Important Hardwood FAQs

Likely the most important step in your hardwood flooring experience, acclimating your materials. Depending on the time of year, hardwood flooring needs to be in your home 2 – 4 days prior to installation.

Prefinished flooring has already been sanded, stained, finished, and sealed before ever leaving the factory. Unfinished flooring must have all these steps done once in place in your home.

Hardwood refinishing is the process by which sanding is used to remove years of wear and abuse. The layers are stripped down until nothing but a new layer of wood is showing that is as gorgeous as brand new flooring. From here, a new stain, a new finish type, and a new sealant can be applied. Many homeowners take this opportunity to change their stain color or finish type. Solid hardwood can be finished several times during its lifespan while engineered hardwood can only be finished once or twice, depending on the thickness of the wood veneer.

Solid hardwood flooring is typically not installed in basements or any other below-ground space. If you want or need a wood-look flooring for your basement, consider engineered hardwood flooring or a wood-look waterproof luxury vinyl flooring product.

It is certainly possible to float a hardwood floor over a variety of sub-floor options, but it is far from perfect. Solid hardwood is already susceptible to movement without the free-floating option. This material already expands and contracts to a certain degree and should be anchored in some way.

Yes. Wood is an all-natural floor covering which means no two pieces will ever be the same, especially with regards to colorations. This is normal, and a part of the material’s natural beauty. Wood colors can vary according to species, sawing and drying procedures, and stain acceptance.

While durability can be rated in a variety of different ways, red oak is the hardest domestic wood species available. In the exotic species line, Brazilian cherry takes the award for hardest, at nearly twice as hard as red oak. Black walnut is just a little softer than oak.