Selecting
a new hardwood or laminate floor for your home is an important decision. We have
been helping people do this since 1981 and know how to make it easier for you.
Following is information that will guide you through the selection process. Our
goal is to help you find the floor that will achieve three objectives: to help
you select a beautiful and durable floor that will meet your objectives as
perfectly as possible; to help you select a floor that is within your budget at
the best price in the country; and to make sure that your floor will improve the
value of your home making it the best financial investment possible.
Following we will describe the various types of floors, look at how they are
installed to make sure that they will work in your home, and guide you through
the process of selecting the best floor for you. In order to accomplish these
goals, it is necessary for you to understand the terms used to describe flooring
and flooring installation. We have a Glossary page for reference when you find
an unfamiliar term. You will need to know a little about the different flooring
installation methods so that you can select a floor that can be installed
properly in your home.
There are a few terms
describing flooring that are important to understand to enable you to select a
floor that will achieve the look and feel that you want and to make sure that
the floor that you pick out will be able to be installed properly in your home.
Also different types of floors vary in installation methods and costs,
appearance of the floor, and maintenance. It is important to understand what you
are getting so that there will be no surprises later. We realize purchasing a
floor is a major investment. We want to ensure that when you buy a floor from us
you will get the best price in the nation. While the information following will
help you in selecting a floor, if you still have questions, we encourage you to
email us or call us to get all your questions answered.
Solid hardwood floors, like
the name suggests, are made of solid wood. Engineered hardwood floors are made
of cross-laminated layers of wood (constructed in the same manner as plywood)
with a hardwood veneer on top. The older term for engineered floors was laminate
floors, but now the term “laminate” is used to describe the synthetic
hardwood floors like Formica, and Wilsonart.
The main difference between solid and engineered floors is how they can be
installed. Because solid wood expands and contracts with moisture, it must
usually be nailed down to a wood subfloor, which is typically plywood. Solid
wood cannot be glued down to a concrete slab because the forces in the wood
which cause it to twist and cup would pull the glue loose from the subfloor.
Cleated nails are usually used to fasten solid hardwood to the subfloor, since
uncleated nails can be worked loose as the wood expands and contracts. Recently
Bruce has introduced the first solid hardwood floor that can be glued down.
Their Natural Reflections floor can be glued down because it is only 5/16 inch
thick, which is thin enough to prevent it from developing sufficient force to
cause glue failure.
Engineered hardwood floors were developed to create a hardwood floor that can be
glued directly to a concrete slab floor or nailed down to a wood subfloor. Solid
wood expands and contracts across the grain (width) with moisture changes, but
the length is very stable. Thus when layers of wood are glued together at right
angles (like plywood) the resulting structure is very stable and changes with
moisture are extremely small. This is the basis of engineered hardwood flooring.
There are typically 3 to 6 layers of wood and the cross-lamination makes a very
dimensionally stable plank. These stable engineered planks can then be glued
directly to a concrete slab and the moisture from the slab and air will not
cause the wood to expand and contract enough to cause glue failure.
Engineered floors have also
been developed as floating floors. The boards of these floors are glued together
at the tongue and groove and not glued to the subfloor. The resulting floor
floats like a membrane on a 1/8 inch thick foam pad, yielding a floor that is
more insulated and softer to walk and stand on. Also the floor is easier to
install for the average handy person. For a floor to be able to be installed by
this floating method, the boards must be wide (usually about 7 or 8 inches wide)
and long (usually about 7 to 8 feet long). Short, narrow boards cannot
successfully be installed by a floating method.
Laminate flooring is the newest entry to the flooring business. The industry has
settled on calling these floors laminate floors or laminates, which was a term
that used to be applied to the floors that we now call engineered flooring.
Laminate floors are generally made of a medium or high density fiberboard (fine
grain particle board) with a photo reproduction of hardwood or other material
covered by a tough plastic top layer. This is the same product that we’ve
known for years as Formica or Wilsonart counter tops and in fact Formica and
Wilsonart are two of the major producers of laminate flooring. Laminate floors
are all installed by the floating method in which the tongues and grooves of the
boards are glued together to form a membrane which then floats on top of a foam
pad. These floors offer excellent scratch and wear resistance, but contrary to
many people conceptions, they are not indestructible.
First of all we will be
using the term hardwood to describe flooring even though some floors, like
knotty pine, are made from woods which are technically described as softwoods.
For ease of discussion all woods for flooring will be called hardwoods.
Different woods have different advantages and disadvantages. Oak is the
traditional hardwood flooring species because it is hard and relatively
inexpensive. Also it has a bold grain pattern which looks good whether finished
in the natural color or stained. There are two types of oaks used for flooring:
white oak and red oak. White oak is the more traditional oak floor because of
its strength and stability, but in recent decades red oak has become much more
popular and is now much more widely used. People seem to prefer the natural
color of red oak which is mostly tan with some light reds, while white oak has
more gray and greenish tints prevailing. Generally the term “oak” refers to
red oak unless “white oak” is specifically stated.
Many other woods used are used for flooring including: maple, pecan, beech,
merbau, elm, cherry, walnut, etc. Be aware that there are some woods which have
similar names but are different species. For example there are American cherry
and American walnut but these species are completely different from Brazilian
cherry and Brazilian walnut. Many hardwood marketers “borrow” the names of
American wood species to help promote and sell their foreign wood species.
Sometimes these foreign woods are much superior to the American woods, but
sometimes they are not. For example Brazilian cherry is a very hard wood while
American cherry is not. It is important to understand the characteristics of the
wood so that you get the right floor.
Hardness is an important
characteristic of wood because it determines how dent-resistant the floor will
be. No wood is dent-proof but the hardness of the wood determines how resistant
it will be to denting. Many woods like oak, maple, and pecan are very hard and
therefore more dent-resistant, while other woods like pine, cherry, and elm are
soft and easily dent. Some people want a soft floor so that it will get
distressed and show wear, while others want a hard floor that will not show the
dents and distress marks as much.
There are two basic types of
hardwood flooring: plank or strip and parquet. Plank or strip floors are
constructed of long boards, which are laid side by side to form the traditional
hardwood floor. Plank and strip flooring are basically the same except that
traditionally any floor that has a board width of 2-1/4 inches or narrower is
called a strip floor and any floor that has a board width of more than 2-1/4
inches is called a plank floor. Most hardwood floors installed today are either
plank or strip.
Parquet flooring is the description used when the floor is cut into short
lengths and special shapes and assembled into a pattern. There are many
different parquet designs with names like herringbone, finger-block, and
Monticello. The pieces of the floor can be assembled at a factory into a modular
unit and then these units are laid to make up the floor or the parquets can be
assembled on the job. Parquets used to be more popular but the trend in the last
20 years has been toward plank and strip flooring. Today parquet floors account
for less than 3% of our sales.
Plank or strip flooring is
made of boards and these boards have thickness, width, and length. Typically the
thickness of solid wood floors is ¾ inch, but sometimes these floors may be
thicker or thinner. The thickness of engineered wood floors is usually 3/8"
to 5/8" but sometimes they are as thin as 1/4". Typically the price of
engineered wood floors varies with the thickness, thickness of the veneer, and
the species of wood.
The width of the board can vary from 1-1/2 inch wide to 7 inch or wider. The
length of the board is the long dimension of the board. Typically hardwood
floors come in random lengths which means that the lengths of the boards vary.
Most manufacturers specify the board lengths of their floors. When the board is
laid on the floor the side of the board that is up is called the face, the long
side which is perpendicular to the floor is called the edge, and the short side
which is perpendicular to the floor is called the end.
The edge of the board is
milled so that one side has a tongue and the other side has a groove. When the
flooring is installed the tongue and groove fits together so that each board
holds down the next one.
Finishes are one of the most
important features of hardwood flooring and will strongly influence your
decision about what floor to select. In 1999, a new generation of finishes was
widely introduced into the hardwood flooring industry. There are several
variations of these finishes but the most commonly used are the aluminum oxide
and titanium oxide finishes. The addition of metal to the finishes makes these
finishes very strong and durable.
The older polyurethane finishes were usually warranted by the manufacturers for
5 years, but the new aluminum and titanium oxide finishes typically have
warranties of 15, 20, 25 years or even lifetime. These are factory-applied
finishes and the complexity of their application prevents them from being used
in on-the-job finishes. This gives a tremendous advantage of the factory-prefinished
floors with aluminum and titanium oxide over the floors that are finished on the
job.
All of the prefinished
floors in use today are no-wax floors. Some people are still familiar with the
old wax-finished floors, which were high-maintenance floors that required
frequent wax applications and polishing. These floors were replaced in the 1980s
with polyurethane floors and now by the aluminum and titanium oxide floors.
However, some manufacturers still use polyurethane floors. All of the new
finishes including the polyurethane floors should never be waxed. Hardwood
floors can be ruined by mopping with water or using grocery store products like
Endust or Murphy's Oil Soap. Make sure you use only cleaning products that are
approved for your floor.
There are two different
processes used to refinish wood floors: sanding and screen and coat. Screen and
coat means that the floor is refinished by roughing up the surface of the
polyurethane with a machine (a process called screening) so that the new finish
will adhere to the old and then re-coated with new polyurethane. This results in
a floor that looks new although deep distress marks may still be noticeable. In
this process no wood is removed so this screen and coat refinishing can be
redone an unlimited number of time.
If the finish on a hardwood floor is allowed to wear through, dirt can get into
the grain of the wood. If this happens, or if the owner desires to remove
distress marks then the floor can be sanded to remove the old finish and the top
layer of wood. This process will result in a floor that looks brand new.
Generally, however, proper maintenance will prevent the necessity of resanding a
floor.
Solid wood floors can be sanded down to just above the tongue and groove
(usually 3-6 sandings). The thickness of the veneer on an engineered floor
determines how many times the floor can be sanded. Since some veneers are
thinner they cannot be sanded as many times..
Most engineered floors have a veneer thick enough to allow 2 or 3 sandings, and
of course, an unlimited number of screen and coats. Robbins is a manufacturer
that has a three-sanding guaranty, and has claimed for years that they have the
thickest top veneer in the industry. However other manufacturers are now using
very thick top veneers and some are thicker than Robbins.
The advent of the new aluminum oxide finishes, however, has nullified much of
the debate over the thickness of the veneer of an engineered wood floor and how
many times it can be sanded. While most floors are screened and recoated every 5
to 10 years, the new finishes may extend that to 20 to 25 years between
refinishings. With proper maintenance your floor may never need to be resanded.
There are three main methods
to install hardwood flooring: by nailing the floor to a wood subfloor, by gluing
the floor to a concrete slab or wood subfloor, or by floating the wood floor on
foam pad over a concrete slab or other subfloor. Solid hardwood flooring must be
nailed down to a wood subfloor (with the exception of Bruce’s new 5/16 inch
thick solid wood floor). This is typically done with a nailing machine called a
PowerNailer which we sell or rent. This machine is driven by a mallet and the
board is pushed over and nailed simultaneously.
For a glue-down floor, a properly-sized, notched trowel is used to apply the
flooring mastic to the concrete slab or wood subfloor. The boards are then put
in place and pushed into the glue. Some adjustment is possible after the board
is placed. A glue-down engineered floor has the look and feel of a solid
nailed-down floor.
Floating floors are installed by gluing the tongue and grooves of the boards
together to form a large membrane which floats on top of a 1/8 inch thick foam
pad. This results in a floor which is softer to walk on and is somewhat warmer
because of the insulating effects of the foam pad. There is one other floating
floor—the solid wood floors made by Junckers. These floors use a patented clip
system to hold the boards together (rather than glue) and the resulting floor
floats on an underlayment. One advantage of this system is that the floor can be
removed and installed in another location, making it ideal for commercial
applications or if a move is contemplated in the future.
There are hardwood floors designed to be installed by "peal and stick"
which are held down by a self-sticking adhesive. Once this adhesive touches the
underfloor, it cannot be moved. We refuse to sell this type of flooring material
because it is impossible to install these and have the floor turn out well. We
consider it a complete waste of money to attempt to use these types of floors.
The construction of your
home determines which type of floors will work the best in your home. Some homes
have concrete slab floors while others have raised foundations with plywood
sub-floors nailed onto floor joists. Solid hardwood floors generally have to be
nailed down to a plywood subfloor. If they are glued to a concrete slab floor
the twisting forces in the wood can cause glue failure and pull the wood from
the floor.
If you have a raised foundation or are installing the floor on a second story
over a plywood subfloor, then you can nail down a solid hardwood floor. However
if you have a concrete slab floor and you want to install a solid wood floor you
must first nail and glue down plywood (usually 3/4 inch thick) to provide a
surface to which you can nail the hardwood flooring. The combined thickness of
the 3/4 inch plywood and the 3/4 inch solid wood floor is 1-1/2 inches and this
thickness may be a problem in certain areas.
If the floor is going to be installed in the kitchen the added 1-1/2 inch floor
will usually interfere with the dishwasher and other appliances from being able
to be removed. If the kitchen cabinets are being remodeled at the same time or
the home is being newly constructed, allowance can be made for this floor
height. Also the 1-1/2 inch height will require cutting the bottoms of doors so
they will clear the floor.
In most instances where the floor is a concrete slab it is much easier to
install an engineered hardwood floor by the glue-down or floating installation
method. This results in a floor which is 1/2 to 5/8 inch thick which will not
usually interfere with appliances, doors, or cabinet heights.
There are two types of edge
detail on hardwood plank flooring: beveled edge and square edge. A beveled edge
means that the edge of the board is milled slightly at an angle so that when the
boards are laid side-by-side a groove results. This groove is a design
characteristic which visually outlines each board, consequently it is used more
when the boards are wider (3”, 5”, and wider) to emphasize the width of the
board as a design feature. A beveled edge usually makes the floor look more
country and informal.
A square edge means that there is no bevel so that there are no grooves in the
floor. Square edge floors look more modern and slightly more formal. There is
also a micro-beveled edge which is a very small bevel.
Besides design there are advantages and disadvantages to each edge detail. When
the underlying floor is not completely flat and a square edged floor is
installed, the spaces between the boards can open up at the “tops of the
hills” and close up at the “bottoms of the hills.” A beveled edge or a
micro-beveled edge can help hide these differences.
Other homeowners feel that a
square edged floor is easier to keep clean because there are no grooves where
dirt can collect. There are many differences of opinion and your choice will
depend upon your preferences. Both edge details make great floors.
The nailed-down, solid
hardwood floor is still the number one type of hardwood floor installed in this
country. However, engineered floors are the predominant floor installed in the
South and West where concrete slab floors are most common. Engineered flooring
is the fastest growing section of the hardwood flooring industry because of many
advantages over solid wood, such as cost, installation ease and speed, and
superior finishes.
Laminate flooring, though not real hardwood, is the fastest growing section of
the whole flooring industry primarily because of low initial cost, ease of
installation, and better scratch resistance.
However, the long-term investment advantage still lies with real hardwood.
Following are more detailed descriptions of the 5 types of hardwood and laminate
floors from which you can choose. Study these to determine which will work best
for your home.
Solid hardwood flooring is
typically ¾ inch thick and can be purchased unfinished or factory prefinished.
It is important to understand the physical changes that solid wood can undergo
during changes in temperature and humidity. Solid wood plank or strip has three
dimensions, thickness, width, and length. The changes to the thickness and
length are very minor and are not significant. However, the width of solid wood
changes with temperature and humidity. When the humidity and temperature rise,
the width of the board increases. When humidity and temperature decrease, the
width of the board
decreases.
Before solid wood is installed in your home, it is typically loosely piled in
the area for a period of two weeks so that it can adapt to the conditions there
and expand or contract to the size that it will be on the floor.
Because solid wood can expand, sufficient room must be left between the boards
and between the floor and the wall for it to expand. Failure to leave adequate
expansion room can lead to cupping or floor failure. Different species of wood
have different expansion and contraction rates, so it is important to understand
how much your particular floor can expand or contract.
It cannot be emphasized enough that solid wood flooring needs to be installed
correctly to prevent failure. Please see the Installation Instructions page for
further information. Because solid wood can expand and contract the owner should
expect the cracks between the boards to open during the cooler drier seasons,
typically winter, and to close more during the moister and warmer seasons,
typically summer. These cracks can be noticed a little more on wider boards, but
are still not large, usually 1/16 inch or less.
Solid wood floors can either be factory finished or unfinished. When unfinished
floors are installed, they must be sanded and finished. Costs to have a
professional in your area install, sand, and finish your floor vary in different
parts of the country. Typically installation of a nail-down floor can vary from
$2.00 to $3.00 per square foot. Sanding and finishing can vary from $2.00 to
$4.50 per square foot. Therefore the total cost of installation, sanding, and
finishing can vary from $4.00 to $7.50 per square foot. Generally the larger the
area of flooring, the lower the per square foot cost.
One company, Junckers
(pronounced “Yunkers”), makes a solid wood floor that can be floated over
existing floors or over a concrete slab. Junckers is a name not well known in
this country but is the largest manufacturer of solid wood flooring in Europe.
The bottoms of the boards are slotted to allow patented clips to be used to hold
the boards together. The entire floor then floats on top of an 1/8 inch thick
foam pad. Junckers manufactures floors varying in three thicknesses: 9/16 inch,
¾ inch, and 7/8 inch. While it is sometimes possible to detect that the thinner
floors are floating, the ¾ inch and 7/8 inch thick floors are heavy enough so
it is very difficult to detect that they are floating. Some of their products
are made in three grades. The top grade is classic, which is very clear with few
knots. The second grade is harmony, which has some knots and character marks.
The third grade is variation, which has many knots and character marks. For a
really rustic looking floor at a low cost, the variation grade makes an
excellent floor. These floors feel like nail-down floors but have a cushioned
feel because of the foam pad underneath.
These floors are relatively easy to install as long as planning is done to
prepare for the effects of expansion of the boards. Because solid wood expands
across the grain causing the width of the boards to increase, there is a maximum
width to the floor, which should not be exceeded without an expansion gap being
built in to the floor. These floors can also be nailed down to an existing wood
subfloor.
This type of floor is the
most common floor installed in the South and West because most of the homes in
those areas are built with concrete slabs, but there are certain features of
this type of flooring that are driving increased usage throughout the country.
The advantages are low cost, ability to install it over nearly any type of
subfloor, ease of installation which can be successfully accomplished by nearly
any handy person, and the new, incredibly durable, 25-year factory finishes that
are on most of these products. The new aluminide and titanium finishes that were
introduced in 1999 have changed the industry. Engineered floors are typically
about ½ inch thick and are very dimensionally stable because they are
constructed of multiple, cross-laminated layers of wood, much like plywood. The
top hardwood veneer is typically about 1/8 inch; thick, but can be thicker or
thinner depending upon the manufacturer.
Before these finishes came into use, the thickness of the top hardwood veneer
was an important consideration, because the number of times that the floor could
be sanded and refinished was dependent upon this thickness. The finishes were
generally warranteed by the manufacturer for 5 years and would usually need
refinishing between 5 and 10 years after installation. However the new
generation of aluminide finishes that are warranteed by the manufacturers for up
to 25 years has changed that. Not only are these new finishes warranteed not to
wear through for 25 years but they are substantially more resistant to abrasion
and scratching. We expect that they will look great for a long time. While other
factory-applied and job-site applied finishes will generally last at least 5
years, these new finishes will probably last 5 times as long.
These new finishes have nullified the debate over the thickness of the top
veneer on engineered floors and how many sandings you will get out of a floor.
These finishes may make these engineered floors outlast the solid wood floors,
making them a better long-term investment.
Engineered floors have additional benefits over solid wood floors. Because of
the way they are constructed, engineered floors have an extremely low tendency
to expand and contract in varying humidity and temperature conditions. They can
be installed with minimal gaps between the boards and only a small gap at the
walls in case there is some expansion. The dimensional stability means that the
cracks between the boards will not noticeably increase in dry weather and
decrease in humid weather.
Nearly all of the features that can be accomplished with a solid wood floor can
be accomplished with an engineered floor. These floors come square edged or
beveled edged, and in various widths. Typically the widths are 2-1/4 inch, 3
inch, 5 inch, and sometimes 7 inch or wider. Some of the engineered floors come
hand-scraped and distressed, but for extremely heavy hand-scraping, a solid wood
floor is still preferred. Since Robbins Hardwood floors are known for their
extremely thick top veneer they are generally the choice for contractors who are
looking for an unfinished, engineered hardwood floor that can be glued down,
possibly distressed, and sanded and finished in place.
One of the real advantages of an engineered floor is that they are not
technically difficult to install. While solid wood floors must be installed so
that expansion does not cause a floor failure and are best installed on raised
floors (not below grade), engineered wood floors are nearly fool-proof to
install and can be installed on slabs and below grade where moisture is high.
When choosing a wood floor, you should definitely consider the engineered
floors.
Certain engineered floors
are designed to be floated over a concrete slab or an existing floor. These
floors were designed in Europe and are being used increasing in the United
States because of certain advantages that they have over the more traditional
glue-down engineered floors. These floors typically come about 8 inch wide and 8
feet long and this approximate size is necessary for the floor to work properly.
The tongues and grooves of these floors are glued together and the whole floor
floats like a membrane over an 1/8 inch thick foam pad. A sheet of polyurethane
is placed underneath the foam pad for waterproofing. This allows installation
over damp concrete slabs.
The real advantage of the floating engineered floors is that the foam pad
underneath gives a soft, cushioned feel to the floor. This cushioning helps
prevent discomfort in the legs when the person spends long hours standing on the
floor such as when cooking in the kitchen. Also, the foam pad offers some
thermal insulation keeping the floor warmer than a wood floor glued directly to
a slab. The other main advantage is cost. The floating floors are slightly less
expensive per square foot to purchase, the foam pad is a little less expensive
than the glue per square foot, and the installation goes a little faster.
One design feature of the floating floor is that most of them are made up of
narrow, short pieces of wood which are glued up to make the larger board. We
describe the look as a modern, Swedish look. If you are looking for a more
traditional, long length, hardwood floor then the glue-down engineered floors
have more choices.
With all the advantages of the floating hardwood floors, you’re probably
thinking that there must be some disadvantage. About the only one we know of is
that there is a slight hollow sound heard when walking on the floor with
hard-soled shoes. Walking on laminate floors (Wilsonart, Formica, etc.) also
produces a slight hollow sound, but because the floating hardwood floors are
thicker, heavier, and more substantial, the sound from these floors is less than
that from laminate floors. However, remember that this is a very small factor
and usually not noticeable because most people wear socks or soft-soled shoes in
the home.
The main advantages of the floating hardwood floors are cost, ease of
installation, and comfort when walking or standing.
The last category of
hardwood floors are obviously not real hardwood floors but are being used
increasingly to obtain the look and feel of a hardwood floor. Laminate floors
are typically composed of a medium or high density fiberboard core (like
particle board but finer and more dense) with a plastic laminate with a wood
grain look glued on top. While the description makes it sound very plastic,
these floors achieve a remarkably close resemblance to real hardwood floors.
The laminate floors have two big advantages over hardwood floors. First is that
they cost quite a bit less, generally from $2.00 to $3.00 less per square foot.
Since the average installed prefinished hardwood floor (flooring, tax, glue,
labor, moldings, etc.) costs about $10 per square foot, the laminate floors can
save you about 25% on the completed price for your floor. If you install the
floor yourself, the percentage saving can be more. The second large advantage of
laminate floors is that the finish is more abrasion and scratch resistant.