Hard wood flooring is one of the most popular flooring choices in America today. It is known to add warmth, beauty and uniqueness to any room in the house. Hardwood flooring has become Americas favorite choice due to its versatility of function and design, as well as inherent natural charm that gives each installation a unique personality. The beauty of hardwood in your home or business will never go out of style. Hardwood never gets old and has survived the test of trends as it allows your interior space to be connected with our natural world.
Every plank, board or strip used on a hardwood floor is a unique work of natural art portraying its own individual patterns and colors. Wood will change over time and it will acquire subtle shadings of color, and pick up small scratches, nicks, dents, which will create a unique personality for your new floor. Hardwood flooring is a great for large open spaces. The hard woods grains and patterns found within its surface will help break up the monotony of the room acting like a back drop. Choosing between plank, parquet, wide planks or small decorative pieces within your floor all play a role in creating your ideal space.
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Hardwood flooring boards are made entirely of a specific wood species and are generally 3/4″ thick. This flooring can be nailed down to a plywood subfloor.
ENGINEERED FLOORING
Engineered flooring boards have a real hardwood surface layer and a plywood base. This flooring is designed to be more stable than solid hardwood and works well in environments with varying humidity. Engineered flooring can be glued down directly to concrete or to a sound/moisture-proof membrane which may be necessary in high rise buildings or even basement floor installations. Engineered flooring can also be stapled down to a plywood subfloor.
Grain Patterns and Sawing Methods:
Solid and Engineered hardwood flooring boards are available in several sawing methods, depending on the manufacturer. Each method gives hardwood boards a distinct grain pattern, along with performance characteristics that must be considered when specifying. Sawing methods are plain sawing, quarter sawing and rift sawing.
Plain-Sawn:
Plain-sawn hardwood boards are produced by cutting tangentially to a tree’s growth rings, creating the familiar “flame-shaped” or “cathedral” pattern. This method also produces the most lumber from each log, making plain-sawn lumber a cost-effective design choice. Plain-sawn lumber will expand and contract more than boards sawn by other methods. However, it performs just as well when properly kiln-dried, when the job site is properly prepared and when the hardwood products are acclimated to the home before installation
Quarter-Sawn:
Quarter-sawing mean cutting a log radially (90-degree angle) to the growth rings to produce a “vertical” and uniform pattern grain. This method yields fewer and narrower boards per log than plain sawing, boosting their cost significantly. Quarter-sawn boards are popular for decorative applications such as cabinet faces or wainscoting. They will expand and contract less than boards sawn by other methods.
Rift-Sawn:
Rift-sawing at a 30-degree or greater angle to the growth rings produces narrow boards with accentuated vertical or “straight” gain patterns. Rift-sawn boards are often favored for fine furniture and other applications where matching grain is important. This type of lumber is available in limited quantities and species.
Plank Edge Styles
Hardwood floors come in either a beveled edge, or a square edge. Today, most hardwood floor manufacturers are calling their beveled edge “eased edge” because the tapered edge is dramatically reduced from the old deeply grooved edges. The beveled edges do serve a purpose. The manufacturer can produce beveled edge planks faster than square edge, which in turn lowers their production costs. Also, a beveled edge floor is more forgiving when installed over irregular subfloors and you don’t have the problem of overwood.
Square Edge
The edges of all boards meet squarely creating a uniform, smooth surface that blends the floor together from board to board. The overall look of this floor gives a contemporary flair and formal feeling to the room.
Eased Edge
Each board is just slightly beveled. Some manufacturers add an eased edge to both the length of the planks as well as the end joints. Eased edges are used to help hide minor irregularities, such as uneven plank heights. Eased edge is also called micro-beveled edge.
Beveled Edge
These products have a very distinctive groove in them. Beveled edge planks lend themselves to an informal and country decor. With the urethane finishes applied at the factory today the beveled edges are sealed completely making dirt and grit easy to be swept or vacuumed out of the grooves. Beveled edge floors help hide subfloor irregularities that could result in variations in board height, which is often called “overwood”.
