how long should finish on hardwood floors last?

[kellikans]

we have original 1938 red oak hardwood floors in our home. we had them refinished right before we moved in almost 6 years ago. in the last 6 months or so I have noticed areas that are looking really worn - the satin shine is gone and its turning to the color of the bare wood. it seems too soon to me for the finish to already be wearing off. so I'm wondering if it's prematurely wearing and we picked a subpar company to refinish the floors, or if this is normal and we need to suck it up and have them refinished again at some point in the nearer future. or is there anything we can do in the interim to make it look better? spot stain some of the areas? I've used those stain sticks to touch up, but it only lasts so long.

[downtoearth]

That seems too soon to me also. I was thinking around 10 years for hard used areas and up to 20 years for areas under rugs or less used. So hallways and entryways would probably wear first. You can recoat some more used areas of hardwood floors without having to sand, but I don't know when or how often.

[kaylie]

10 years is what I was told, so that does seem soon. I might have another company come out and give you their opinion.

[magdala]

DH had the hardwood floors refinished in 2004 when he moved to the condo. Now that we are readying it for sale, we are having them redone. The finish is worn in the main hallway. Because this intersects with the living room and bedrooms, it just makes sense to do all the hardwood floors at the same time. The condo has been a rental for the last three years and I think that our renters have been harsh on the main hallway. The condo is in a parceled Victorian house and I believe the floors are original (@ 1830s).

[simpsongal]

It really depends on the wear and tear. Our 3 year old floors look fantastic in some areas but are getting beaten up by chairs w/o proper pads, our dog, and our toddler's affinity for banging metal objects on the ground.

We used Rejuvenate on our older hardwood to give it a shine boost (YHL did a project post on it). It helped a little w/scratches but not as much as I hoped. Looks better though - uniformity helps the appearance too. If you have raw wood showing, I would wipe in a little stain before applying a product like Rejuvenate.

[auroraloo]

Our 1950 original oak floors were refinished in 2009 and are definitely showing the need for some love in higher traffic - no rug areas. We also live in the north, so there is a lot of wet that happens for a big chunk of the year.

[kellikans]

Thanks ladies. We may have another company come out to give an opinion.

It's weird, we have 3 large dogs, one of which is a major slobberer, but it's not worn where she hangs out. It's like random boards are getting worn down, like the stain just started fading and coming off. I was hoping to get at least 10 years out of them, but we may have to redo them sooner.