I could really use some help here- we are doing a major remodel and have purchased hardwood floors by Perverco, in a hard maple with a satin finish, to refloor our ENTIRE house. It’s solid hardwood, and we were told hard maple was the hardest option other than hickory. We were really sold on this floor by the seller who insisted that Preverco’s aluminum oxide finish was THE BEST way to go given that we have kids and dogs. We looked at another brand they carried but we were steered away from it bc it doesn’t have the aluminum oxide finish. We even went back to look at the LVP and they made very strong assurances that the hardwood by Preverco was the way to go. The owner of the seller store even said to us the nice thing about solid hardwood is “if you need to refinish it in 15 years you can. But you won’t need to.”

We just put down the floors in the kitchen a few weeks ago and they are scratching just from the dogs walking across them. Nails are trimmed, but the floors are SO easily scratched. I’m not new to hardwood. Our previous house and weekend house all have hardwood floors and we have never had issues like this. Our weekend house has Bruce floors at a fraction of the price we paid, they have been down for 10 years and they are hardly scratched. There are dogs and kids there ALL the time and that floor takes SO much abuse (dragging Christmas trees regularly, wheeling wood carts across it, etc).

I know wood can scratch, but this seems so extreme. I have two tons of wood left that I don’t feel comfortable installing. There is no way I can put this win in the kids bedrooms. It’s bad enough it’s already in our brand new kitchen and getting beat up.

Is there anything I can do at this point to fix this? Is there something that can be put down on top of the finish that’s there? Is this a finish fault? Is this typical? I’m not sure what my next steps should be.

Floors that are really scratched are scratched because of something on the floor that is causing the scratch. Dogs don't always scratch the floor, they usually dent it with their claws. A piece of grit will scratch the finish if it is slid across the floor. Just stepping on it will cause a dent. Construction usually causes a potential for scratching for several reasons. The area is subject to lots of traffic in and out, which brings stuff stuck to the bottom of shoes. A walk-off mat and wiping feet will help. We always take off our shoes inside of the house.
Another coat of finish can be applied to a clean floor. Some finishes do have aluminum oxide in the finish to resist wear, but they still scratch. Another coat of the film type finish will prolong the life of your floor keeping them beautiful. Sanding the pre-finished aluminum oxide finish takes a bit of work to get it all off. If you like the color of your floor now, time to re-coat is when the floor starts to look clean and shiny when it is wet with a sponge, but looks dull and "dirty" when it is dried out, again.

Being from Ontario we install a lot of Perverco, and it is not my favorite if I'm being honest. I have nothing but grief with their engineered products telegraphing the subfloor but the solid hardwood does the job for the most part.

As Pete mentioned, there are a lot of factors that contribute to the additional wear on the floor - since this is a kitchen, step one is to get mats. It does seem counter-intuitive to install brand new beautiful hardwood throughout only to cover half of it back up with rugs and mats, but it will protect your investment given the kitchen areas usually see the most traffic.

One reason your older floors feel more durable is that they were likely sanded and finished on site, where the Perverco is a pre-finished product. The older top-coats that were applied on site were usually thicker by way of the application (hand vs factory machine). The advantages to the pre-finished method are uniformity and ease of installation; thus, a prefinished board is a little less durable, but far easier to replace if necessary.

Yes, I’ll concede that it is more dented than scratched. I hear what you are saying re: construction sites but as this is the back of the house and the kitchen isn’t yet functional it’s getting little use, only to let the dogs out the back door. It’s not an issue of dirt and sand being tracked in.

It’s interesting, as I never had this issue with any other wood floor I’ve had in a house, ever. Why is it my dogs are “denting” this floor and don’t dent my old house or my parents floors?

It’s good to know we can put another coat of a finish on it, though. It stinks to think we have to re-coat the entire floor as we lay it down.

Good to know re: Preverco. It’s so frustrating though. We have placed mats in the kitchen, but, as it’s not yet being used other than to access the back door it hasn’t seen any excessive wear yet.

I suspect you are partially correct about older floors, but my parents house is pre-finished Bruce brand from Home Depot. While it’s 10ish years old it was factory finished, and we have experienced *nothing* like this, and it sees far more traffic, wear and general abuse. This feels really egregious.