When it comes to the long-term care of hardwood flooring, you need to be able to identify when your flooring needs refinishing, repairing, or replacing. In most cases, if you are attentive enough to your hardwood floor's condition, you can avoid the need for repair or replacement. Here's a look at some of the things that you should understand.

Scratching

If you can see visible scratches on the surface of your hardwood floors, this is the time to start planning to refinish them. The sooner you refinish them, the less damage you'll have to sand away before the new finish is applied. Remember that hardwood flooring only has just so much surface area that you can sand, so they'll only take refinishing so many times. If you allow those scratches to get too deep, you may lose a few opportunities to refinish the floors and extend their life by years. Tackle scratches before they get too deep to preserve as much of the floor structure as you can.

Stains

Whether it's water stains or discoloration from juice spills, any staining on your hardwood floors can be eliminated easily with refinishing. As long as the stains don't go too deep into the wood, they will disappear easily with moderate sanding. If, however, the wood is structurally damaged from the spill, such as if it's warped or cupped, you'll have to have that section replaced as part of your refinishing project.

Fading/Discoloration

Over time, traffic, sunlight, and general wear cause your wood floor to fade and discolor. This is an age and wear situation and, for the most part, it's unavoidable. That's why most homeowners opt to refinish their floors every few years or so. If you have started to notice that your hardwood floors aren't looking as vibrant and rich as they used to, that's a key indication that it's time to refinish them.

Time

No matter how well you've cared for your hardwood floors, you may find that they simply need refinishing for no reason other than the passage of time. After all, even if they haven't markedly faded, aren't showing signs of scratches, and haven't been stained, that doesn't mean that you don't have an accumulation of detergents and wax on the floors that will need to be stripped off. The most effective way to do that is to refinish the floors, which also gives you the opportunity to opt for a different color stain if you want to alter the color of your wood floors.

Talk with a wood floor refinishing contractor near you today for more help and information.