In the event you’ve at all times longed for hardwood flooring, you are in good firm. Whereas comfortable wood flooring date again to the Colonial period, hardwood flooring first burst on the scene within the late seventeenth century. In the event you solely know that you really want hardwood flooring gracing your property, learn this fast and soiled information in order that your head will not spin once you discuss together with your contractor. This ten-minute learn will information you thru the fundamentals of wooden species, grades, varieties and types.

Wooden Species

With over 50 wooden species out there for wooden flooring, pink oak accounts for greater than 50% of laborious Solid wood flooring gross sales. Its recognition stems from its class, sturdiness and cost-effectiveness. Maple ranks second in recognition for brand spanking new wooden flooring. Newer tendencies point out a rising urge for food for bamboo, cherry, and white oak. A number of the extra esoteric imported woods utilized in hardwood flooring embrace Brazilian cherry, Australian cypress, African padauk, and Burmese teak.

Shade choices are plentiful. If colour is a precedence, and also you need the pure fantastic thing about the wooden to shine by way of, choose a wooden species that the majority intently matches your colour desire.

Wooden Grades

Grade refers solely to the fantastic thing about the wooden, to not its sturdiness or serviceability. Not each grade applies to each wooden species. A wooden species is graded as Clear, Choose or Widespread, or it’s graded as First, Second or Third. Clear/First, Choose/Second, Widespread/Third grades will not be an identical, however they’re shut sufficient to current a shared shopper definition. The six primary wooden grades embrace:

-Clear or First – free from most seen defects and discoloration, accommodates solely minor seen imperfections

-Choose or Second – could include slight imperfections, corresponding to colour variations

-Widespread or Third – accommodates knots and colour variations, typically labeled as “rustic” wooden

Strong vs. Engineered Wooden

Many individuals consider that hardwood and strong wooden are synonymous. They are not. In the event you’re listening to the time period engineered wooden for the primary time, you almost certainly suppose that it’s by some means inferior to strong wooden. That is not essentially true.

Strong wooden is milled from one strong ¾” piece of wooden. Strong hardwood flooring broaden and contract greater than engineered woods and are notably prone to moisture. Because the wooden expands and contracts, it could buckle or it could go away gaps. Two frequent strategies of counteracting these gaps embrace beveled edges and leaving enlargement gaps–gaps between the wooden and the wall–hidden by the bottom molding.

You may discover a lot of the fashionable wooden species, corresponding to oak, maple, cherry and others out there in engineered wooden. Generally referred to as pressed wooden, engineered wooden is available in 3-ply or 5-ply versions–three or 5 bonded layers of wooden. Engineered wooden floors succumb to little, if any enlargement and contraction and are completely suited to rooms prone to moisture. In order for you wooden floors within the rest room, the kitchen or in any room the place moisture accumulates, contemplate engineered wooden for its higher stability. In the event you plan to put a wooden flooring straight over concrete, you have to set up engineered wooden to keep up structural integrity.

Wooden Types

As soon as you have decided the species, wooden grade and determined between strong and engineered wooden, you’ll be able to transfer on to the enjoyable stuff–the type. Widespread wooden types embrace:

-Parquet

-Plank

-Strip

Strips and planks are lengthy, linear cuts of woods. The primary distinction is the width of the wooden. Strips vary from widths of 1 ½” to 2 ¼”, whereas planks vary from widths of three” to eight”. Contemplate strips in case your aim is to create the phantasm of a bigger room. Sequence of small wooden items create parquet’s geometrical design. Parquet flooring complement giant, ethereal rooms.