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Finding the right wood floors for your project requires professional consulting with wood floor expert; not just any flooring expert but someone with experience and knowledge of wood flooring. Over the years we have seen wrong advise causing many problems for the homeowner. Moisture content of the product and subfloor plays major role for correct installation.

Basically wood flooring structured in 2 types;

Solid wood floors:Can be installed above the ground when it is planks,can be used below ground levels if it is panel or pattern shapes.It can be on site finished or prefinished in factory and usually requires nail-down installation over plywood /pier and beam construction. Nowadays solid hardwood flooring is available from all kinds of species from all over the world. Domestic species includes red oak, white oak, hickory, ash, maple, birch and American walnut. Exotic species from south America is also very popular,examples of South american woods are;Brazilian Cherry aka Jatoba, Brazilian Walnut aka Ipe, Brazilian Chestnut aka Sucupira, Brazilian Teak aka Cumaru,Garapa, Tigerwood, Ironwood aka Massaranduba,Patagonian Rosewood,Tauari etc. Common thickness is 3/4" or 19 mm. Various widths are available such as 2 1/4"-3'-3 1/4"-4-4 1/2'-5"-6"whether it is on-site unfinished or prefinished all solid wood floors can be sanded and refinished many times.

Engineered wood floors:can be installed in any level of building.It has it's own subcategories such as longstrip made of several strips structured together(wide as 6"-7") or individual pieces wide as 6". It is constructed with cross section layers to create stability and flexibility.It can be installed with nail down or glue down over concrete slab or plywood subfloor.

Wood flooring can be categorized into 2 for their finished surface;

Unfinished on site finished wood flooring: It is usually used to match existing wood flooring or custom color-size applications. After installation, sanding and finishing team sands and stains the raw surfaced flooring into desired color and sheen. we only use water based polyurethane finishes for extended durability. Requires some time away from home as finish dries and cures.

Prefinished or factory finish wood flooring: Individual boards are stained and finish applied at factory in a controlled environment for perfection. There are many different types of finishing such as UV-cured, polyurethane, Aluminium Oxide, ceramic, Acrylic Impregnated,urethane-acrylic etc. A factory-finished hardwood floor usually has several coatings applied to the wood surface. Many suppliers are now applying 6-10 coats of ultra-violet cured urethane. or Aluminium Oxide polyurethane.By not having to duplicate this on a job site, which could take installers several extra days, flooring retailers and builders alike have good reasons to sell pre-finished hardwood floors, especially since an installation can be completed in a single day.

For installation perpective wood floors can be done in 3 ways;

These are general guides for installing wood floors, every manufacturer supplies installation instructions with their products.

Nail down and/or Staple down: If there is suitable subfloor for nailing or stapling down that should be prefered installation. Pier and beam with 16" or less apart joists or plywood is perfect subfloor for nail down/staple down installations. 2" cleats or staples used in every 6'-8" to attach the boards to subfloor.

Glue down:Engineered planks should be installed with urethane-moisture cure polyurethane adhesives over concrete slab. pattern floors whether solid or engineered should be installed with proper glue into any subfloor including plywood. For additional noise deductions some counties requires cork underlayment if installed multi level buildings.

Floating:This system is used to install longstrip planks(planks contructed with multiple strips) and/or special locking features.once installed the flooring basically floats over the subfloor and stays with it's own weight. our cork, linoleum and leather floors are floating products with Uniclic locking system.