where the wood moves up and down. If you’ve got any offensive squeaks, do your best to eliminate them now, because you’re likely to find the squeaks in the same spots in your new floor.

Your best repair option is to simply face-nail or screw the boards into the floor joists. Just make sure that the nail or screw heads are flush or set below the surface of the old flooring.

One of the easiest alternatives to floor refinishing is choosing to cover that old, damaged floor with a pre-finished laminated planking. Although you’ll find different offerings from the various manufacturers, here are some generalities so you’ll know what to expect with this type of flooring.

Most laminated flooring is one-half-inch or three-eighths-inch thick and, as its name implies, is composed of several layers of wood. The lamination of these layers improves the floor’s stability and restricts movement.

For example, the laminated plank flooring we’re most familiar with is three-ply oak. The top grain runs one way, say north to south, while the middle ply or core runs the other way, say east to west. The back or bottom ply runs north to south again.

So, even though the wood is bound to expand and contract, this cross-grain lamination means that wood is pulling against itself, which won’t allow expansion. That’s why laminated wood flooring is considered more stable than the solid wood products.