Chris's Blog

Reclaimed lumber, like many things of real beauty and value, does come with a price. You’re looking at buying the Mercedes of floors here, after all, not the Yugo. The costs to retrieve and prepare the reclaimed lumber are generally not cheap for the suppliers, and these costs are always passed down to the customer in the cost of their wooden flooring.

Reclaimed Wooden Floor Planks Can Be Harvested From Other Buildings

When harvested from old buildings such as homes or barns, the buildings must be meticulously deconstructed in a manner that will preserve the reclaimed wood and protect it from damage. Once these old buildings are deconstructed, the reclaimed wood begins a long journey of being prepared, transported, and transformed before it ends up in your home as wooden flooring. You can see where, compared to traditional wooden flooring, reclaimed wooden floors, while great for the environment in comparison, certainly take a lot more work than cutting down the tree and running it through a saw mill.

Flaws Add A Lot Of Character To Reclaimed Wood Floors

Embedded materials such as nails, rocks, and building hardware from the lumber’s previous home have to be very carefully identified and removed in the initial steps so as not to damage the saws and other equipment that will be used in shaping the reclaimed wood. This is a tedious process, and although it addresses some of the character marks that make reclaimed wood so sought after as they embody the timelessness that is so endearing about reclaimed wooden flooring, there is often a limit to just how much character any piece of lumber should have before it’s just plain trash. Sometimes this limit is obvious, but sometimes there is a system of grading where the customer has set a particular limit on how many flaws the lumber should have. When buying reclaimed lumber, suppliers will often focus on grain quality and species, which means that obtaining the highest possible yield from each batch of reclaimed wood is an absolute necessity.

Reclaimed Wood Floors Use Lumber Previously Regarded As Waste

Up to half the reclaimed wood will end up going to waste in the production of high quality reclaimed wood. This probably seems like a lot and, in a way, it is, but consider how rich someone could be if they could turn just half of a city’s garbage into something that could be sold for a profit? Not only that, but something that was actually desirable and considered superior to its competition. Suddenly half seems like a lot, and that’s what this wood originally was – waste.

Wood Is Everywhere, Not Just Wooden Flooring

Wood is everywhere. It’s in the forests and parks, obviously, but it’s also cradling our books, computers, and even our selves when we sit in our sofas and chairs. The world economy, however, is based on high speed delivery and mass production, which, in the end, dictates the prices of everything, even something like reclaimed lumber that is obviously better with time. Like organic food and other sustainable lifestyle items, reclaimed wooden flooring and other products made from recycled antique wood will cost you a little more. Mass production does tend to drive the final price down, and that’s obviously not an option when it comes to reclaiming ours or nature’s wasted building materials. However, to many it is worth it as you’re gaining not only an awesome wooden floor, but one made of material durable enough to justify its cost. While reclaimed wooden flooring is not for everyone, it would behoove you to at least give it a look, especially if you’re planning to build or rebuild an environmentally friendly home.

Want to learn more about wooden floors? Check out Wooden Flooring Info.

If you’ve been looking at wooden floors, then you know that there are lots of different options to choose from. Oak wooden flooring is one of the most popular options out there. Before you go spending your money on an oak wooden floor, though, let’s take a look at the alternatives and see how oak wooden flooring stacks up. We’ll consider the most important buying points, and see if oak wooden flooring is really the best choice.

Oak Wooden Flooring Versus Oak Laminate Flooring

When considering wooden floors, it’s always a good idea to do a direct comparison to a laminate and an engineered alternative. This is because, after everything is said and done, they won’t look all that different. If you’re looking for a cheap wooden flooring, then laminate really is the only choice. Not only is it cheaper to purchase initially, but it’s also cheaper to maintain. Solid wooden floors really only have one major advantage over laminate, and that’s the ability to sand them should they become damaged.

Oak Wooden Flooring Compared To Oak Engineered Wooden Flooring

Another option to consider is engineered wooden flooring. Engineered floors are typically not much more expensive than laminate, and they can often be sanded once or twice. They’re usually a bit tougher, and are made out more real wood than laminate. In fact, whereas the visible layer of laminate is a picture of a wood floor, the visible layer of engineered wood is actually real, solid wood. This can be seen a few different ways. Some say that the less trees we cut down, the more environmentally friendly we are. Others feel that cutting trees down is actually better for the Earth than using processed materials since trees can simply be grown back.

What It Should Look Like

Most people who desire oak wooden floors do so because of looks. With today’s staining techniques, though, one should probably look at some samples before decided what they like best. Oak wooden flooring alone can be had in dark colors, light colors all the way to white, and red or cherry colors as well. The natural color of an oak wooden floor is light tan, with darker, brownish streaks going in one direction. You can expect true solid wood floors to have flaws, like worm holes, which are considered desirable to some degree as they add character to the wood.

Strength

Those folks who don’t have a lot of experience in wood floors tend to assume that oak is their best choice if their home sees a lot of foot traffic. This is a logical assumption, since oak is known to be quite strong, but it’s not always correct. If you’re choosing solid wooden floors, going by the type of wood might help you decide. When it comes to engineered wooden flooring, and especially laminate, the durability of your floor will have a lot more to do with the rest of the flooring than the topmost layer.

Learn more about wooden flooring at Wooden Flooring Info.

So you’ve looked at all the options, and you’ve decided that wooden flooring is going to be your best choice. Now it comes time to decide which wooden floors to purchase. Everyone will, of course, gravitate toward cheap wooden flooring. That’s why it’s cheap, after all, because it lures people in. Barring any great wooden flooring sales, though, you’re likely to get a lower quality product if you pay less. Sometimes, though, the cheap wooden floor is all you really need, so there’s no point in paying more.

Be Sure To Consider The Amount Of Foot Traffic

One of the biggest advantages of solid wooden floors is the ability to sand it if it becomes scratched or scuffed, it can be sanded. High quality wood floors can be sanded and refinished multiple times, if needed. This is a great benefit if you have kids and pets. If you can expect high traffic, then cheap wooden flooring may end up looking worn in just a few years. However, if you’re single, or maybe just a couple, then you probably won’t need to worry about high traffic.

Finicky House Keepers Might Do Well With Cheap Wooden Flooring

You can protect your wooden floor if you use floor protectors and rugs in high traffic areas. However, floor protectors sometimes need to be replaced on furniture that is often moved about, such as chairs, and rugs can end up being put away or cleaned, but never laid back down. Does the clutter in your home have to drive you nuts before you clean up? Cheap wooden flooring will not work very well for you, if so, since it doesn’t stand up damage like thick, high quality wood floors. No one need know you went cheap when buying your floors, though, if you are a house cleaning fanatic.

Cheap Wooden Flooring Hates Moisture

You’ll have to do a bit of forward thinking on this one. No one buys a floor while wondering what would happen if it were covered in a few feet of water. Unfortunately, especially in older homes, stuff happens. Cheap wooden flooring is extremely susceptible to warping when water is involved. Engineered wooden flooring in particular will do this. Since it’s considerably thinner than hard wood, it tends to warp quickly. Finding wet spots on the floor is never a good thing, but it’s even worse if your wooden floor is already warping. New homes, or homes in areas that are generally dry don’t have to worry about this as much, but there’s always water running through your walls, and pipes do burst.

Swapping Boards Can Fix Anything

Do you do all your own home improvement, and plan to do the wooden flooring? No matter the damage or how it’s caused, you can always put new boards in place of damaged ones. If that sounds like a horrific suggestion, then you’ll probably want to avoid cheap wooden flooring. If the idea doesn’t worry you, though, then you could easily save a lot using cheap wooden flooring.

Get more information about cheap wooden flooring at Wooden Flooring Info.