Yes, we are in a 1916 home with oak floors. Pretty much standard operating procedure here in SF to site finish. We have oak throughout and put in oak in the new parts of the house, top nailed to match the rest. Whether it is red or white oak is still a bit vague. 2 floor guys said red and 2 said white. I think that color is the color of the leaf in the fall and not the wood :) Anyway, our floors are reddish and the guy I believe said they were white oak.

I don't think the cost is all that much different, but then again, we have a extremely large selection of companies that do floors of this kind.

It was kind of a pain, but only like 10 days of pain :) Nothing in the grand remodeling scheme.

If I had known then what I know now, i'd have looked into the less stinky less VOC finishes, like Bona.

The other advantage to site finished is that if you have a disaster or just a big annoyance later (say a 5 gal water bottle developing a leak (mine) or a fish tank tippy (friends)) you can repair portions pretty easily.

To get a good match with the existing I would recommend site finishing. Unfinished oak is relatively inexpensive, the cost comes in the labor of finishing it on site.

Its messy, but I think it it worth the effort when trying to match existing floors

The site finished will not hold up as well over time but can match better.
Personally, I'd use prefinished and put a darker border around the edges so you don't have the new color adjacent to the old color. You can even go with a different wood and not try for a match as long as they coordinate.

We had pre-finished hardwoods installed in our living room about 5 years ago, and while I like them, I don't think they look as nice as my friends who had hardwoods installed and finished on site. The later just seems more genuine and that is certainly the best route to go if you are trying to match existing hardwoods. I don't know if you'd want to do this but (and this might be really obvious and common knowledge but just in case you didn't know) assuming you original hardwoods are pretty thick, and typically they are, you can sand off the stain of your existing hardwoods and then have the new and old wood stained at the same time for what is probably going to be your best shot at getting the best color match.

The site finished will not hold up as well over time but can match better.

I thought the prefinished couldn't be refinished as many times as site installed? I'm sure mine have been here 95 years and they have probably been refinished 2 maybe 3 times (someone did carpet over some parts of them, foyer and upstairs landing, at one point which protected them from some amount of wear and tear though).

We are doing site finished walnut right now. We didn't need to match (we tore up all the water damaged oak and carpet to lay the walnut) but chose site finished because it has a more durable finish that is longer lasting. And typically you can sand and refinish multiple times over the life of site finished whereas most refinished floors are thinner in nature (that is not always the case but is pretty commonly so). If you are trying to match, site finished is most likely your best bet as older floors do change colors with time. But best option is to weave in new and old, and refinish old and finish new at the same time.

We are doing site finished red oak in our kitchen right now. We felt that it was the only way to exactly match the 1920s red oak and finish in the rest of the first floor. So far, it looks like a seamless match. I also like the fact that the red oak can be refinished in the future, just like the other original floors in the house. The flooring materials themselves were relatively inexpensive. It is taking a bit more labor on our contractor's part. But it was part of the initial bid. So... all rolled into the final cost.

As you're looking to match the old floors, definitely go with site finished. Pre-finished floors have a beveled edge because the floor won't be sanded flat after installation. Even if the color were a perfect match, the bevel makes it look different.

We took down walls and had new oak laced in with the old and the entire floor refinished. You can't tell where the old ends and the new begins.

Agreed that sight finished will give you more options for a better match. We weren't going to go that route because of all the dust, but now there is a dustless system.

I have always had site finished and to me it just looks better. I don't like the edges on the pre-finished, plus it MUCH easier to match if you are going to add more wood flooring. If you have a choice, I would go with the site finished.

Definitely site-finished. No offense, but even the best pre-finished floors can't compare in quality to your older site-finished wood. You'll never match it up exactly unless you refinish old and newly laid all at the same time, and that means site-finished.

Whence the claims to pre-finished's superior durability? Wood floors age by getting their finish worn and scratched. Site-finished hardwood can be refinished a number of times over its lifespan of 100 - 200 or more years; pre-finished can't. And there are those gawdawful hideous bevels to deal with (although I understand they are finally phasing those out in the better lines?).

Don't go fake in a classic older home! Just my (strong) opinion. :-)

Go site finish if you can. And also refinish new and old together. The result will be one floor and if done right nobody will be able to find the transition between new and old. The extra cost, mess, and inconvenience of moving furniture is well worth it.

We just added white oak hardwood to our living room and halls. It was finished on-site and wasn't very messy. We did put thin plastice sheets over built-ins and cabinets. We had them go ahead and refinish the existing kitchen floor so it would all match up. It was a pain moving the furniture out, but worth it in the end. Our floor guy suggested using a little bit wider piece of oak in the thresholds of the kitchen/living room and living room/foyer. (The kitchen and foyer already had hardwood.) I wasnt' sure I would like it, but it turned out beautiful. The threshold piece isn't raised or anything, you almost wouldn't notice it. It's just a way to end one room and start another. I will tell you to get more that one quote, as we saved a lot of money shopping around.

Some pre-finished is engineered wood with a fairly thin top layer so it can't be refinished more than once or twice. But there is also solid hardwood pre-finished and engineered wood with a very thick top layer going almost to the tongue and grove. Why can't those be refinished as many times as site-finished?

We had pre-finished floors and refinished them once. The site finish wore through a lot faster than the original pre-finish. That's making me lean toward getting solid hardwood pre-finished this time.

The brands we have considered have a gloss or satin finish and we are planning on the satin one.

We don't have any other wood floors so there is no match issue for us.

This is the OP. Thanks so much for all the input. Just to clarify, we aren't planning to refinish the old floors in our house, in part because they were just done two years ago but also because that would involve refinishing our entire first floor, which is more hassle than we're willing to take on at this point. I'm hoping a good flooring contractor will be able to match the new wood to the existing finish, but if it's still likely to be a little off we may just go with pre-finished.

Would that change anyone's advice?

Thanks again!

Doesn't change mine. I didn't have the old floors refinished either. So living room, dining room and halls are the old flooring and kitchen and family room the new. Same with upstairs, one room was redone.

If you are trying to match site finished floors, you just about have to go with site finished flooring colored (preferably dyed) to match. Since you refinished the first section, you know the finishing schedule that was used so you can replicate it on the new wood.

Hopefully the transition between the old and new wood occurs at a threshold or something like that because the new clear coat you put down will probably not bond with the old clear coat... unless you used a tung oil based finish or something of the like.

There's engineered (very thin) and there's pre-finished. If you're looking at pre-finished the planks should be 3/4" thick which means they're capable of being refinished.

We chose prefinished for the addition, because from what I understand the finish that is now used on site-finished can't be expected to last as long as it once did. We had our red oak floors refinished when we bought this house in 1981. House was built in 1950. They still look great 30 years later.

Doesn't change my opinion either. With site finish you have a lot more control in the finish color with mixing and still have a chance to match... as someone said if it was done recently you might even have the formula, assuming your goal is to still try and match.

My question to the good floor contractor is how they plan on handling the transition. In an ideal set up they would selectively remove some old planks and stagger in some new ones, sand flush, then finish, creating a seamless and undetectable transition. Since you don't have interest in refinishing the other spaces I'm unsure of all the options. If possible it'd be nice to not have a clunky threshold piece in the way.

We have a threshold piece that's hardly "clunky". I was very pleased with the pre-finished hardwood we found and its close match to the original floors.

If you just refinished the old wood 2 years ago, then you probably know the brand, color stain and how many coats it took. I'd do on-site wood and plan to finish them the same way the old floors were finished 2 years ago.
(Sorry - I didn't mean to make everyone chase a rabbit down a different hole.)

That would be great but unfortunately, it was the previous owners--not us--who did the re-finishing job two years ago.