Unfinished Hardwood Flooring
BreezeWood Hardwood Flooring offers unfinished hardwood flooring in variety of widths and species, including today’s most popular choices; unfinished hickory wood floors, unfinished maple wood floors and unfinished oak wood floors. We also offer Red Oak, White Ash, Cherry, Walnut and Red Maple unfinished flooring. BreezeWood’s unfinished hardwood flooring is available in each of our flooring lines – Solid Hardwood, Engineered and XL Rustic.
Deciding Between Prefinished and Unfinished Hardwood Floors
When shopping for hardwood flooring you will need to choose from prefinished hardwood flooring or unfinished hardwood flooring. Prefinished hardwood flooring is finished at the factory. Stain and finish are applied on the flooring finish line, so when the flooring arrives at your home it simply needs to be acclimatized and installed. Unfinished hardwood flooring may also be referred to as “site finished” flooring. It is purchased in its natural state and often requires a professional flooring craftsman to install, sand, stain and finish with a protective top-coat on-site.
Whether you decide to choose prefinished or unfinished hardwood flooring is a matter of preference and the needs of your particular project. Prefinished hardwood floors take less time to install. They arrive already sanded and finished, so there is no inconvenience to your family, or any need to relocate due to strong odours and sanding during installation.
A finish seals a hardwood floor against damage from everyday wear and tear, moisture and stains. The finish on a prefinished floor is highly durable due how it is applied. BreezeWood uses 7 coats of UV-cured Nano Technology coating to create a durable, high-clarity finish. This is accomplished by running the flooring down a finishing line for 7 passes each of top-coating and UV curing. By comparison, site-finished floors typically receive 2-3 coats of top-coat and then are left to cure by air drying. While a little more effort to install on-site, unfinished flooring offers its own benefits, most notably customization. Unfinished floors may be desired when a certain custom stain and finish is needed, or when installing more intricate design effects (like inlays and patterns). All Breezewood floors can be refinished at least once. In general, solid hardwood can be refinished more times than engineered hardwood can.
Unfinished Wood Floor Grades at BreezeWood Hardwood Flooring
BreezeWood products are all sourced, manufactured and finished in-house giving us complete control over the quality of our products. Trees are natural products and their growth patterns are random. Each tree will yield multiple grades in each piece of lumber before it is cut and milled. The grading of the wood does not affect its durability or strength, it is simply a matter of aesthetics and preference.
All BreezeWood unfinished hardwood floors are available in a variety of grades; Prime, Select (Classic & Better), Traditional (Plank) and Rustic grades. All grades offer a unique appearance and have their own character and personality.
Prime Grade
Prime grade is the clearest grade of Maple hardwood flooring offered by BreezeWood. This grade will admit only some minimal colour variation, limited small character marks, bird’s-eyes and small burls. There are no open characteristics in Prime grade.
Select Grade
Select grade combines the natural beauty of a higher-grade floor with the unique characteristics of a mid-grade floor. Only small knots are accepted in this grade, up to the size of a pinky finger.
Traditional Grade
Traditional grade offers more character than select grade. A beautiful combination of clear boards along with Mother Nature’s natural colour variation. Our longest average length, featuring planks over 7 feet long. Larger filled knots are allowed in this grade.
Rustic Grade
Rustic grade contains all the natural wood characteristics that occur in hardwoods such as; colour variation, knots of all shapes and sizes, mineral streaks, checks and worm holes. This grade has shorter lengths overall.