Hardwood Flooring

If you wish to add beauty to your home you might consider installing hardwood flooring. This type of flooring is not only durable but also environment friendly. Since they are recyclable and after installation they never need to be replaced again, hardwood floor does not seem to have any drawbacks. They also add a lot of values to your home when you might consider selling it. This flooring's type will adds beauty to your house not matter the decoration of your walls.

There are many types of hardwood floors. The first type is solid wood flooring, which itself comes in types. Strip flooring, plank flooring and parquet flooring. Strip flooring is designated by width and thickness. Plank flooring only comes in thicknesses of twos (variable width for planks).Parquet floors are different from the two above mentioned. They are more involved in geometric patterns. Engineering wood flooring is sometimes mixed up with laminate flooring. But the key difference is that laminate flooring does not contain any actual wood. A type of flooring used more commercial is Acrylic-impregnated wood flooring. This hardwood flooring is very consistent. After installation it’s very hard to tell the difference between solid wood floors and engineered floors which are of less cost. One drawback is that solid hardwood requires much more maintenance than engineered floor. But solid hardwood has the option of refinishing.

There are several types of finishing. The oil-based urethane is the most general type of surface finish for solid hardwood. They come both in gloss and satin. The drying takes a long time though. This needs good ventilation in your house to last long. The water based urethane will dry quicker if you add soap water. This will cancel the odor and last longer. Moisture curved urethane is used commercially because of its durability. If you are looking for a professional glossy finish the satin finish will certainly impress you. But degradation becomes much more visible with it.

There are several methods of installation. The nail down means exactly like it sounds. The wood will be nailed to the floor. The staple down approach is also self-explanatory. Staples are used instead of nails. Another method would be to glue down wood floors with parquets. All said and done floating is the fast and easy method. They are crafted in such a way that they don’t need to be attached; they would simply float above it. Additional measures are added to keep the planks in place or they are made to snap together. Sometimes pads are placed within to damp noises and increase resilience against moisture.

A great thing you should know about this flooring type, is that you can make them last as long as you want. It often seems that vigilant maintenance is not enough, because you have to refinish them eventually. If you have pets you would probably have that more sooner than you like. If you are wondering how frequently you should refinish than you should know that you don’t need to refinish them in less than three years. Hardwood flooring