What You DON’T Know About Prefinished Solid Timber Flooring

A prefinished timber floor is a floorboard which has been treated, coated and sealed in a factory and not during the installation process.  Solid timber floorboards need to be acclimatised to their environment to avoid the expansion and contraction of the wood.

Besides having to wait a long time for your floor to acclimatise, you’ll also need to leave your home for up to a week while the floor is sanded, polished and sealed. If the above situation doesn’t appeal to you, prefinished timber flooring would be a good option.

The Benefits of Prefinished Timber Flooring

1. You can walk on your floor the same day. Prefinished boards have already been sealed so you don’t have to wait for the coating to dry.

2. There is no mess! Unlike solid timer flooring, prefinished timber required no sanding on site meaning your home won’t be left covered with saw dust for months to come.

3. Your home won’t stink. When installing raw timber, the boards will be coated and polished in your home. This polish will leave your home with a strong smell for days if not weeks. Prefinished flooring means no fumes.

4. You won’t need to move out of your home during installation. Raw boards need not only time to settle but also time for the coatings to dry. This means you’re out of your home while all this is happening.

5. Scratch resistance is much higher with more layers of coating. When a floorboard is prefinished in a factory the coating procedure can be much more thorough and effective. Some prefinished boards are coated on multiple sides – see below.

6. No acclimatising is needed of the board. As mentioned above, raw solid timber flooring will need up to 6 weeks to acclimatise to the location. Prefinished floorboards are kiln-dried in a factory to the perfect moisture level ready to install.

7. No ugly nail holes in your floor. Prefinished boards will not need to be nailed down to prevent movement.

8. Easier to replace damaged floorboards without recoating your whole floor. If you damage a prefinished floorboard you can easily replace one board without affecting the look of your whole floor. A floor which is coated in the home will need a full recoating to ensure the whole floor matches.

Image: Prefinished Lifewood Spotted Gum timber flooring. Job was completed in just 1 day while our client was at work.

Be Aware Of Solid Prefinished Timber Flooring

Pre-finished timber should be engineered to prevent movement of the board. Solid timber flooring is too difficult to keep flat, even when put through the proper kiln drying process. Solid timber is just too thick to get the moisture level right to prevent the movement of the board.

What’s the difference between solid and engineered timber flooring?

Most prefinished engineered boards (except ours mentioned below) use a thin layer of real timber on top of inferior lower layers of wood substrate. Because the top layer is so thin (2 – 3mm) it’s much easier to dry to the right moisture level and prevent climate related movement in the board.

A Solid Timber Prefinished Floorboard Designed to Stay Flat – Stabilised Solid  

Here at Lifewood we have made a floorboard which combines the structure of engineered flooring and beauty of natural timber.

And it’s PREFINISHED!

Our patented Stabilised Solid technology is a cross layered floorboard made of real timber from top to bottom.

• We top grade the surface area of all floors to showcase the most aesthetical parts of the log on your floor.
• The middle section is made up with our cross-layered core section which reinforces the stability.
• The bottom layer consists of the less aesthetical parts of the log which allows us to use much more of the tree than traditional solid timber flooring.

If you’re looking for a premium quality solid timber flooring solution that can be installed in just days, come and walk on our large selection of Australian timber, and French oak flooring today.

We’re located on 18 Hector Street West, Osborne Park Perth.