Prefinished Oak Flooring

The advantages of prefinished Oak flooring.

Prefinished Oak flooring is an attractive alternative for anyone considering new Oak hardwood flooring. This brief overview discusses the ins and outs of prefinished Oak flooring as well as its benefits and details the many options for Oak and other hardwood flooring available from Carlisle Wide Plank Floors.

What is prefinished Oak flooring?

Prefinished Oak flooring is a hardwood floor made with the timber from Oak trees that is finished (sanded, stained and sealed with several coats of polyurethane) in Carlisle’s facility before it is delivered to a home or business for installation. This is in contrast to unfinished hardwood flooring, which must be finished after it is installed in a residential or commercial setting.

What is wide plank prefinished Oak flooring?

Wide plank prefinished Oak flooring is an Oak hardwood floor with floorboards that are significantly wider than standard commercial flooring, and which is sanded, stained and sealed before delivery to a jobsite. Wide plank floors use boards that are typically 5″ to 12″ wide and up to 12′ long. In contrast to commercial flooring (which uses boards that are no more than 3″ wide and 4′ long), a wide plank floor will look much less busy and will make any room seem bigger. Wide plank Oak flooring also allows the personality and interesting grain patterns of the White or Red Oak hardwood to be revealed on each plank.

What are the advantages of prefinished Oak flooring?

Prefinished Oak flooring enables home or business owners to:

  • Avoid the mess of sanding floors on site, which typically covers everything with a fine layer of sawdust.
  • Avoid the noxious odors of stains and sealants.
    Eliminate the need to vacate the home or business for a day or more while the sealants are applied and have time to dry.
  • Reduce the time required for installation.
  • Lower the cost of installation.

What are the drawbacks of prefinished Oak flooring?

In the past, some consumers have felt that prefinished Oak flooring had a cheap or “plastic” look, and that these floors were more difficult to touchup when they became scratched or worn. Not all prefinished Oak flooring can be easily refinished either, severely limiting the longevity of a new hardwood floor.

What’s different about Carlisle’s industry-leading prefinished Oak flooring?

Carlisle has perfected a pre-finishing solution that lets home and business owners take advantage of the benefits of prefinished Oak flooring without having to settle for any of the traditional drawbacks. Our Custom Coat™ stains and finishes combined time-honored techniques with modern technology to produce prefinished Oak flooring that looks and feels like floors finished on site. Each board has a deep hand-rubbed appearance rather than a painted-on look. Carlisle also finishes all four sides of each board to make the floor more moisture-resistant. And Carlisle prefinished Oak flooring can be easily touched up or refinished, adding years of life to your wide plank floor.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can prefinished Oak flooring be textured or distressed?

Distressing or texturing a floor involves treating it with woodworking techniques that give the floorboards an aged or weathered appearance, reproducing the look of wood that has been lived on for generations. At Carlisle, we offer a variety of techniques, some exclusive to Carlisle, for adding hand scraped edges, saw marks and the kind of timeworn or footworn appearance that instantly adds a sense of history and heritage.

What is engineered flooring versus prefinished flooring?

Engineered flooring is made with multiple layers of material glued together to form a floorboard that won’t expand or contract in locations that have large changes in temperature or humidity. Engineered flooring can be prefinished or finished on site. Carlisle prefinished Oak flooring can be ordered as an engineered floor.

Are the sealants used on prefinished Oak flooring environmentally friendly?

Yes. Carlisle uses special sealants that contain no measurable VOCs after the floor is cured.

Does prefinished Oak flooring look and feel like unfinished wood flooring?

While some prefinished Oak flooring has a plastic look, Carlisle prefinished floors are produced through a process that makes prefinished Oak flooring virtually indistinguishable from Oak floors that are finished on site.

How durable is prefinished Oak flooring?

Oak is a fairly strong hardwood, with a Janka hardness rating of 1290 for Red Oak and 1360 for White Oak. Prefinished Oak flooring provides additional levels of durability as a factory finish enables craftsmen to apply extra strong sealants that are not available when floors are finished on site.

Beyond prefinished Oak flooring: other options for Carlisle floors.

While wide plank prefinished Oak flooring is a highly popular option for new floors in residential and commercial settings, Carlisle also offers a variety of other hardwood, pine and reclaimed floors.

  • Ash floors are quite dense and feature color tones that range from cream to light blonde and rich nutty brown hues.
  • Birch floorboards have blonde outer edges and warm amber portions, with grain patterns that feature everything from highly figured flames to subtle swirls.
  • Brown Maple floors come in hues of rich gold, amber and brown along with subtle and consistent grain patterns.
  • Cherry floorboards pair hues of burnished auburn with subtle but distinctive flowing grain patterns.
  • Hickory is among the hardest floors and features hues that run from lighter blonde sapwood to cocoa brown and beige heartwood.
  • Red Oak floorboards have deep, salmon tones and come in exceptional widths and lengths.
  • Walnut floors feature rich chocolate hues with surprising auburn undertones and complex grain patterns.
  • White Maple wood flooring delivers strikingly beautiful grain patterns along with clean and lighter hues for a more neutral finish.
  • White Oak floors have dramatic grain patterns that range from simple and sleek lines to vibrant swirls.
  • Rift & Quartersawn Oak flooring is cut with special techniques that produce straighter parallel lines in the grain. Quartered Oak is cut at a 60 to 90° angle to the growth rings, while riftsawn
  • Oak is cut at a strict 90° angle to the center of the tree.
    Eastern White Pine features smooth grain with beautiful knots and can be finished in a wide variety of ways.
  • Heart Pine has rich colors that range from amber and pumpkin to darker hues.
  • Hit or Miss Pine adds saw marks to new boards to recreate the look of boards cut with early milling techniques.
  • Reclaimed wood flooring includes Reclaimed Oak, Heart Pine and Chestnut floors as well as several more rustic finishes.

Why Carlisle is your best source for prefinished Oak flooring.

You won’t find a better source for prefinished Oak flooring then the wide plank floors available from Carlisle. Our prefinished floors are unlike anything else in the industry. A three-coat process delivers up to three times the durability of finishes that are applied on site. Every inch of your new wide plank floor is meticulously sanded before the stain and sealer is applied under the most ideal conditions. In an industry-unique process, we add a final coat of urethane to all four sides of the board, hiding seasonal gapping and creating a more moisture-resistant floor. Carlisle prefinished Oak flooring is available in widths up to 12″ wide – more than twice as wide as most prefinished floors. When you want the ease of a floor that is ready to install with no mess, Carlisle prefinished Oak flooring delivers all the advantages with none of the drawbacks.