Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Our house is about 1.5 yrs old, and we have prefinished hardwood in the kitchen/family room - it is one big room. The hardwood is very soft, you can drop a bowl on it and it will dent - we already have a couple of dents. Day before, we had someone come over with messed up high heels, and there are now pockmarks all over one side of the kitchen where she stood ( I should have asked her to remove her shoes but did not thinking it would be impolite, in hind sight should have just asked her to do to). We got a quote, this guy said it would be cheaper to replace the boards in that particular section instead of sanding since we would then need to do the entire area, which would be expensive.
My question - should I change the boards now or wait longer for the floor to get more messed up, and then do it? One quote we received is about $600, there are a couple more coming in tomorrow to take a look. Does it make more sense to do that little bit now? Would it be more expensive to get it done later - though knowing the way these floors are, I know there will be more damage over the years, and we could just get the whole place taken care of at once?
If you replace the boards, I think you should have a "no shoes in the house" rule. Simply keep a place for shoes near the entrance and keep some inexpensive slip-ons for guests. If you are not prepared to do that, I would not replace the boards until the whole floor is a sorry sight.
I think you should get your builder back out and put in a floor that doesn't dent. Technically I don't think you can call your floors "hardwood" if they dent from someone walking on them, even with high heals. Are they pine floors or what are they made of?
I think you should get your builder back out and put in a floor that doesn't dent. Technically I don't think you can call your floors "hardwood" if they dent from someone walking on them, even with high heals. Are they pine floors or what are they made of?
I agree...
I've never heard of hard wood floors denting quite so easy... wow. Is it an "engineered" hardwood... they are what I can best describe as a "veneer".
It doesn't really matter if it's true hardwood floor or engineered hardwood- they all are susceptible to dents, weather it's from a dropped object or high heel shoes.
This was always a word of note to my H/O's during a walk-thru/orientation. There was information very similar to this in my new homeowner guide- Pressure Under High Heels
Another constant cause of hardwood damage was refrigerator wheels.
Ugh, I had an Aunt that made dents in my kitchen linoleum (blech) years ago in my first apartment. But it was brand new, and i was the first to live there a hundred years ago, so to me it was a big deal.
the no shoes rule came into effect after she left.
I think you should get your builder back out and put in a floor that doesn't dent. Technically I don't think you can call your floors "hardwood" if they dent from someone walking on them, even with high heals. Are they pine floors or what are they made of?
I would leave the builder out of this, they'll just be annoyed and say they can't do anything about it. Mostly because they can't. Cherry wood for example is really soft.
There are certain floors that are very delicate, high heels can definitely put dents in some. Right when the op said high heels, I had a immediate mental picture of a house that had hardwood floors with little penny sized dents all over it after a graduation party.
Cheap vinyl flooring for example tears over almost anything, just because products are new, and warrantied doesn't mean they're invincible.
As for the question, I wouldn't replace anything for a while, see if any major damage happens, and adjust habits accordingly. Maybe this is just me, but the whole making people/signs for taking shoes off always came off to me as tacky and inhospitable. On the other end of the spectrum though, you would hope the guest would use some common sense and take there shoes off themselves.
do you have kids, or are you planning to have any? As soon as they are toddling around, every wood surface in your house will become "distressed." I wouldn't fix it just yet.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
