How often do hardwood floors need to be refinished?

[mamica]

Or, is it possible to touch-up smaller areas of the floor? We have 2 rooms that each have a small area (about 2-4 sqft) that are showing some wear and tear.

In one of the areas, under a chair, the finish is just wearing off a bit. The other area is also under a chair, and the protective pads under the chair must have shifted because the floor is actually scratched up.

I would love to just touch up the areas if possible, but I don't know that this is possible, especially in the case of the scratches which might actually need to be sanded. The floors were put in 7 and 8 years ago, respectively, and I wasn't expecting to have to refinish the whole thing yet.

I'll be calling some flooring places on Monday, but I'm just wondering what your experiences have been.

Thanks!

[MamaMolly]

When we recently moved, I hired a cleaning lady to come help out. She used a great product called Magic Shine to clean the hardwoods and they looked beautiful.

The Landlord had put me into a holy terror over the hardwood floors. We had to have area rugs over at least 70% of the floor, and every bit of furniture had to have carpeted pads on the feet, etc. It was in the freaking lease (yet another reason I'm so glad to be out of that house!)

I doubt that the Magic Shine is a product I'd use every time I cleaned. I think it would build up on the surface. But for getting rid of scratches and polishing up the whole floor it was great. HTH

[Momof3Labs]

I wouldn't refinish the entire floors yet. When we put our hardwood floors in our last house, we were told that you could only refinish them a few times (3 or 4, I think) in their lifetime since refinishing actually sands off a bit of wood from the surface.

They can definitely do a spot refinish (happened with our first floor, they botched a small area when they installed the floors) though I don't know the cost.