ShadeTree Hardwood Floors

The Rim Country’s Hardwood Flooring Specialist

Hardwood floors are environmentally friendly and add to the value of a home. A recent survey of real estate agents estimates that hardwood flooring can add as much as 90% of their cost to a home's resale value.

Solid Wood Floors

Solid Wood flooring is typically a 3/4" thick solid piece of wood that comes in three basic types:

STRIP flooring is typically 2-1/4 inches wide, but also comes in widths ranging from 1-1/2 inches to 3-1/4 inches.  PLANK flooring boards are at least 3 inches wide.  PARQUET flooring comes in standard patterns of 6" x 6" blocks. Specialty patterns may range up to 36" square units. Parquet often achieves dramatic geometric effects of special design patterns.

Engineered Wood

Engineered wood consists of a substrate of layers of wood stacked and glued together under heat and pressure and a wear layer of a the particular species. Engineered wood flooring is less likely to be affected by changes in humidity.  It can be installed above, on, or below ground level and glued directly to a concrete slab.  Some engineered wood floors with thicker top layers can be sanded and refinished.

Synthetic Plastic Laminates

Plastic laminate flooring consists of a fiberboard center wrapped in top and bottom layers of high-pressure laminate -- a tougher version of the same material used in many kitchen countertops. These floors cannot be sanded or refinished and must be removed when they wear out. They typically come with 10- or 15-year manufacturer warranties against fading, stains and wear. Look closely at an entire laminate floor, and you'll see that the faux "wood grain" pattern repeats itself. That's because laminate flooring is actually a photograph of real wood stuck to a wood composite. Laminates don't sound like real wood either.

A solid hardwood floor is typically nailed to the subfloor, laid perpendicular to the joists.  It can be installed on a concrete slab as long as the floor is on or above ground level and an appropriate water vapor barrier and nailable subfloor is put down.  Solid hardwood can be sanded and refinished over several generations of use. Solid wood flooring expands and contracts with changes in your home's relative humidity. Normally, installers compensate for this movement by leaving an expansion gap between the floor and the wall.

Types of Hardwood Flooring