Hardwood Flooring Overview

The rich look of hardwood floors adds warmth and charm to any room in the home. For centuries people have used wood floors in homes, churches and even stores.

Through advancements in finish technologies, and superior construction techniques, manufacturers of hardwood floors are able to produce tougher finishes and more stable products. This means quality engineered hardwood floors can go in almost any room in the home and over a wide variety of sub-floors, including dry, fully-cured concrete slabs.

Today’s hardwood flooring comes in a wide variety of wood species. Besides the popular and well known North American hardwoods, like oak, maple and ash, many companies now offer a variety of exotic hardwood species from all over the World. Exotic hardwoods offer unique and unusual visual character and give homeowners the chance to better express their personal decorating tastes with a more unique wood appearance.

Another popular trend is the hand-scraped hardwood floors by hardwood manufacturers, such as Anderson, Mannington, Homerwood, Palo Duro and Mohawk. If you want the rich look and charm of hand-made flooring then you won’t want to miss previewing the hand-scraped hardwoods.

Homeowners looking to use hardwood floors in their homes have the option of purchasing three different types of wood flooring. Although the end results may look the same there are distinct advantages for using each type under different applications.

Once installed it is extremely difficult to tell these three different wood flooring construction types apart. Both the engineered and the longstrip have several thin layers (plies) of wood that are glued together. By gluing the plies together you get better dimensional stability within the plank itself, which allows these floors to be used on job sites that have a higher percentage of moisture content than normal. This includes basements and over concrete slabs where solid strip wood floors are considered off limits.

Another choice you have to make is whether or not you want a pre-finished or an unfinished hardwood floor that has to be finished in your home. The pre-finished floors offer a wider variety of wood species and saves hours of labor and cleanup. While the unfinished wood floors allow you to have a really custom, job-site finish and a completely smooth, uniform surface. You also get an extended factory finish warranty with pre-finished floors, but not with most job-site finished flooring.

Solid Hardwood Flooring

When we think of solid wood floors we generally are talking about a 3/4" thick plank that is 2 1/4" wide. This is the classic strip wood floor, although it is possible to find a narrower width or a slightly thinner gauge. The strips are generally in random lengths from 12" – 84". The most common wood species used for solid strip floors are red oak, white oak, and maple.

Solid wood floors are one solid piece of wood that have tongue and groove sides and come in either prefinished or unfinished styles. Solid wood floors are sensitive to moisture and it is not recommended to install these floors below ground level, or directly over a concrete slab. These floors are for nail-down installations only. You can refinish, or recoat solid wood floors several times, which adds to their appeal and to their long life. There are solid wood floors that are several centuries old and are still in good condition today.

All solid wood floors will react to the presence of moisture. In the winter heating months, moisture leaves the wood causing the floor to contract which leaves unsightly gaps between each plank. In the summer months when the humidity is higher the wood will expand and the gaps will disappear. If there is too much moisture it may cause the wood planks to cup, or buckle. This is why it is important to leave the proper expansion area around the perimeter and to acclimate the wood prior to installation.