Have you ever thought about the steps it takes to make wood flooring - before it gets delivered to your local shop? All hardwood flooring is not created equal and understanding the differences can help you make a more educated decision.
Solid Wood
Manufacture of solid wood floors starts with a tree that is cut into logs. Trees marked for flooring are chosen for natural beauty with tight grain and few knots. Then the chosen logs are cut into rough planks using one of three cutting methods:
Flat or Plain Sawn: this is the most commonly used method. It contains more variations that the others.
Quarter Sawn: this method cuts a log into quarters before it cuts the strips of wood to make the flooring boards.
Rift Sawn: cuts a log at a different angle than quarter sawn before it cuts the wood into boards. This method is the most expensive but is also the most stable, providing higher quality flooring.
Engineered Wood
This style of wood is created by gluing together a number of wood plies, with a veneer of real hardwood glued on top. Engineered wood is commonly made from plywood core boards but high density fiberboard (HDF) can be used as well. HDF is more dimensionally stable a plywood core board. Again, there are three main cutting methods:
Dry solid-sawn: involves letting the wood dry out slowly with a low humidity level to keep moisture from inside the wood cells intact, reducing the risk of cupping. It is the most expensive type of engineered flooring, but looks and acts more like a solid.
Rotary-peel: involves boiling the log for a certain amount of time at a certain temperature to prepare the wood. After the wood has been prepared, it is scraped from the log with a blade working from the outside in and then pressed flat. It typically has a plywood-like grain and can have issues with cupping and warping to try to revert to its original shape.
Sliced-peel: involves boiling the log for a certain amount of time at a certain temperature to prepare the wood. After the wood has been prepared, it is sliced from the end and then pressed to create a veneer.
Thinking about having wood flooring installed in your home? Give the wood flooring experts at Hall Flooring a call today! We’ll help you with the entire process including choosing the best option for your home all the way through installation. Remember to connect with us on Twitter!Labels: flooring, flooring trends, hall flooring, hardwood floor maintenance, hardwood flooring, prefinished flooring, unfinished flooring
