If you’re in the market for new hardwood floors, you may be wondering how to select the right product for your home. Here are nine questions to help with that process.
This article goes into detail about the different hardwood flooring options you have, and how to evaluate them based on your lifestyle and home requirements.
9 Questions About How to Select the Right Hardwood Floor
1. Should You Select Solid or Engineered Hardwood Floors?
Hardwood floors come in two categories: solid and engineered.
Solid Hardwood
As its name suggests, solid hardwood consists of a continuous piece of wood approximately 3/4″ thick that can be purchased in strips (1-1/2″ to 2-1/4″ in width), planks (3″ to 8″ in width), as well as parquet. Solid hardwood offers more choices for customizing your floors according to your preferences for the type of wood, stain color, and finishing. Furthermore, it can be sanded and refinished multiple times over its lifetime.
Solid hardwood can be pre-finished before installation or unfinished so the final stains and finishes can be done after installation in your home where you can fine-tune the results with the help of an installation professional like Victor Mulbauer from Michigan Hardwood Floor Services.
In terms of installation methods, hardwood floors tend to be nailed down or glued down depending on the width of the floorboards.
The biggest watch out for hardwood floors has to do with moisture: don’t install it below grade (or ground level) or on a concrete slab.
Engineered Hardwood
Engineered hardwood, on the other hand, consists of multiple layers of wood, plywood, and composite materials with each one’s grain perpendicular to the other for dimensional stability, making it ideal for basements and concrete slabs where moisture can be a problem. The top layer is solid hardwood. Planks range in width from 2-1/4″ to 7″.
You’ll find that engineered hardwood is prefinished as part of the manufacturing process with a polyurethane or aluminum oxide finish for hardness.
Engineered floors can be nailed down, stapled, glued as well as floated. They can also be glued directly to concrete.
When shopping for engineered hardwood, opt for a thick top layer that can be refinished in the future.
2. Should You Choose Pre-finished or Site-finished Wood Floors?
Above you read that solid hardwood floors can be pre-finished with the stain and top coat of finished already ‘baked’ in, or that you can have an installation professional like Michigan Hardwood Floor Services complete the finishing process in your home.
The Benefits of Pre-finished Hardwood Floors
Pre-finished wood floors come ready to install and don’t require additional steps (such as sanding, staining, and sealing). That means less time to complete the project and less inconvenience to you, the homeowner.
The hardwood floor manufacturers create this “baked-in“ finish by applying several thin coats of ultra-tough aluminum oxide finishes and then curing them with UV lights. The final outcome is usually a very tough and smooth coating.
Pre-Finished Hardwood Floor Drawbacks
There are certain drawbacks with pre-finished hardwood floors; the most noticeable one is that pre-finished floors come with bevels on the edges, some deeper, others less visible depending on the brand.
Factory-finished wood floors aren’t exempt from scratches, dents, and wear. At some point, you may need or want to sand and refinish your floors so they look new again.
Removing the bevels requires additional sanding to get the floorboards level with the bottom of the bevels. This process reduces the thickness of the floorboards and consequently limits the number of times you can refinish the floor in the future.
Consumer Misconceptions About Pre-Finished Hardwood
Consumers also have a few misconceptions about pre-finished hardwood. The most common is that, in case of an accident or damage done to your floor, you can easily replace a few boards.
Keep in mind that the color and sheen of the old board will never match the color and sheen of the new board, even if it is the same floor manufacturer or the same brand.
Why? Because the existing floor was exposed to everyday wear and tear, not to mention direct sunlight if it wasn’t protected with curtains, drapes, or blinds. You might not notice these color changes with the naked eye but once you place a new board next to an older one, the differences become obvious.
With all that said, you have two options when a section of flooring becomes damaged:
- Accept that you have a color difference between the old floor and replaced broken section or,
- Sand and refinish the whole area and have a beautiful new uniform color applied.
The Benefits of Site-finished Hardwood Floors
Because site-finished floors are sanded after they are nailed or glued down, they tend to be smoother than pre-finished floors, with no bevels in the joints and no grooves.
Personalized Customization with Site-Finished Floors
Moreover, if customization is significant to you, site-finished hardwood floors might be the better option because they can be made precisely to your preferences.
Site-finished hardwood allows you more flexibility in fine-tuning the final look and feel of your floors based on how they look inside your home with your lighting and design. When creating the right stain and sheen, a skilled artisan can do it on-site.
Site-finished flooring appeals to homeowners who have a specific design idea and feel that prefinished options would be too limiting. Inlays, borders, custom medallions, parquet floors such as herringbone, chevron, and Versailles, all these options for a design unique to you.
Easy Repairs
Another advantage of site-finished parquet is that if repairs are needed, or if you want to install parquet in the adjacent rooms, it is much easier to do than in the case of prefinished hardwood floor where the companies that manufactured that specific line or flooring already installed in your house decide not to manufacture it anymore making it more difficult to match the existing floor.
The installation, sanding, and finishing of unfinished wood flooring requires a lot of skills to be done in the right way. Craftsmen can turn your floors into something special you will like so much that will want to show off to your guests. Is a site-finished floor without drawbacks and misconceptions? No, not at all.
Site-Finished Wood Floor Drawbacks: Dust, Odors, and Time
Some people worry that the sanding and finishing process creates a lot of dust. That is no longer the case; any respectable hardwood services company will have invested in dustless sanding equipment. For example, when you work with Michigan Hardwood Floor Services, you’ll notice the Bona Atomic DS Trailer outside your home. It’s a state-of-the-art dustless sanding system that generates 99.8 % less dust than the traditional sanding process.
>> See Dustless Sanding with the BONA Dust Containment System
Furthermore, the on-site finishing process has become increasingly odorless as finishing manufacturers fiercely compete to produce environmentally and earth-friendly stains and finishes. Be sure to add this question to your checklist to ensure that your hardwood floor professional is using these types of products on your floor.
Finally, from a time perspective, it’s true that the on-site installation and refinishing process takes longer than having a pre-finished floor installed. However, there too you will find wood floor professionals who integrate into their work processes time-saving approaches.
For example, Michigan Hardwood Floor Services uses the UV Floor Curing System for UV-cured finishes. This represents a new and revolutionary technology that requires shorter downtime. The UV Curing process cures the finish instantly which means that furniture and equipment can return to your freshly-finished floor as soon as your professional is done – the same day.
3. How to Select the Right Type of Wood?
Not all hardwoods are created equal when it comes to hardness. Pine, for example, is a soft wood whereas Brazilian Walnut is extremely hard.0
According to Understanding Wood Hardness Ratings,
“To give some quantification to the issue of wood species hardness, the lumber industry created the Janka hardness scale—a standard now widely accepted as the best means of ranking a wood’s hardness. The Janka test measures the amount of force needed to drive a 0.444-inch steel ball into wood to a depth equal to half its diameter. The higher the rating, the harder the wood.“
The article includes a list of different hardwood species and their Janka hardness scale rating.
Durable hardwood floor types include White Oak, Brazilian Cherry, and Brazilian Walnut. Different types of wood feature varying natural grain patterns, and react differently to light and dark stain colors. Oak is popular because it is durable, has a beautiful natural grain, and stains well. You’ll want to discuss this with your hardwood flooring installation professional.
>> Explore the NWFA’s Guide to Hardwood Species
4. What is Your Favorite Wood Plank Width?
Traditionally, hardwood floors were two to three inches in strip width. You’ll now find wider planks available in four to six inches or more. Plank width is a matter of preference.
5. Have You Considered Parquet Floor Patterns?
Another option to consider is parquet floors. Instead of parallel strips or planks, you can decide to have patterns on your floors such as herringbone, chevron, and Versailles patterns.
6. What Type of Stain & Finishing Techniques Do You Want?
Ultimately, how you have your site-finished hardwood floors stained and finished affects how your floors will look in your home.
Let’s focus first on wood stains and finishing techniques such as hand-scraping and wire-brushing.
Wood stains
You have a wide range of staining options when it comes to site-finished wood floors. A good first step is to determine whether you prefer light, medium, or dark colors. Once you’ve decided, you can then fine-tune the tones you like, and may wind up testing them on the newly finished floors to be sure of the final effect.
Hand-scraping or Wire-brushing
Hardwood floors don’t have to have a traditionally smooth look and feel. You may prefer to add character to your floors with hand-scraping or wire-brushing techniques. The end product will have texture and a weathered rustic look that may be what your family loves because it will show less wear and tear.
7. How to Select the Right Type of Hardwood Finish?
For the final coat of finish on your floors, you can select the gloss level you prefer. Perhaps that’s a highly glossy look, a low-luster finish, or something in between. The type of product that’s used to finish your floors will depend on whether the wood is pre-finished or site-finished.
Natural oil vs. polyurethane finish
Pre-finished solid and engineered hardwood will be finished with aluminum oxide boasted coating. This is a long-wearing particle that is added to the finish to prolong the life of the coating.
Site-finished solid wood flooring offers quite a few options. The most popular are:
- Water based finishes
- Polyurethane modified oil
- Natural oil
Water Based Hardwood Finish
When applied to hardwood flooring, water-based finishes form a hard top layer on top of the wood protecting your floors from wear and tear. It can also be UV-cured, saving you time in the installation process.
Polyurethane Modified Oil Finish
It is still the most popular finish; some will call it “poly” or just “urethane” finish. The drying process is slower than water-based finishes, but they are very forgiving and easy to use.
Natural Oil Finished Hardwood
Oil finishes penetrate the wood and strengthen the wood fibers. It doesn’t form a protective layer; however, you can easily reapply the oil finish to refresh the look of the floors.
8. How Does Your Home Environment Affect Your Hardwood Flooring Selection?
As you consider the different selections you have for hardwood flooring, you also want to think about your home environment. These next questions will help you as you discuss your project with your hardwood flooring installation professional.
- What kind of hardwood project are you planning? Is this a remodeling project? New construction? Are you replacing existing floors currently covered with tile, carpet, or another non-wood surface? Are you refinishing existing hardwood floors?
- Does your hardwood project include stairs?
- If you are replacing carpet with hardwood, what shape is the subfloor in?
- How many rooms does your project include and what are the approximate dimensions of the rooms?
- Where in the house are the rooms located? In the basement, first floor, upper levels?
- Do you have radiant heat in any of the areas of your hardwood flooring project?
- Is this an insurance-related project?
- Do you have pets? What kind/how large/how many?
- Do you have kids? How many? What age and activity level?
9. What is Your Design Inspiration?
Another important consideration has to do with what you have in mind for the spaces you are working on and what your design inspiration is for the final result. Definitely spend time looking through design sites such as Houzz, Pinterest, and Instagram for images that appeal to you and that you can use in your discussions with your hardwood flooring professional.
These questions may help you.
- What is your design style?
- Are you looking to match existing floors?
- What is your inspiration for the project?
- What kind of floor finish/stain do you have in mind: light, natural, medium, or dark? Do you prefer matte, medium gloss, or shiny floors? Do you like special treatments such as hand-scraping or brushing?
- Do you prefer solid or engineered hardwood?
- Do you prefer pre-finished or site-finished?
- Do you have a type of wood in mind?
- What plank width do you prefer? Narrow 2-3”; medium 4-6”; or wide 7+”
Are You Comfortable With How to Select the Right Hardwood Floor for Your Home?
We’ve created a checklist that you can refer to based on the questions above to help you with the hardwood flooring selection process.
You may also find these resources helpful. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to Michigan Hardwood Flooring Services with any questions.
Hardwood Flooring Selection Resources
How to Choose & Install Hardwood Floors: A Complete Guide
National Wood Flooring Association – Real Wood | Real Life site
