The rich, natural beauty of hardwood really warms up a home. It can also heat up the resale value and salability of a home. Perhaps you would like to have hardwood flooring installed in your kitchen, dining room or in another room in your home. Learning more about hardwood flooring will make shopping for your wood easier!
Innovations in manufacturing have given consumers the choice of unfinished hardwood and pre-finished hardwood flooring. Which one is right for you? |
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Unfinished and Pre-Finished Hardwood |
Unfinished, or finish in place hardwood, is installed, sanded, stained and finished on site. While this route is more labor intensive and dusty, it offers a smoother finished product, that for many cannot be matched. It takes real craftsmanship to master each of these steps.
Pre-finished hardwood is sanded, stained and finished at the manufacturing plant and comes ready to be installed in a home.
This option offers a faster, cleaner installation. One that many homeowners opt for. |
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Pre-Finished Hardwood Edge Detail |
Even among pre-finished hardwood, the look of the finished floor can vary. Make sure you get the finished effect that you want by understanding the difference between the various prefinished hardwood edge details. |
Beveled Edge
Has a very distinctive groove. Beveled edged hardwood is less expensive to produce than squared edge pieces. This edge detail is also very forgiving when installed on nonuniform subfloors. It has a more rustic appeal. |
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Microbeveled Edge
Also known as eased edge, this edge detail has only a slight groove which serves to hide small irregularities and minor height differences in the flooring. Because the tapered edge is slight the floor looks less like prefinished hardwood. |
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Square Edge
Square edge prefinished hardwood has no groove as its edge meets with the next piece of wood squarely. While it provides a solid, flat surface for the floor that looks the most like you started with unfinished hardwood, uneven plank heights may be evident on a irregular subfloor. |
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Strips and Planks |
Hardwood comes in a variety of board widths. The more narrow boards are called strips, while the wider ones are referred to as planks. Depending on the style you want the choice is up to you. However, it is good to be aware that planks can make a small room look even smaller. With strip flooring, depending on the direction you run your strips, you can create the illusion of longer or wider room. Yes, thoughtful layout of a hardwood floor can help to visually correct the proportions of a room. Plank flooring may also be more susceptible to warping in high humidity homes or areas. |
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Hardwood Flooring Installation and Grade Level |
When you are considering hardwood flooring for a room in your home, you will need to consider the grade level that the room is on. It is recommended that solid hardwood NOT be installed in the basement, in a bathroom or directly on a concrete slab. This is because solid hardwood is nonresistant to moisture and this could cause it to buckle.
An above grade floor is any floor that is higher than ground around your home.
A slab on grade floor is a cement foundation slab that is on the same level as the surrounding ground. A ground level floor is on the same level as the surface terrain around the home, but not necessarily constructed with a concrete slab.
Below grade is a subterranean level in your home, like the basement. |
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Flooring that is installed on concrete slabs or on below grade levels need to be protected from moisture. Various installation methods can accommodate hardwood flooring installation. Make sure the installation method and the grade level will allow you to put hardwood in the room under consideration. A professional installer that guarantees his work will be sure to take the necessary precautions. |
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Wood Species and Hardness |
The wood varieties below are listed from the hardest to the most soft. |
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Brazilian Cherry
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Mesquite
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Santos Mahogany
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Merbau
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Jarrah
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Purpleheart
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Hickory
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Pecan
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African Pedauk
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Wenge
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Hard Maple
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Australian Cypress
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More choices in hardwood flooring include: bamboo, engineered, parquet, and reclaimed hardwood.
Engineered hardwood is not a solid piece of hardwood. Rather, it is made up of multiple layers of hardwood veneer. By crisscrossing the grain on the stacked layers, a more dimensionally stable hardwood is produced. Dry solid-sawn, rotary-peel and sliced-peel are the three methods by which engineered hardwood is manufactured. Dry solid-sawn looks like real hardwood and doesn't cup or "face check" the way that rotary-peel has the tendency of doing. Rotary-peel engineered hardwood leans toward looking like plywood. Sliced-peel engineered hardwood doesn't look like plywood, but it can be prone to cracking and splintering. |
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Whether to have unfinished hardwood installed, or to have pre-finished hardwood installed, is a matter of preference. Which ever route you go, we hope this information has proved useful! Get help installing your hardwood floors from our many professional hardwood floor contractors!! |
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