Hardwood flooring is a very popular choice of floor material when homeowners go in for renovation projects and for building new homes. It is easy to clean and maintain, and wood has inherent properties that make it stain and dirt resistant. Unlike carpets, hardwood floors will never fade and will retain their original colors for many years. It is also possible to enhance these looks with sanding, staining, waxing, and polishing.
Hardwood floors do not trap any dust and pet dander as carpets will, and this makes them always cleaner and fresher. As a result, people with respiratory diseases will always have clean air around the home, and this can help their health. Floors made of hardwood are very versatile, and you will rarely find two floors that look the same so that every house will be unique. Wood naturally has many different patterns and every color or shade will be slightly different. It is a flooring material that is very durable, resists scratches and dents. A home with hardwood floor adds a lot to its value and will help to get a better price when it is put up for sale.
There is no denying the aesthetics and beauty of hardwood floors, as it brings out a strong reminder of the glory of nature. They can be sanded and finished in different colors, in case you do desire to change its looks. It is a sort of flooring that goes well with almost any decor. It is a fact that this flooring involves significant amounts of investment, but its durability makes this a once in a lifetime expenditure that is well worth it, for the beauty and values it brings to a home.
You can reduce your cost by contacting Absolute Flooring.US. We carry a multitude of solid and engineered flooring made by the best manufactures! All with a minimum of 240 sf with a minimum markup and we sell these hardwoods direct to you. You can use our network of supplier locations for a pick up or if needed we can use our volume discount rates with licensed and insured freight carriers. Whereas if you go to a big box store or a retail store they may often have only a small amount of flooring on hand at a decent price and the more popular ones on display at a premium price, which can greatly exceed your budget.
Solid hardwood flooring is made from a single piece of wood and can come to you prefinished or unfinished. When you buy the unfinished hardwood, you will have to sand it, stain it and finish it. This can be quite a messy job, but the advantage is that you can get the color and finish that goes well with your decor. Large manufacturers of these floors will have a vast range of finishes for their prefinished products, and this can allow you to make the choice that suits your tastes and needs. Another advantage with factory prefinished hardwood floor planks is that they will receive their finish in controlled factory conditions and with sophisticated machinery that greatly enhances the quality of the hardwood and with most pre-finished hardwood floorings the surface is tougher and much more resistant to wear than what you can get on a home finished floor.
You can also buy hardwood floors that are made of engineered hardwood. The planks you get are made of a number of layers of wood veneers and synthetic materials, that are then laminated together to form the required planks for your flooring. Some may have synthetic material that is used in the bottom layer and is one that is completely impervious to moisture, and makes it ideal for concrete subfloors, or rooms that are below grade, and likely to have dampness problems.
Engineered hardwood floors will be prefinished in a factory, and these coats are applied in as many as seven layers, that creates surfaces that are very durable and can stand great amounts of traffic. Top layers in wood floors will be susceptible to be scratched or being affected by water. Most engineered hardwoods are thinner than solid hardwoods and are either glued to surfaces or nailed and stapled. You may not be able to refinish engineered floors for a number of times, as you can do in the case of solid hardwood floors. Laminated flooring that is often passed off as hardwood flooring is cheap and does not have the durability and sustainability that engineered or solid hardwood has.
Hardwood floors can be installed on a wooden subfloor or on concrete subfloors. Subfloors must be absolutely level, and concrete subfloors must be inspected for cracks, unevenness, bumps and other defects and must be repaired and allowed to dry out before any hardwood floor is installed. Hardwood floors perform the best when they are under an environment that has a temperature between 60 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit and a humidity of between 35 and 55 percent. This is the comfort range that most people also find suitable, and would be maintained in homes with climate control systems. Hardwood also contains some moisture and this must be less than 12 percent or even more, depending on the manufacturer’s guidelines. Ask your installer to check the moisture content with a meter in your presence. The moisture content of your subfloor must be in the same range as the floor materials.
Let the hardwood floor planks get completely acclimatized to the environment in the home for at least 48 hours before you actually start the installation. So, maintain the same conditions in your home that you will live in later, prior to installation. Allow for expansion gaps at walls as suggested by manufacturers. These can be covered by baseboards or wood trim. You may also require expansion joints between rooms. These can be covered with T moldings. Most hardwood floors offer moldings like the quarter rounds, t-moldings, thresholds, reducers, and stair nosing if needed.
Contact us now, you can get the best and you will save! www.AbsoluteFlooring.US 1-844-200-7600