Refinish and repair old oak floors or replace with new?

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Save your money and restore your old hardwood floors

The question always arises: should I reuse what I have or buy a new floor? Right? New is exciting and fun because we get to shop around, make choices and get something that is – well; new! The thought of this is much more exciting than looking at what we have had for years, thinking how to make it better and more interesting. Hardwood floors are an asset and as such, should be looked at as a long term investment and not a temporary floor covering. These floors had been in service for more than a 100 years in a lot of homes.

Unfortunately, the craft of working with wood floors is slowly disappearing. The number of floor contractors who can tackle a really good sanding job is going down every year. If you have an old wood floor that has some blemishes, or even some boards are buckling – this floor can be sanded, repaired and finished to last you years to come. Then, you could use the money your saved on other things.

Let’s take this floor for example, an old top nail white oak floor. This floor was covered with different carpets over the years, had been urinated on by dogs, had carpet shampoo flood some areas and that’s just some of it. Well, most contractors that came to quote on that floor suggested a new floor instead of repairing and sanding the old. That is because they were not qualified to do such work.

We came in, repaired the floor where needed, added some new at the entry way and did our usual stain and finish to the highest standards.

The home owner was thrilled with the outcome, and was even happier to be able to spend his money on new furniture, instead of a new floor.

We mainly work in our immediate area which includes the 80 corridor from Oakland to Pinole, with more areas served like Lamorinda and walnut creek. We had spent the last 20 years restoring old floor, and installing new hardwood floors. Be certain that we will recommend the best option for you, not to our pocket.

Before Refinish White Oak San Pablo
Before Refinish White Oak San Pablo

Before Refinish White Oak San Pablo

After Refinish White Oak San Pablo
After Refinish White Oak San Pablo

After Refinish White Oak San Pablo

Coronavirus: How Avi’s Hardwood Floors Makes Your Life Safer

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Top Three Reasons for Hiring Us Post COVID 19 Outbreak

At Avi’s Hardwood Floors we take your health and ours very seriously. While over the years we invested in top of the line machinery to keep your house free from dust, now we take extreme measure to leave your house as sanitized as possible. Read more

Repairing, Sanding and Finishing a 100 Year Old Floor

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Repairing, sanding and finishing a 100 year old floor can be challenging to most, sometimes even to the best of contractors. The unknowns of things like wood species, install technique and finish types can add up pretty quickly into a big challenge to match.

In this blog I will walk you through a job we just completed in Piedmont, California. The floor was a solid parquet with stain and original finish on it. We had to sand, stain, repair and finish it with our modern tools and finishes. Read more

Hardwood Floor Installation Disaster

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We got a call from a reputable contractor to fix a newly installed white oak floor in Berkeley, CA. When I showed up to look at the floor, it was already cupping and separating from the sub floor. There were multiple humps a couple of inches high, and this oak floor needed to be replaced. The hardwood floor was in place for less than a month, and was part of a kitchen remodel.

I checked the moisture content in the floor and the sub floor, visually inspected the crawl space and tested the floor for proper nailing schedule. All of my tests came at a big fail for each category. The moisture level was too high in both the floor and the sub floor, the heat was off in the house, the fasteners were the wrong gauge and the floor was the wrong type. Evidently, the owner and the contractor knew of the moisture issues and flooded crawl space, and didn’t think it would have any effect on the new floor, since there are wood floors throughout the home already.

Everyone wants to save money, and it is just fine and perfectly understood. Saving money on installation of new wood floors isn’t smart. Wood moves at all times. Every time the relative humidity changes – wood moves. It is only in the hands of a true floor professional to decide which floor is best suited for your home. Read more

Piedmont Remodel – Adding New Floors and Refinishing Existing

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We work a lot in the Piedmont area refinishing 100 year old oak floors and repairing them. This time the clients wanted us to add white oak floors to their addition, and refinish their old floors so that in the end everything matched.

After a quick visit to the site, inspecting the construction of the new sub floors and moisture conditions I advised my clients to use an unfinished engineered white oak. That was of course of great quality with a thick layer of veneer on top that can be sanded several times.

The conditions inside the addition didn’t permit installing solid floors without them buckling. There was too much concrete poured around and under the sub floors, and the addition was cut into the hill so we treated it as below grade install.

After acclimating the new white oak floors, we installed the floors throughout the addition. The design was a classy look for this old Piedmont home; big spaces with plenty details in the finish carpentry.

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Can I Refinish my Engineered Floors?

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Over the past decade engineered floors became the go to product in a lot of areas. Manufacturers were driving more flooring products in engineered form into the market as demand grew. Engineered floors were at first just a plywood core with a very thin veneer or real wood on top. Most of them could not be refinished, so when the wear and tear took toll on the floor it had to be replaced. That was in a lot of cases very costly to the home owner.

We recently had to refinish another engineered floor. The floor was red oak veneer over plywood core. We had absolutely no wiggle room with the sanding. The veneer was very thin. We turned the yellow creamy looking red oak into a dark brown espresso color within two days. The home owner was stunned to see the transformation, especially after hearing so many other contractors say they could not refinish that floor.

When it is time to make the decision you have two options: hire a professional to sand the floors or replace it. Refinishing the floor is a small expense in comparison to a full blown hardwood floors replacement, especially if that engineered floor is glued to concrete, which is the case in most homes here in the Bay Area.

Like our past client, take the time to research the professionals in this area. You’ll soon find out that many contractors don’t know and can’t sand such a thin wood floor and so they’ll quote you on a floor replacement. Not knowing much about wood floors you might end up accepting their recommendation and spending your good earned money for no good reason on a brand new product.

Engineered floors have one thing going for them – there’s real wood veneer! If that veneer is thick enough we can refinish it. We had saved so many floors and saved so much money to our clients over the years. With a full dustless refinish process combined with our well qualified crew your engineered wood floors can also be transformed.

Click to enlarge photos

Which is the Best finish for my Wood Floors?

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Sanded-Hardwood-FloorsWe all want to protect our wood floors with the best finish available so we don’t have to do it all over again, right? Most our clients who choose to install new hardwood floors in the East Bay are concerned about the future of their floors. One client in Berkeley, CA asked me what finish would be best living with a big dog in the house. Another one in El Cerrito wanted to know what finish would protect their wood floors from water damage. The answer to this question is very simple: choose a professional to apply a commercial finish on your floor, maintain it properly and you should be fine. There is no one magic floor finish that does it all, after all we all walk on these finishes every day.

There are many choices of finish out there, here is a table exploring some of the characteristics of the main finishes used in the wood flooring market these days:

Finish Type

Color

Approximate Drying Time

Approximate Cure Time

Aging Color

Approximate VOC

Pros

Cons

Oil Base Urethane

Amber

overnight

7 days

Amber

500 g/L

Durable, ages nicely, easy to repair

Strong smell, dries slowly

Water Base Urethane

Clear

3-4 hours

Approximately 80% in 3 days

yellow

210 g/L

Durable, lower VOC, dries and cures fast

Results vary depend on product

Wax Oil Blend

All colors

overnight

7 days

Depends on color

zero

Easy to maintain, no VOC

No resin build up on the floor like oil and water finishes

Staining Wood Before Finishing

All colors

3-4 hours for light colors overnight for dark colors

7 days

N/A

550 g/L

n/

n/a

All finishes require regular maintenance.

All finishes will scratch.

All finishes will wear with regular use overtime.

All finishes can be repaired or restored with different results.

There is no magic product that cures in a day and will never need refinishing. It all comes down to which look you like and how you would be using the floors. Applied correctly all finishes will stand the test of time.

Five Top Reasons why Oak is still the Floor of Choice

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Oak floors stained dark brownMany years ago almost every wood floor installed was either oak or pine, depending on where you lived in the U.S. These days you can choose whatever wood your heart desires from hundreds of wood flooring choices sourced throughout the world. Nonetheless, white oak and red oak floors are still the number one choice for many home owners, designers and architects. Here are the top reasons:

  1. Availability – oak is sourced right here in the U.S. that means that every accessory item needed is in stock. From oak molding to your door trim to stair parts and baseboards. It would be a shame to buy a beautiful wood floor and not be able to have all these accessories available. In some cases, like exotic woods or engineered floors those items are available on special order only, which means a lot of money and long lead times.
  2. Cost – oak has maintained its’ price over decades of ups and downs in the market. Very affordable and as such, attractive to many home owners.
  3. Versatility – between being able to buy oak in vertical grain or flat grain, stain it to whatever color you like, get it in any width or thickness and choose between white or red oak you’re looking at endless design and color options just with one product. This right here is priceless. Let’s say you have an oak floor that is stained dark espresso and after five years you don’t like the color anymore. Well, just sand it and change the stain color. You can’t do this with any other wood.
  4. Value – researches show that you double your investment in value when it comes to putting in oak floors in your home. Homes with oak floors sell faster than homes with other floor coverings. Buyers look for something they can work with. Even if they don’t like the honey color red oak floors in your home, they know that they can hire a professional to refinish the floors and make them look different. That is a much cheaper option than having to replace a floor they can’t work with.
  5. Environment – oak that is harvested here in the U.S is legally and controlled harvested. What does it mean? It means that we don’t clear cut forests here like other parts of the world. Engineers mark trees they allow to be cut and that is sustained harvesting. Where you can keep going back to the forest and cut trees while still maintaining the environment in the long term. Did you know we have more trees in the U.S today than we did a hundred years ago?

Next time you look at wood floors and need to make a choice, don’t dismiss oak so quickly. If you look around long enough you’ll see that white and red oak wood floors had been here for hundreds of years and will still be here for hundreds more, for a lot of good reasons.

Fixing Badly Sanded Hardwood Floors

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Sanded-Hardwood-FloorsWe were called again to fix a floor that was badly sanded. After a water leak damaged the wood floor in a home in Lafayette, the insurance company brought in their hardwood flooring guys to fix the floor. The home owners assumed everything was going to be handled by the insurance company. Little did they know that the guys hired to refinish the wood floors were just plain horrible. The home owners returned to their house to discover a disaster: dust everywhere, gauges in their baseboards and an uneven floor.

Shortly after their discovery the home owners found Avi’s Hardwood Floors and contacted me for an estimate. When I got there it was obvious the floors needed a full refinish and the baseboards needed replacement. After closely inspecting the stairs we also decided to replace all the decorative molding on the stairs.

After a long while of the owners dealing with their insurance company we finally got the green light. The owners knew we were up to the challenge but like anyone who’s been through a bad experience, it was obvious they were concerned with the outcome. After all this was the second and last shot at the sanding, otherwise the floor would have to be replaced because there would not be much wood left to sand. We showed up on time and started stripping the finish off the floor while making the floors flat. This took a little while and the more we sanded the more we realized how bad the sanding job was. In some places we could not take the gauges out without replacing the boards. By looking at the scratch pattern on the floors we determined that one of the tools used on the floor by the other guys was – A grinder.

That explained the small circular scratches in the wood, the long deep gauges and the damaged baseboards. The owners were scheduled to stay at the house the first part of the sanding, then leave for the staining and finishing phase. Once we finished the final sanding I could see a big relief in the owner’s eyes. They were watching us sanding the floors at times and expressed their appreciation in our effort to keep everything clean and the floor flat. We made a custom stain color for them at their request to minimize the gold and yellow in their red oak floor. We applied the stain coat on a Friday so that we could let it dry for three days. The pigments in dark stains like the ones we used are very heavy and require longer drying times. The following week while the owners were gone we applied three coats of commercial water base finish and installed all new baseboards and stair moldings throughout the working areas. I took the time to text pictures of our progress to the owners every day.

As usual we did the best we could and the floor came out as expected. Avi’s Hardwood Floors takes pride in doing the best on every job. It makes for happy clients and life easier on everyone knowing that a project only needed to be done once. 

Refinishing Brazilian Cherry Floors

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This time we were called to fix a wood floor someone else refinished badly. The owners got my name from researching online and finding my information on the National Wood Flooring Association website. It has been more than a month since the floor was refinished. The contractor had dust all over the home, the finished floor was streaky, had sanding marks everywhere and did not look good. The contractor told the owner to move the rugs and furniture back onto the floor only a couple of days after he was done. Obviously, it did sound strange to the owners but they figured they should listen to the professional. Long story short, the finish under the rugs was completely ruined from being covered so quickly without having time to cure. The sheen of the floor was uneven and the contractor who came back to fix the final coat just made it worse.

When I met with both the husband and wife I reassured them very quickly that I could fix this to their satisfaction. I explained to them who Avi’s Hardwood Floors was. We discussed my experience, education, training, tools and the high level of craftsmanship both my employees and myself constantly try to improve. To their request I pointed out everything I saw in the floor that I could fix. They were impressed by the number of details my trained eye could see. I also recommended a different finish on this exotic wood – Brazilian Cherry, a conversion varnish. They admitted that they could not see a lot of the things I noticed as I was walking them through the floor.

I sent them the quote the same day. They approved it immediately and we started the work. I assume between meeting me and reading information online about my company they knew we are the best.

With the project approved we scheduled the job. On the agreed upon date we showed up on time, sanded the floor to perfection and finished on schedule. We finished the work in about a week and this is how we did it:

  • We covered all appliances and cabinet surfaces in the kitchen with cardboards
  • We taped off our work areas
  • We vacuumed the floor before we sanded it
  • We sanded all existing imperfections in the wood floor utilizing both technique and the right tools
  • We then applied a conversion varnish over the floor and let it cure properly

There are a lot of guys out there who kind of know what they are doing when it comes to hardwood floor refinishing. I don’t blame them for not knowing what they don’t know. This is exactly the scenario we see at Avi’s Hardwood Floors every week. Make sure your contractor is qualified and capable of providing a quality service. Just because someone has a license and some tools doesn’t make them a professional. In this case the time wasted was two months from the time the first contractor did the floors and the time we completed the refinish/repair work.