What is the difference between prefinished and site-finished flooring?
After installation prefinished flooring is factory finished and can be walked on immediately. There is no curing time required and no off-gassing of solvents. Site-finished or Custom Flooring is a little different. We start with installing raw wood, then sand it flat and smooth. After that there are usually 3 coats (we use 4) of clear polyurethane applied to create the protective layer. There are many variations to this process, such as staining with different color pigments, shading or double staining, distressing, antiquing, hand scraping and many more, limited only by our imagination. Hence the name Custom Floors. The variety of finishes available for site-finished floors is extensive. ie. oil-modified polyurethanes, water base, catalyst-cured, acid-cured and the list goes on, including oiled or hard-wax oiled finishes. Some are undeniably a lot tougher and more expensive, but not necessarily nicer looking. Many of these super tough commercial type of finishes tend to look too plast
