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Hardwood Flooring Types

• There are three types of hardwood floors:

  Solid	Engineered	Floating

Solid Wood flooring comes in three basic types:

1) STRIP flooring accounts for the majority of installations. Strips usually 2-1/4 inches wide, but also come in widths ranging from 1-1/2 inches to 3-1/4 inches. They are installed by nailing to the subfloor.

2) PLANK flooring boards are at least 3 inches wide. They may be screwed to the subfloor as well as nailed. Screw holes can be covered with wooden plugs.

3) PARQUET flooring comes in standard patterns of 6" x 6" blocks. Specialty patterns may range up to 36" square units. Parquet often achieves dramatic geometric effects of special design patterns.

Solid wood floors can be installed on a concrete slab as long as the floor is on or above ground level. They can be sanded and refinished over several generations of use.

Solid wood flooring expands and contracts with changes in your home's relative humidity. Normally, installers compensate for this movement by leaving an expansion gap between the floor and the wall. Base molding is the traditional "cover-up" for this gap.



Engineered Wood.

Made of several layers of different woods or different grades of same wood stacked and glued together under heat and pressure. Engineered wood flooring is less likely to be affected by changes in humidity and can be installed above, on, or below ground level. Some engineered wood floors with thicker top layers can be sanded up to three times. Some can't be sanded at all.

Longstrip / Floating floors refers to floors that have several different layers glued together. Longstrip planks are approximately 7.5" wide and 95.5" in length. They generally have between 17 and 35, 2-1/2 " inch wide slats that make up the top hardwood layer of each board. This gives the appearance of regular strip flooring.

Longstrip / Floating floors are engineered prefinished flooring in which the joint of each panel is glued to the neighboring panel. This enables the floor to move or float as a whole when the wood expands and contracts from the moisture content. When installing a floating floor, a foam pad is recommended as a moisture retarder and cushion.

Longstrip flooring can also be glue down, and/or staple down. These floors can go over a variety of subfloors, and on all grade levels. Like engineered floors, longstrip floors come in a variety of wood species.