If you have hardwood flooring in your home, you shouldn’t have to worry about replacing it anytime soon. It’s not uncommon at all for a hardwood floor to last for more than a century. In some instances, it can last even longer than that.
You will, however, need to make it a point to do hardwood floor maintenance to keep your hardwood flooring in excellent condition. One of the ways in which you can do this is by having your hardwood flooring refinished every so often.
There are some signs that you should look out for when you’re wondering whether or not it’s time to put down a new hardwood flooring finish. Take a look at seven of these signs below and keep them in mind as you move forward.
1. Your Hardwood Flooring Is Fading
If the sun shines on your home’s hardwood flooring at certain times throughout the course of the day, its UV rays can begin to take a toll on it. Hardwood flooring will sometimes begin to fade when it’s exposed to the sun too much.
You should try not to let the sun shine on hardwood flooring too often. And you should also have hardwood flooring refinished if it begins to fade because of the sun. This is some of the most basic floor care that you can do to make hardwood flooring shine.
2. Your Hardwood Flooring Is Filled With Scratches and Dents
Over time, the hardwood flooring varnish that is put down on hardwood floors when they’re refinished will begin to wear away. This will inevitably lead to your home’s hardwood floors getting filled with scratches and dents. And they can hurt the appearance of your floors.
You can make scratches and dents in your hardwood flooring things of the past by having your floors refinished. It would be worth having the varnish vs urethane debate to see which option will bring your floors back to life better.
3. Your Hardwood Flooring Is Discolored
In addition to getting scratched and dented up, hardwood floors that haven’t been refinished in a while will also start to show signs of discoloration. Some parts of the floors will look like they were just refinished and others will look dull and lifeless.
Foot traffic can do this to hardwood floors. It’ll make them wear down unevenly and lead to discoloration.
You can get this discoloration to go away by having hardwood floor refinishing done. The right flooring finish will give your hardwood flooring a consistent appearance again.
4. Your Hardwood Flooring Is Stained
Have you spilled all kinds of things on your floors in recent years? If so, you were probably able to clean most of them up. But some of them might have left stains behind.
For example, some hardwood floors will get stained by things like wine and certain types of juices. You won’t be able to make these stains go away simply by scrubbing your floors.
Instead, you’ll want to attack the stains on your hardwood flooring by having your floors refinished. This will erase any stains that exist and ensure that your floors have the protection that they’ll need from future stains.
5. Your Hardwood Flooring Has Been Damaged by Water
Moisture is pretty much your hardwood flooring’s worst enemy. If you let even just a little bit of water sit on the surface of hardwood floors for too long, it’ll lead to water damage being done.
You should be able to stop water from having an impact on your hardwood flooring by wiping it up ASAP. But if you ever let water sit on hardwood flooring and do damage to it, refinishing your floors might be able to clear up this damage.
There are some instances in which water damage will put you in a position where you’ll have no choice but to replace hardwood flooring. But you should be able to repair hardwood floors that have been damaged by water as long as you act fast.
6. Your Hardwood Flooring Is Bringing Your Home’s Value Down
When you have hardwood floors in your home, they should bring the value of it way up. They shouldn’t have a detrimental effect on your home’s value at all.
But if your hardwood flooring is the worse for wear, they might not look all that visually appealing. And that could result in your floors dragging your home’s value down rather than bringing it up.
Refinishing your floors will reverse this and help to make your home more valuable in the end. You might actually be surprised to see how much value refinishing hardwood floors could add to your house.
7. Your Hardwood Flooring Is Old
As we alluded to earlier, hardwood flooring is going to last for a long, long time once you have it installed in your home. But if you know for a fact that your hardwood flooring was installed many decades ago, that might be reason enough to have it refinished.
Hardwood floors can give your home some character as they get older. But they can also hurt your home’s appearance if you let them go for too long without refinishing them.
Generally speaking, it would be a smart idea to have your home’s hardwood floors refinished at least every five to ten years. It’ll make them last even longer than they would otherwise and keep them looking their absolute best.
Refinish Your Hardwood Flooring If You’ve Spotted Any of These Signs
Have you seen any of the signs that we’ve talked about today in your home? If you have, then it means that it’s time for you to do hardwood flooring refinishing.
The sooner than you’re able to refinish your hardwood flooring, the sooner that you’ll get to start enjoying having hardwood floors again. They’ll look and feel amazing and will add a ton of value to your home as a whole.
Are you interested in getting more home improvement tips and tricks? Look for them in the other articles that we’ve posted on our blog.
