Giving Thanks

As we take this week to think about all we're thankful for, we here at Real Wood Floors wanted to take the opportunity to say thanks to all of you for your support in 2010. We know that you have a choice for your engineered flooring needs and we're thankful that you choose our product.

We will continue to offer you the best products at a competitive rate as well as the "service after the sale" as we move forward through the end of 2010 and into 2011. Additionally, we hope you won't hesitate to let us know if there is something we can do to make your experience using our products even better.

Enjoy the holiday week and thanks for giving us the opportunity to serve you.

Should I paint or stain my trim?

I have been asked recently by a couple of clients what to do about their wall trim after they install their flooring. Should you paint trim to set it apart from the floor or should you buy the same type of wood that is used on the floor and stain it?

In my humble opinion, I think painting the base molding really helps to make the floor stand on its own. In other words, when you stain base shoe, quarter round or base molding to match the wood floor it tends to make the floor look like its crawling up the wall. Add to this that it is a good possibility that it will be very difficult to get an exact match on staining trim work and I think it makes the case for painting even better. It's a situation where just getting close on the color looks worse than being completely different. Look at these pictures below and decide for yourself.

Above: Stained shoe molding makes the flooring look like its crawling up the wall and doesn't set it apart from the trim.

Above: Painted base shoe and trim distinguishes the floor from the wall.

Wear layers and longevity

We talk a lot about the thickness of the wear layer on our products. The wear layer is the usable surface on an engineered floor, the layer of hardwood that sits on top that gives the floor its unique appearance which is exactly the same as a solid 3/4" floor. But it also represents the potential lifespan of the floor based on its thickness. Traditional solid 3/4" wood flooring is thought to be the gold standard of real wood flooring. And in many ways they still represent a viable option. They have a thick wear layer that can be re-used and they will look great in your home for a lifetime. Our engineered product mimics these benefits by giving you a heavy 5mm wear layer that can be re-sanded over time to refresh your floor and in addition give you added benefits like better dimensional stability which limits the seasonal shrinkage you typically see in solid floors. They can also be used in basements unlike solid wood flooring and also in glue-down applications they will eliminate the need for large unsightly transitions from wood to tile or carpet.

What is a quality wood floor?

I see a number of forum posts asking the above question. What is quality, how can it be defined? Here is a brief overview of the different aspects of picking out a quality wood flooring product.

Raw Materials
This can be difficult to ascertain but it is important to note that quality products start with quality raw materials. In engineered flooring this pertains to the backing material (plywood for multiply products and wood fillets and backing veneers for 3ply products), the actual hardwood veneer, and the glues used to process the product into a piece of usable flooring.

Processing
How are the floors made? What type of equipment are they processed on? Flooring produced on high-end German machinery are more likely to have tight fitting tolerances and less over-wood (height differences) than product made on lower end machinery. Not to mention contractors will have less difficulty installing products that are easy to work with. That translates to less time they are working in your home.

Investment Value
Is the floor you are purchasing made in such a way that it can be expected to last a long time in your home? This pertains mostly to the thickness of the wear-layer on an engineered floor. Is there enough usable hardwood to be refinished multiple times so that a few years down the road you can have them re-sanded and finished rather than paying for removal and replacement of new flooring?

There are other considerations but these are a few key items to explore when choosing a floor for your home.

Production Availability for Real Wood Floors

I wanted to give you some updates regarding our upcoming production so you can plan your bids accordingly. We have picked up a number of new customers in the last 4-6 weeks and it has put a little lag into some of our available inventory for certain items and we are now in catch-up mode. I wanted to take each species and break down our current inventory situation and our upcoming production so you know what to expect for the next 6-8 weeks.

Red Oak
Still the king of everything we do. We are having a difficult time keeping up on 2 1/4" and 3 1/4" in both Select and #1 common. We have 2 1/4" and 3 1/4" S&B in stock currently and we have a lot of 4" that we ran to sell as a substitute until we get the 3 1/4" production up to a level that will meet the current demand. If you have larger jobs upcoming you might consider pushing 4" widths for both S&B and #1. We had backed way off on 5" production last year as our demand for that product had slacked off, but with the rising solid market pricing our demand is coming back. We have stock on it currently and we have more on the way. If you have upcoming demand for 2 1/4" you might get orders placed early as we are now getting distributors buying some material for stock.

White Oak
We started making plainsawn white oak about 18 months ago and I don't think we've ever caught up on 3 1/4" S&B. It is a tough product in that the demand for the common grade is not as strong as the red oak and that forces us to find very specific loads of lumber that has good color and the right widths to make just what we need. We have been doing better as of late with it but it is still a situation where every time we get a batch in it is usually presold before it hits the warehouse. We have found a solution on the lumber side to this problem but it will still take a few months to get that worked out. So on 3 1/4" S&B be prepared for some delays. We do have about 8000sqft coming in soon but we do have some orders against it already. 4" S&B has a new life in that we've taken a lot of new orders from new customers on it and similarly to the 4" we are catching up. 5" S&B we do the best on and we do have a little in stock now and we have another 10000sqft in production. We have not found any good market for the #1 common product yet, please let us know if you have different ideas for that. We are going to move some white oak into our prefinished handscraped product to off-load that material.

Maple
This product more than any other has seen an increased demand in the last few weeks. We sold out of 3 1/4" in both grades and we have a little more coming in but its going to be a month or so before we can catch up on that width. In response we've upped the 4" production so please consider quoting the 4" product for the short term as an alternative to the 3 1/4". We have good stock of 5" currently and we have more coming in.

Jatoba
We have all widths on hand now. We will have more 5" coming in the third week of March (8000sqft).

Hickory
We have sold a large volume of hickory to distributors who are finding their solid pricing inching up and are seeing the engineered product as a more viable option than 6 months ago. We sold completely out of 4" and 5" last week. We still have 3 1/4" and 6" on the ground and we will have 10000sqft of 5" and 3500sqft of 4" coming in around the third week of March.

R&Q White Oak
This has been a product in the past that was tough to keep up on but we are currently well stocked on all widths and grades.

Walnut
We currently have good stock of both grades in all widths. We are offering special pricing on 4" Character so you might consider that when you have customers looking for Character Walnut floors.

Tigerwood
We have a good amount of 5" material on hand.

Santos Mahogany
We have a good amount of 5" material on hand.


Let us know if there is anything we can do or if you have any questions about our upcoming production.

Wood Flooring - The Renewable Flooring Material

What makes wood flooring the environmentally friendly flooring option?

Did you know...

to grow one pound of wood, a tree uses 1.47 pounds of carbon dioxide and gives off 1.07 pounds of oxygen. Consequently, an acre of trees can remove about 13 tons of dust and gases from the atmosphere. However, once a tree stops growing and begins to decay, the process reverses. For every pound of wood that decays, the tree uses 1.07 pounds of oxygen and releases 1.47 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air.

When harvested at maturity, hardwood lumber not only decreases the amount of carbon emitted into the environment but also provides a durable and beautiful flooring material that the National Association of Home Builders notes will last 50+ years in a home.

Hardwood forests in the United States are healthier today than they were 50 years ago due to single-tree harvesting methods. By mirroring natural occurences, single tree selection is a long-established form of biomimicry that supports natural forest regeneration. Hardwood forests regenerate naturally and prolifically when sustainable forestry practices are utilized making tree planting unnecessary. These practices have been the predominant form of harvesting for many years which is why the supply of American hardwoods is nearly double what it was in 1950. Each year the amount of hardwood grown in American forests far surpasses the amount that is harvested.

Taking all these factors into account its easy to see why real wood flooring is the natural choice for environmentally friendly flooring products.

For more information on the sustainability of American hardwood lumber please visit the American Hardwood Information Center.

So many options... How to pick out the best floor for your home.

You've probably seen the Sonic Drive-In commercial touting the 168,894 different drink combination's they offer. So if you tried a new one every day you'd have to live 463 years to get through all the possibilities. That sounds daunting. However if I were to calculate all the different options we have available in wood flooring we would be at around 1,209,600 options. Sonic drinks, it turns out, are rather simple compared to the complexity of picking a wood floor.

In reality of course we've never made anywhere near that many items, but those are the options available to us. I arrived at that number by multiplying the number of species x textures x finished/unfinished x type of finish x widths x thicknesses x grades x colors. I was actually very conservative on my calculation as the color possibilities could be endless. To this point we've made about 20 different colors so I used that number. But to make this a little less complex, let me throw out the major choices you need to consider when purchasing a wood floor.

1. Site-Finished vs. Pre-finished
Do you want the floor truly custom to your own taste (finished to your own spec on site) or prefinished in the plant. One thing to consider; site finishing is more labor intensive but is also the only way to get a truly custom floor.

2. Engineered Wood vs. Solid Wood
Engineered floors are more stable and can be glued directly to concrete as well as can be used in basements. Solid floors can only be used ground level and above. This is due to the stability of engineered flooring.

3. Species
We work with 6 different domestic species and 3 exotic species. The species will not only determine what color range you will be able to work in, but also the graining patterns (oak grain is much more pronounced than maple) will give differnet looks. In addition the species will also determine the hardness of the floor (walnut is much softer than maple).

This is a color swatch of the natrural
colors of the woods we work with.

4. Texture
Flat finished floors are traditional and you'll have smooth texture. Wire-brushing will make the texture much more pronounced as you will see the depth of the grain. Handscraping will add a time-worn appearance to the floor. Pros and Cons: Textured floors will not show wear as quickly and sometimes hide dirt better, but these floors are also more difficult to re-finish down the road.

The above floor is handscraped to add a
time-worn appearance. It also has very
deep bevels which make the lines between
the planks more pronounced.

5. Color
This one is pretty self explanatory. What color do you want?

6. Finish
First off, if you are thinking site-finished flooring, then this question would be for your flooring contractor as he'll be applying the finish in your home. For pre-finished flooring we can finish a floor with different types of coatings. Aluminum oxide top coats have become industry standard for pre-finished floors and they offer good wear resistance. European oiled floors will offer much more depth and richness of color than aluminum oxide but will also require more maintenance on your part.

7. Thickness
This isn't really something to worry about unless you have an issue in an existing home where you are trying to match the height of another existing flooring product. For example if you want a wood floor that matches up perfectly height-wise with a tile floor that's already in the home. The thinner the floor the cheaper it should be, but also the thinner floors often have a very shortened lifespan of usability so you might save up front on it but you also may replace it more than once. Our typical product is made so that it will last as long as your house is standing.

8. Width
We make floors in a number of different widths from the traditional 2 1/4" up to 7" wide. Things to consider: the wider floors are in fashion currently however they are also more expensive and can be less stable which means if you have a 7" wide floor you are more likely to see some shrinkage in the winter time than if you have a 3 1/4" floor. Wider floors have more ability to move with the seasonal changes in temperature and humidity. But they do look awesome.

I realize I run the risk of complicating this to the point that you don't want to have to bother with choosing. If that is the case the best thing to do is to communicate what look you're trying to achieve and your budget and then I can make some suggestions. If you do have pets you might check out my post on wood floors and pets for some other considerations. Bottom line for choosing wood flooring: they are easy to clean, they are naturally beautiful, they add value to your home, they should last forever (as long as your child doesn't bring the water hose into the house anyway), they are not cold to bare feet like tile, they don't trap dust like carpet, they are the only truly renewable flooring option so they're environmentally friendly and my son might not have learned to walk if we didn't have them. Seriously do you think this chair would slide like that across carpet?