Hardwood Flooring Guide

Learn about hardwood flooring, read reviews of hardwood floor manufacturers, and hardwood floor retailers. Finding the best hardwood floor from the best hardwood flooring dealer is not always an easy task, but our goal is to simplify that process for you, and make buying the right hardwood floor as stress-free as possible. To start learning about which type of hardwood floor is right for you, just continue reading below, or choose a topic from the navigation menu at the top of the page.

Engineered Hardwood Flooring

The simplest way to define engineered hardwood flooring would be to say that engineered hardwood is made up of multiple layers of wood, one on top of the other. Some engineered hardwood flooring is made up of as many as 13 layers or more, while some engineered hardwood flooring is made of only two layers. The easiest comparison to engineered hardwood flooring would be plywood. Hardwood flooring industry reports show that engineered hardwood flooring is the fastest growing segment of the wood flooring industry.

Solid Hardwood Flooring

Although the trend is changing rapidly, solid hardwood flooring still makes up the majority of all hardwood flooring that is solid in the US. Solid wood flooring is any hardwood floor that is manufactured from one single piece of timber. A common misconception about hardwood flooring is that all solid hardwood is 3/4 inch thick, when in fact, solid wood floors are available in a wide variety of thicknesses, ranging from 1/4″ thick hardwood, up to 1″ thick wood flooring, and hardwood flooring thicker than a full inch have been heard of as well. Solid hardwood flooring is by far the most popular wood floor choice in cooler, northern climates, such as New York or Pennsylvania, while residents in warmer, more humid climates, like those shopping for hardwood flooring in Florida, are more likely to be looking for engineered hardwood flooring.

Prefinished Hardwood Flooring

The most convenient type of hardwood flooring is without a doubt prefinished hardwood flooring. With prefinished hardwood, the manufacturer has already applied all of the finish coats to the surface of the hardwood, therefore resulting in less work for you. Prefinished hardwood is more user friendly, and creates a faster, easier installation experience. If you are hiring out your installation job, prefinished hardwood flooring will cost you less in labor expenses, since your hardwood flooring installers won’t have to include sanding and finishing in their invoice. Although prefinished hardwood flooring materials will have a higher up-front cost than unfinished hardwood flooring, the end project will often have a lower total investment, due to the lower cost of installation labor for prefinished hardwood.

Unfinished Hardwood Flooring

If you are looking for a hardwood floor that is totally customizable, then unfinished flooring will be your perfect match. With unfinished hardwood, you have the freedom to have a seemless installation (none of those pesky little beveled edges), and you can stain your unfinished flooring any color you want on the jobsite. Unfinished flooring also gives you more freedom to get creative with custom borders, inlays and medallions. Also, unfinished flooring gives you more flexibility with repair and replacement of your wood floors in the future, because unfinished flooring is more standard, you are less likely to have issues with your flooring model becoming “discontinued” or no longer in production, such as is common with prefinished hardwood flooring.

Exotic Hardwood Flooring

It can easily be said that the most popular exotic hardwood flooring at this time is Brazilian Cherry, or Jatoba from… you guessed it, Brazil. Other popular Brazilian hardwoods include Brazilian Walnut, also called Ipe, Santos Mahogany, Brazilian Teak (cumaru), and Amendoim, while the list could go on to include several other popular brazilian hardwoods. Australia also has it’s share of beautiful exotic hardwood flooring to offer, including Australian Cypress flooring, which is by far the most popular of all the Australian hardwoods, while Australian Spotted Gum and Tasmanian Oak are also popular australian hardwoods.