Hardwood Flooring

As a starting point for choosing hardwood, you may want to consider the following:

 

Assuming that your home is built on a concrete slab, an engineered wood floor is likely a better choice as compared to a solid wood floor. Solid wood floors are less dimensionally stable than engineered wood floors, and are a good choice when the installation involves gluing or nailing the planks to a wood subfloor.  Due to the moisture inherent in slab foundations, there is an increased risk of failure with a solid floor that has been glued down to a concrete slab. Engineered wood floors are considered real wood floors and due to their multiple ply core construction, they are more dimensionally stable than solid wood floors.  In the Austin market place, most homes have slab foundations and an engineered product provides the best solution for a floor that will be glued directly to a concrete slab.  Engineered wood floors are usually close in thickness to tile and the reduced plank thickness reduces the likelihood of having “toe stumpers” where wood meets tile.

 

What species of wood do you like?

Each species offers different characteristics.

• Oak seems to be what all other woods are compared to. It is likely that there are oak cabinets or trim somewhere in your home. Oak is known for its consistency in color, sustainability, and availability. Oak is the standard in hardness (hardness refers to the indentation resistance, and not the scratch resistance), and all other things being equal, oak is usually well priced.

• Hickory is a very popular domestic wood. Compared to oak, hickory has less grain, more knot holes & mineral streaks, and more variation. Hickory is also harder than oak and has more of a “woody” look.

• Maple (think of gym floors) has very little graining and is normally very consistent in color.

• Exotic wood floors are often from South America. Exotic woods (Brazilian Cherry, Ipe, and Santos Mahogany to name a few) each have their own unique look. Unlike domestic species such as oak, hickory, and maple, which all are naturally blond woods that are normally stained, most exotics woods are naturally darker in color and often have reddish tones. The exotics are usually very hard woods. Most of the exotic woods are photosensitive and will darken or “sun tan” with exposure to light and air flow (oxidation).

 

What colors do you like?   

A lighter/blonder wood can help lend a more contemporary look and feel.  However, medium to darker floors tend to look "richer".  All else being equal, lighter floors tend to hide scratches better than darker floors.

 

What is your preference in gloss level?

The higher the gloss, the more formal a floor looks. The lower the gloss level, the better the floor will be with regards to hiding scratches.

 

What surface texture do you find appealing?

Smooth, hand scraped, or wire brushed. The hand scraped woods are not necessarily intended to look casual or country. They are made to look old, worn, warm, and lived on.  Due to the popularity of the hand scraped finishes and the push to lower costs, many less expensive “hand scraped” wood floors are actually machine scraped.  Often these machine scraped floors simply look wavy (not randomly scraped) and shiny.  Wire brushed wood planks have been distressed with a wire brush.  Unlike hand scraped wood floors, wire brushed flat, and usually somewhat rough to the touch.  Although wire brushed floors are flat, they are not smooth.  This distressed texture makes them more forgiving compared to traditional flat & smooth wood planks.

 

What protective coating or finish would you like?  

The vast majority of the prefinished floors have protective layers of urethane with aluminum oxide.  Due to the fact that the aluminum oxide particles are “suspended” in the urethane, this process makes for a finish that is much harder, and tougher than their urethane (only) predecessors.  Additionally, compared to the old urethane (only) products, urethane with aluminum oxide finishes require much more foot traffic before they will “wear through” to the wood that rests beneath the finish.  These newer enhanced urethane products also usually carry very long “wear” warranties – often 20 years to “Lifetime”.  I have found that customers often mistakenly associate the extended “wear” (through) warranties with unsurpassed scratch resistance (scratches are not covered by the warranties).  Any urethane floor will scratch, and usually the “best” fix is to simply use a furniture stain pen to touch up the scratch.  Another protective finish that is becoming more popular these days is the Natural Oil Finish products.  These wood floors have a natural oil applied to the wood and must be maintained with products made for oil finishes.  These oil finishes are usually extremely low gloss and sometimes a little rough to the touch.  Aside from having a “natural” finish on the surface of the floor, a huge benefit of the oil finished floors is that most scratches may be lightly sanded with sandpaper, then touched up with the proper oil.  Most scratches on oil finished floors can easily be touched up without the need to sand and refinish the entire floor.  Most of the oil finished wood floors tend to also be wire brushed.

 

What is your preference in plank width? 

The majority of the products that we are currently installing are wider planks (6" to 7.5", and even up to 12" wide).  We also install a good bit of multi-width floors (4"/6"/8", or 3"/5"/7").