If you are thinking of a change in scenery at your home or buying a new place, here’s a few reasons why wood flooring should be your flooring of choice:-
- Cost Effective: Not only do wood floorings come at a cheap and affordable price, they tremendously increase resale value of your house even after many years. Wood floorings considerably increase the warmth and aesthetics of home.
- Low Maintenance: Contrary to what most people think, wood floorings are rather easy to maintain. All it takes is regular cleaning, protecting from furniture scratches, and maintenance and re-polishing every once in a while. They are easy to clean and have a very long life without much spending on servicing.
- Environment Friendly: Ever increasing concerns about global warming and receding rain forests have made us rather concerned about trees and environment. However, statistics show that companies that provide commercial timber, plant twice as many hardwood timber trees as they harvest each year.
- Health Friendly: Unlike some other kinds of flooring, wood does not allow accumulation of artificial substances such as pesticides and other chemicals on its surface. It also, does not allow the growth of dust mites or fungus, thus reducing incidences of allergies. This is particularly useful for asthmatics or other people prone to allergies.
- Selection: Amount of choices you have when it comes to wooden flooring, is tremendous! From colors to grain patterns, wood flooring gives you a variety of options so you can select just that look you want for your home.
What Type of Wood Flooring
Wood flooring comes in different grades of quality for easy differentiation. These are –
- Select Grade: This gives you a uniform color and has longest length of average planks. It is also known as Clear or First Grade.
- Second Grade: This is also known as Natural Grade flooring. This grade will have some color variation and small pin knots. This is most natural looking variant of wood flooring.
- Third Grade: Also, known as Rustic or Character Grade. This flooring has most color variation as well as large tight knots.
Strength of Wood
Naturally, when you go for hardwood flooring, you must be aware of strength of wood being used. While Brazilian Cherry and Santos Mahogany are very strong and hard, Walnut, Cherry, Fir and Yellow Pine are low strength varieties available in market. Red and White Oak, Hard Maple, Hickory, Ash and Beech grade in between.
Strong hardwood floors can be very durable and last for generations.
Finishing
Wood is available in both Unfinished and Prefinished forms. Although they are slightly more expensive, prefinished forms are preferred, as finishing of wood is a dusty procedure, which can be very polluting, if proper dust containment systems are not available.
Reclaimed wood flooring, that is, wood flooring that was previously used in another building or construction, can be easily recycled and re-used. This makes it a very environment as well as pocket – friendly option. So go, make your choice today!