Hardwood Flooring

Hardwood Flooring has experienced a revival over the past several years.  During the Golden Age of carpet, hardwood flooring experienced an unprecedented reduction in market share.  Cost per square foot, sustainability of forests, and the durability of hardwood finishes, all became primary influences in the consumer’s flooring purchase decisions. 

Hardwood, always has been one of the most beautiful flooring options and durability was really never an issue, since basketball courts, bowling alleys, and many skating rinks were constructed of hardwood.  However, the scratch resistance and quality of finish coatings were highly variable and many consumers opted for lower maintenance flooring options.  The idea of sanding and refinishing hardwood flooring every few years to maintain the beautiful finish was less than attractive to homeowners. 

Advances in the quality of today’s flooring finishes has been one of the primary reasons for the revival in hardwood usage in residential applications.  While numerous surface finish types can be found, each of these finishes offer superior scratch resistant properties as compared to the finishes of the past.

The choice of flooring is typically one of the most important design elements in a room and is a primary focal point for secondary design elements.  New design trends have made the implementation of hardwood floors into the design element a key ingredient for a balanced design palette. Complementing the hardwood flooring with area rugs, contrasting paint colors, and various lighting levels can manipulate any mood desired.

Types of Solid Hardwood Flooring

The choices of hardwood flooring types have expanded, as well.  Once upon a time, the selection of hardwood flooring amounted to the tree-type of hardwood plank you wanted.  Various widths were seldom available, a variety of surface finishes were limited, and color choices were limited.  Today, hardwood flooring choices appear to be near limitless and this flexibility has been a primary reason for the resurgence in hardwood flooring as a key design trend.

Styles of Hardwood Flooring -

There are three predominate styles of hardwood flooring available today: Parquet (pronounced par-kay), hardwood plank flooring , and hardwood strip flooring. 

• Parquet Flooring - Parquet has remained fairly popular throughout the Golden age of carpet and parquet flooring is generally square wood tiles that utilize a geometric pattern.  Parquet comes in both glue-down and nail-down options.  With the increase in popularity of laminate or engineered flooring, Parquet is experiencing a revival of sorts.  Parquet is available in multilayer, solid parquet, lamparquet (Teak - Pyinkadu - Merbau - Kempas)  and mosaics.
• Hardwood Plank Flooring - Hardwood plank is a linear floorcovering in that the length is longer than the width is wide.  Hardwood plank can be found in various widths, although widths of 3", 4" and 5" are the most commonly found. Hardwood plank flooring comes in two primary thicknesses 1/2" and 3/4" although some variations may be found.
• Hardwood Strip Flooring - It is difficult for most hardwood buyers to distinguish between Hardwood plank flooring and hardwood strip flooring, but the width of hardwood strip flooring is generally narrower and are generally found in 1.5" to 3" strips.  Hardwood strip flooring comes in two primary thicknesses 5/16" and 3/4" although some variations may be found. In essence, Hardwood strip is both narrower in width and smaller in thickness than hardwood plank.

Engineered Wood Vs. Laminate Flooring - To the novice, there is very little visual difference between these two flooring types.  The difference actually originates in the types of materials that are used to construct the material.  Engineered wood typically utilizes a combination of wood surface material and plastic laminates underneath.  Laminate flooring uses no wood products and are constructed entirely of plastic laminate materials.

Species of Hardwood

For the novice, hardwood is hardwood, but various hardwoods are tougher than other hardwoods.  The Janka Ball Rating system provides a relative hardness ranking of the various hardwoods available for hardwood flooring. This relative ranking system measures the force required to drive a .444 inch steel ball to a depth where half the janka ball is imbedded in the wood

 The Hardwood Grading System

So now you have decided on plank or strip or parquet and you like a specific species of hardwood and you arrive at the Hardwood retailer with your mind made up.  Then you learn there are several different grades of hardwood flooring.  Back to the research to decide which grade of hardwood flooring is the right choice for your needs.

There are a variety of grades, and some hardwood flooring retailers may confuse your decision by adding their own grade or by naming their own grading system. Grading is a system created by The Wood Flooring Manufacturers Association (NOFMA) to describe the appearance of hardwood floors. The grades take into account things like color, grain and markings. The best grades of wood are "clear" and "select". These woods have fewer markings and are more consistent in appearance than the "common" grades, which may have a variety of markings. The next item you should understand is the NOFMA Grading system applies to unfinished hardwood flooring only.

In shopping for hardwood, I have found names like cabin grade, contractors grade, and other names that do not fit into the description noted above.  Essentially each manufacturer is free to develop their own proprietary grading system.  This can create confusion in the market place when a consumer is performing a diligent search for hardwood flooring.  There is nothing worse than waiting for the happy day for your hardwood flooring to be installed and then finding the floor does not meet your expectations. To make matters worse, a maple flooring manufacturer may use a different grading systems than an oak manufacturer.

We have attempted to perform a thorough search of all hardwood grades available (this is impossible) and a few of the grades seem to be consistent across the board (so to speak).  The following exact definitions or descriptions have been found in numerous locations using identical wording and it is impossible to note the original source of the definition.  Our apologies to the original author.

 Hardwood Grades