Craig PornoreyThere are various factors you will have to consider when renovating or even building your home. One of the most crucial will be the choice of flooring material and when it comes to that, there are a couple of great options. Still, hardwood is the one option that never seems to go out of style. Besides, hardwood floors will give you an ROI of approximately 70-80% if you ever think of selling your house.
But don’t add hardwood flooring to your home blindly. Be sure to pay attention to the following factors:
1. Room Location
Hardwood is a great flooring material for almost your entire home, but especially entryways, living and dining rooms, bedrooms, hallways, and family rooms. These floors will also look great in kitchens especially if you have an open floor plan in your home (be sure to wipe up any spills as fast as possible, however).
While hardwood will work for most areas of your home, you don’t want to install it in bathrooms or laundry rooms to avoid water damage. Instead, you can explore the various waterproof options that reputable sellers like Really Cheap Floors offer, since these are designed specially to withstand humid or completely wet environments.
2. Wood Species
Once you know if hardwood is suitable for the area or room you want to install it in, the next factor you should consider is the type of wood you will choose. For this, you should pay attention to the species and hardness of the wood. The species refers to a specific category of trees to which certain wood is sourced. For instance, you can choose maple, tigerwood, oak, and such.
Different hardwood species will have distinct features, whether that’s colour, density, hardness, grain pattern, stability, and overall appearance. This makes it almost obvious that different species will have different features and performance levels, hence varying costs.
3. Solid Vs. Engineered Hardwood
When purchasing your hardwood flooring material, you will come across sellers that offer solid and engineered hardwood options. The planks from solid hardwood are cut from a single, solid piece of wood. They are ideal for most parts of your home but can be quite costly and have rigid applications.
Engineered hardwood flooring, on the other hand, is multilayered. It typically contains a top hardwood layer and a strong, stable core made of crisscrossed layers of pressed plywood. Engineered hardwood can be designed to withstand greater levels of abuse such as being installed over radiant heating systems or in rooms with a high air and moisture content.
4. Durability
Another major factor to pay attention to when choosing your hardwood flooring material is durability. This is especially vital if you have some furry friends in your home. While most hardwood species will be fine with moderate to aggressive use, you can choose an option that has a higher hardness rating to ensure maximum durability.
In most cases, nonetheless, any hardwood flooring material you choose will be durable as long as you take proper care of it. In truth, these floors can be sanded and repaired countless times making it easy for them to last decades.
5. Plank Width
Traditionally, most if not all hardwood floors had wood planks with a width of 2-3 inches. Those days seem to have been left behind since planks have become a bit wider over time. More homeowners have become comfortable with the idea of using wide planks for various reasons, but the main is that such floors will have fewer seams than if they used thin strips.
Still, you should be careful when using wider planks since the seams eventually become more visible as the wood expands and contracts. That mostly happens because changes in the wood don’t get distributed across many boards. The resulting movement will, therefore, appear exaggerated.
High-Quality Flooring Material You Can Trust
Choosing a high-quality hardwood flooring material for your home or any other property is a crucial process that will affect not only the overall appearance but also the durability of your floors. But even though it’s a crucial step in your hardwood floor installation, it doesn’t have to be an arduous process.
When you source your hardwood floors from a reliable company like Really Cheap Floors, you can get all the assistance you need to make your decision. Ready to get started? Visit reallycheapfloors.com to view all the options they have.
