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HARDWOOD FLOORING

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Wood flooring

by Bogdan Klejn 2007-10-08 - Planning & Design

If you're like most Americans, chances are you're considering it would flooring as part of your remodeling in place of vinyl flooring, carpeting or stone or ceramic tiles. Wood flooring is made from the timber of hardwoods like oak or black walnut, or out of spruce or hard pine. This type of flooring can be installed either by professionally hardwood floor services or by the do-it-yourselfer willing to take a little extra time.

Hardwood is manufactured in two basic ways. It comes unfinished, and once installed in the home is sanded then finished on site by staining and/or adding a durable topcoat. In more recent times, it is pre-finished in a factory, and comes with a polyurethane finish that has added aluminum oxide, although some companies prefer to use titanium dioxide or some other oxides instead. These metal oxide finishes increase the wear a hardwood floor can handle.

Solid hardwoods are typically sold in planks of 3/4 inch or 19mm thickness, although some do come in planks that are 3/8 inch (10mm) or 5/16 inch (8mm) thick. This type of hardwood flooring can be installed using a nail-down installation method over a wooden sub flooring. One drawback is that although very popular, this type of hardwood is also very susceptible to the effects of moisture and temperature. Hardwoods like oak expand and contract due to moisture and temperature changes, expanding and contracting alone the width of the grain. Most experts recommend that this particular type of hardwood flooring not be installed over a concrete slab, unless otherwise approved for that purpose by the manufacturer. There are some instances where solid hardwood that is 3/8" thick can be installed on a concrete slab, but product recommendations should be consulted before attempting it.

Instead of having one solid piece of hardwood, prefinished hardwood is manufactured by compiling layers of hardwood veneer to create a finished that can range in thickness from 3/8 of an inch or 8mm up to 9/16 of an inch or 14mm thick. The wood veneer on top varies in thickness depending on the specifications and process used by the manufacturer. The three basic processes for making veneer are the rotary peel (This manufacturing process tends to have problems with the wood veneer cupping or curling back to its original shape. It is commonly known as "face checking" and is a manufacturing defect, often giving these engineered hardwoods a plywood-like appearance in the grain), sliced-peel (this style of engineered hardwood tends to have less problems with "face checking" and also does not have the same plywood appearance in the grain. Unfortunately, this type of prefinished product can tend to have edge splintering and cracking due to the fact that the strips of veneer have been submersed in water and then pressed flat in the layering process), and finally, dry solid-sawn (this top veneer layer is obtained in a fashion similar to how a solid hardwood plank is m produced. This style of prefinished flooring has the same look as solid hardwood, and does not suffer from the potential for "face checking" that rotary- and slice-peel products do is, since it is not exposed to added moisture to obtain it).

In order to create a prefinished hardwood, layers of veneer are stacked on top of each other in such a way that the grain of the wood in each layer is facing perpendicular to each other. Once the desired thickness is obtained, the boards are then cut into the correct board width. In the next step in the process, the boards are then cut to have a tongue or groove on the edges. The last step is to add stain to the board if necessary, and add a finish, which makes it less susceptible to the effects of moisture and temperature change. Because wood expands and contracts along the width of the grain direction, prefinished hardwood is said to be dimensionally stable. Solid hardwood planks do not have this type of dimensional stability since all of the grain in the board runs in the same direction. As a result of the dimensional stability properties, prefinished hardwood floor can be glued directly to concrete, as opposed to solid hardwoods which can't.

Now that you have a few more facts about hardwood flooring types, you can better determine which type is more suited to your particular needs. You can see samples of both types at either your local hardware or flooring store, where you can also receive help and directions on how to do it should you wish to install it yourself.

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ARTICLE TAGS:

• Wood Flooring Overview - by Bogdan Klejn 2007-10-14
• Solid Hardwood Flooring - by Bogdan Klejn 2007-10-10
• Wood flooring - by Bogdan Klejn 2007-10-08
• All About Engineered Wood Floors - by Bogdan Klejn 2007-10-07