HARDWOOD

Solid Hardwood Flooring – Unfinished and Prefinished Options

Tongue and Groove Flooring. Solid wood flooring is fabricated from 3/4″ thick solid wood and has tongue and groove sides to join the boards. Some manufacturers make a thinner version that is 5/16″ thick. The main advantage of solid wood flooring is its ability to be resanded and refinished over many years. It is not uncommon for solid wood floors to last 50 years or more.These floors come unfinished or prefinished and in almost any wood species you can imagine.The main issue to consider with these floors is because they are solid wood, they are susceptible to expansion and contraction due to humidity changes in the home. To accommodate this movement, these floors are installed with a 5/8″ to 3/4″ gap around the perimeter of the floor along the wall and the gap is covered up by the baseboard and shoe molding. Also, 3/4″ thick floors should not be installed in a below grade condition such as a basement, however, the thinner 5/16″ wood floors may be used in that application. When installing a solid wood floor over new or recently washed concrete, be sure the manufacturer’s recommendations on limits of moisture in the concrete are followed. Prefinished solid wood floors often come with slightly beveled top edges where the tongue and groove meet. Unfinished wood floors that are sanded, stained and finished on the job site will have smooth seamless joints.

3/4″ wood floors require a specialized tool for nailing the boards together. The thinner 5/16″ wood floor is installed using staples or glue.

Wood Floor Hardness

The Janka Hardness test is a uniform way to measure wood hardness.The relative hardness of wood species is measured using what is called a Janka Hardness Rating. This test measures the force needed to embed a steel ball (.444 inch in diameter) to half its diameter in the piece of wood being tested, with the rating measured in pounds of force per square inch. So with this rating system, the higher the number the harder the wood. Wood hardness is important since one of the key considerations in selecting the species of wood floor your floor should be how much resistance the wood has to scratches and indentations. For example, if you have a dog with long nails then scratching the floor is a consideration and you should select a species with a higher rating such as hickory, maple, oak or ash. Janka Hardness Rating

Laminate vs Hardwood

Let’s cut to the chase: solid hardwood flooring is better than laminate. That is, it’s a higher-quality type of flooring. It’s 3/4 inch of solid hardwood cut from a tree. Laminate is essentially particleboard with a photo layer that looks like wood and a layer of plastic on top of that. But just because hardwood is a better-quality material than laminate, it doesn’t mean that hardwood is necessarily better for your application.

Laminate actually performs better in some ways, and it’s a lot cheaper and much easier to install than hardwood. Laminate also doesn’t need as much pampering as hardwood. All of these tradeoffs can make the decision between laminate vs. hardwood a tough one, but if you focus on the factors that matter most to you, the better fit should be clear.