HARDWOOD FLOORING

BENEFITS OF SOLID HARDWOOD FLOORING

Hardwood floors offer a quality and richness that cannot be duplicated by man-made materials, such as laminate floors. They fill a room with regal elegance and last longer than any other type of flooring option. If you are considering hardwood floors, you have options including solid or engineered wood, unfinished or pre-finished, flat finish, and click and lock wood flooring.

In the past, installing hardwood flooring involved a cumbersome process of nailing and gluing. Today, many hardwood floor products are available in a click and lock design for simpler installation.

If you are a do-it-yourselfer, these products can save you the cost of installation. Talk with us about your project, and we will help you understand how to install our products on your own.

Solid hardwoods are what most people are familiar with. Most come in 3/4″ thickness, with widths between 2.25″ and 5″ wide. Advantages of solid 3/4″ floors are that they can be sanded and finished more than once, most 3 to 4 times.

Disadvantages to solids include their susceptibility to moisture and seasonal changes which can cause gapping and cracks to appear. This often happens in the winter time when the air is dryer. Using a humidifier in the wintertime can help mitigate this.

Solid hardwoods do not work well over concrete or radiant heat floors.

BENEFITS OF ENGINEERED HARDWOOD FLOORING

Engineered Floors are normally made up of a plywood core with a veneer of hardwood on top. Once installed, it is hard to tell an engineered floor apart from a solid. Engineered floors are more versatile than solids. Most can be either nailed down, floated, or glued down. The fact that they have a plywood core makes them much more resistant to expansion and contraction, and they are much less likely to have gaps appear. Most multi-level condos require some type of sound deadening barrier between the hardwood and the subfloor so using an engineered floor with a sound barrier pad is usually the best choice.