Hardwood Floor Buyer's Guide
This is what you want:
- A floor that looks beautiful today!
- A floor that still looks beautiful in 10 years!!
... and a floor that is easy to take care of!
So we provide this information to help you
sort out the real value in what you are buying and suggest
that the "best price" is not always the "cheapest
price", when you think about the long-term abuse your
floor will take. Enjoy.....
Is a wood floor's quality the same as its
grade?
No! It is somewhat misleading.
The National Hardwood Flooring Association,
defines what a "Select & Better", "select"
or "#1" grade floor, is suppose to be. They define...
- length of flooring boards
- consistency of colour
- number & size of allowable knots
... that's it, nothing
about quality!
The "grade"
does NOT tell you ...
- how well it fits together.
- how uniform the floor is in overall thickness.
- how durable the finish will
be? Will it withstand the dog, kids and rabbit?
- does the finish enhance the beauty of the wood?
Research the "brand name" and talk to customers
that have had this "brand" of flooring for a minimum
of 5 years and that will be alot more helpful. You'll know
how well the finish lasted. Visual inspection will tell all!
What should you pay for in a wood floor?
- "FIT: The ability of all the
boards to fit accurately and tightly together.
Why: Water is the biggest threat to the long lasting
beauty of your wood floor. If the individual floor boards
do not fit tightly together, water will be able to filter
through these seams and cause swelling, lifting of the
finish and/or discoloration. Seams must be tight!
How will I
know? Every store should have a few boxes of flooring
that you could test fit. Just assemble a few planks and
you will see instantly how well they fit. Are they warped
in either direction? Are all the tongues and grooves in
good shape? Do all the planks measure the same width?
Is the good face free of defects (ie.dings or dents).
Any boards you don't like will become expensive firewood,
and ultimately increase your cost per square foot.
If you are happy with all the boards
in the box, then you know the floor has been made carefully.
It is also easy to tell if a floor is
made accurately by studying one that has been laid down.
You look for the following:
Consistent
width from one end of the board to the other.
Check where three boards meet and see if there are any
gaps. You should not be able to put a dime between any
2 boards of flooring.
Are the ends of the boards
cut truly square, so end to end they are tight?
Water will penetrate through the ends as well as the
sides. Ask the one that installed the floor, whether
they had to retrim any of the wood.
Are all the boards the same
thickness, or does there seem to be a lot of
unevenness? This can expose the unfinished end grain
to excessive wear and water damage, and definitely not
so nice to walk on.
Again, if you're happy with all this,
you are well on your way to buying a quality product.
Ease of Installation:
A good fitting product will be easier to install. With
less inaccuracies, it takes less time and skill. For the
novice DIY this is a great asset.
Little waste:
Great fit equals less cost! Many floor product
require you to factor in an amount for wastage. With accurate
machining little is turned into firewood. Many brands
require from 5% to 20% additional flooring to be bought,
just to cover what they figure you'll choose not to use.
This ultimately makes the floor more expensive then originally
thought. Ask the sales staff for an idea on what percentage
you'll need.
Pay for a Great
Finish: It will cost you less in the long run because
you delay the cost of refinishing and your floor will
look new for years!
If the fit of all your floor boards is
tight, then the only way water can cause damage to the
wood is by penetrating the finish. Most finishes out of
the box, or site applied are good for a year. What separates
the great from the not so great, is how
long it actually last.
A salesperson can tell you anything,
and it is up to you to believe or not. Really the best
thing to do is ask around. Talk
to installers in the business. They usually know
about the success of the products within their field of
expertise. Ask other people that have installed wood flooring
about their successes and failures. Lastly ask the sales
staff what this company does to ensure a long lasting
finish and what warranty it has.
Refinishing is very expensive. In this
area of Northern Ontario it runs around $3.00 to $3.50
per square foot. It is usually
cheaper to pay a little more for your floor today, than
spend $3.00 a square foot to refinish your floor a short
time into the future.
Here are a few things a manufacturer can
do to improve the quality of the finish.
Sanding:
If the flooring is brushed after sanding, using machinery
somewhat like a street sweeper, it helps in two ways.
The residual sawdust is thoroughly removed to allow for
more clarity in your finish, but more importantly, it
raises the remaining wood fibers and allows the first
coat of polyurethane to mechanically bind to the wood
floor. All other coats of finish chemically bind with
each other, for great mechanical
and chemical adhesion of the finish. You as the
consumer appreciate this when your floor gets scratched
and the finish does not separate from the floor.
Polyurethane:
Use a quality product to start with. Hard for a consumer
to tell, but if your product is site finish, you could
look at the can of finish. Wax finishes are very rarely
used today, so we have disregarded them.
UV Cured:
Polyurethane is applied to the floor, and then the wood
travels through a tunnel of ultra violet lights to dry
the finish. The resulting finish is more elastic, much
the same story as with car paint. It
tends to dent into the scratches, leaving the finish unbroken,
rather than chipping off, leaving exposed raw wood
underneath. This is an advantage you have with flooring
that is finished in a factory. Finishes cannot be UV dried
in the home.
Number of coats
of finish: Certainly more coats of finish applied
to your floor, gives you a more durable finish, but I
won't use this as the total answer. Finish can be applied
in thick or thin layers, to achieve a similar protective
layer, so I tend to put more importance on the method
and product used. Most industrially finished products
have seven to tens coats applied at the factory, whereas
most site finished floors only have three coats of finish.
Aluminum Oxide: This
is the newest additive to polyurethane. According to all
the lab research, this product increases
the scratch resistance of the finish by a factor of ten.
Any floor with this feature, will out last one without.
At this time it is not something that is available in
products designed for in home finished floors. This is
definitely an advance of prefinished flooring.
All these things together: the sanding
process, a quality polyurethane, UV drying, 10 coats of
finish and Aluminum Oxide additives will all come together
to create a great durable finish.
Pay For a Product that is easy to maintain:
Type of Finish:
Most floors are finish either with a polyurethane or wax
based finish. The later has been mostly phased out over
the last few years, because wax based finishes require
ongoing polishing to maintain a good shine. Be sure to
ask. Pay for a polyurethane. It is basically maintenance
free.
V-Grooves between
the boards: All prefinished flooring is made with
a small beveled edge, always on the long sides of the
boards and preferable on the ends as well. If your subfloor
is not perfectly level, or each individual board is not
exactly the same thickness, this bevel eases the transition
from one height to the next. Look
for a floor that has the smallest bevel. It will
be less likely to collect dust and dirt, then those products
made with very large v-grooves. Usually in the best floors,
it is referred to as a micro-bevel. The more accurate
the milling is on the floor, the smaller the bevel can
be.
Unfinished
floor is usually totally square edged, because
it is sanded after installation. This removes any board
to board height inaccuracies and leaves you with no grooves.
In that respect it is a bonus, but it does not have all
the advantages of a factory finish. Site finished flooring,
relies more heavily on the quality of the installer.
The smaller the bevel the less dirt
it collects.
Pay for a product that looks beautiful
today and tomorrow!
Hardwood flooring is generally a lifetime
decision. You put it in today, and live with it as long
as you own your home. Paint and wallpaper change on a
regular basis, and the colours that are in fashion today
will be gone tomorrow, so it is best advised, to remain
relatively conservative with the flooring and be flamboyant
with the paint. Paint can be easily and inexpensive changed
to suit the evolving decorating trends.
We hope all this information is of value
to you. Visit our showroom where
we have 1,000 square feet of flooring laid on the upper
floor. It is there for your inspection. We sell MIRAGE
flooring, because we believe in its quality. It sets the
standard in the industry. This display floor is our way
of showing our faith in the product. It has been here for
9 years, walked on winter and summer with shoes and boots,
and still looks like a new floor.
We invite you to come and look at it, ask
a lot of questions....... then we know you'll see the value
in MIRAGE flooring!
Buy Not the Cheapest
....... But the Very BEST!!
For more flooring information, link onto these
sites:
National Oak
Flooring Association
National
Wood Flooring Assoc.
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