7 Things Flooring Contractors Don't Want You To Know

Here's what contractors know that you don't.

A gray, dull floor usually isn't damaged.

The wood underneath is fine.

What's happened is the finish on top has dried out.

Hardwood floor finish is made of oil and resin.

Over the years, the oil evaporates.

What's left behind is brittle, depleted resin that scatters light instead of reflecting it.

That's why your floor looks gray.

That's why the grain looks flat.

That's why no amount of mopping makes it shine.

The wood isn't dying.

The finish is starving.

And starving is not the same as dead.

Contractors learn this in their first week of training.

But there's no money in telling you your floor just needs feeding.

So most of them recommend a full sand and refinish instead.

According to HomeAdvisor, the average cost to refinish hardwood floors is $3 to $8 per square foot.

For a typical 1,000 square foot first floor, that's $3,000 to $8,000.

About 80% of that cost is labor.

Now here's the question nobody asks: what percentage of floors being quoted for refinishing actually need refinishing?

I can tell you from experience.

It's not 100%.

It's not even close.

A significant portion of the quotes I gave were for floors that could have been restored with simpler, cheaper methods.

Screen and recoat.

Or even just feeding the dried out finish with the right product.

But I didn't sell those services.

I sold refinishing.

So that's what I recommended.

The incentives in this industry are completely backwards.

Contractors get paid more to do more work.

They don't get paid to tell you that you need less.

This is the line that closes deals.

"Once a floor gets like this, you really need to sand down to bare wood and start fresh."

It sounds authoritative.

Technical.

Final.

It's also often unnecessary.

Here's what's actually true: you need to sand to bare wood if you want to change the stain color.

You need to sand to bare wood if the finish is completely gone and the wood itself is damaged.

But if your floor just looks dull and gray?

If the finish is still there but depleted?

Sanding to bare wood is overkill.

Every time you sand a hardwood floor, you remove material.

A typical floor can only be sanded four to six times in its entire lifespan.

After that, there's not enough wood left above the tongue and groove.

When a contractor recommends sanding when it's not necessary, they're not just taking your money today.

They're shortening the life of your floor.

Here's a dirty little secret.

Flooring contractors love Rejuvenate.

Not because it works.

Because it creates more business for them.

Rejuvenate and similar "floor restorer" products are polymer-based coatings.

They sit on top of your finish like a layer of plastic.

For about 72 hours, your floor looks shinier.

Then the problems start.

The coating hazes.

It shows footprints.

It builds up with each application.

And here's the kicker: once it's on there, many contractors won't touch your floor.

The polymer interferes with sanding.

It gums up equipment.

It prevents new finish from adhering properly.

I've quoted jobs where the floor itself was fine, but the homeowner had applied Rejuvenate three or four times over the years.

Now they need an expensive chemical strip before we can even start refinishing.

A $20 bottle of "restorer" just turned into a $2,000 surcharge.

Remember what I said about dried out finish being starving, not dead?

There's a way to feed it.

Furniture restorers have known this for over a hundred years.

When an antique table or chair looks gray and lifeless, they don't sand it down.

They feed the finish with plant oils and seal it with wax.

The oil penetrates the depleted finish and rehydrates it.

The wax seals over the top so the oil doesn't evaporate again.

Same technique works on floors.

A company called Luxgrove makes a wood salve specifically designed for this.

Hemp seed oil, jojoba, shea butter, beeswax.

No polymers.

No acrylics.

You rub it in.

You buff off the excess.

Takes about fifteen minutes per room.

Gray paths disappear.

Dull spots warm up.

Scratches that were being magnified by the brittle finish soften and blend.

Cost: $49 per jar.

Compare that to the $6,000 refinishing quote sitting on your kitchen counter.

Here's a technical term contractors use to sound authoritative: "wear layer."

They'll crouch down, look at your floor, and say something like: "Your wear layer is compromised.

That's why you need a full refinish."

Sounds serious.

Sounds like something only a professional could assess.

Here's the truth.

The wear layer is just the top portion of the wood above the tongue and groove joint.

It's the part that can be sanded.

When a contractor says your "wear layer is compromised," what they usually mean is: your finish looks bad.

But a bad-looking finish doesn't mean the wear layer is damaged.

It often just means the finish is dried out.

The real question is whether the wood itself has been compromised.

Are there deep gouges that go through the finish into the wood?

Is there water damage that's stained the wood black?

Has the floor been sanded so many times that you're close to the tongue and groove?

If the answer to those questions is no, your "wear layer" is probably fine.

Your finish just needs feeding.

I'm not the only one who's figured this out.

Luxgrove has now been used on over 90,000 floors.

The reviews tell the same story over and over.

These aren't people with minor floor issues.

These are people who had quotes for thousands of dollars and were ready to write the check.

They tried feeding their floors first.

And for most of them, that's all they needed.