The following important information should be reviewed and understood when purchasing and installing pre finished and unfinished hardwood floors.
Expansion and Contraction:
Wood flooring will expand and contract with changes in moisture during normal seasonal cycles as you heat and cool your home. This expansion will vary depending on the construction of the core of your flooring and type of wood species selected. This is a Natural occurrence with wood and therefore minor separations or gaps can occur between and around the planks These gaps can be more apparent on light colored floors. In California we prefer the structural stability achieved when using an engineered hardwood platform as opposed to the solid wood core which will have a lot more movement and is subject to cupping.
The interior humidity should be kept at 30% – 60% as recommended by NWFA Installation Guidelines, or within a range that your manufacturer recommends and is practical in your geographical region.
PLEASE NOTE: Once your flooring arrives, it is up to the homeowner to regulate the indoor environment especially during times of extreme low humidity such as Santa Ana wind events.
Color Variation:
Because wood is a natural product there are always going to be changes from board to board and from each production run. In fact your actual new flooring may vary from a showroom sample which has been exposed to sunlight. As with most everything exposed to sunlight, please expect the color to change over time. These are the inherent characteristics and are part of the beauty and charm of selecting a natural product over a manufactured photo product like the vinyl plank floors that are becoming so popular.
Grade of wood:
The grade of wood is one way to classify hardwood flooring according to the different plank textures and natural features. Knots, mineral streaks, shakes and checks, wormholes or other character traits do not impact the quality of the planks, only the appearance.
These grades vary from clear, select, common, cabin or character.
Clear:
The grain of Clear Grade boards will tend to be quite consistent, as will the color from board to board. Clear Grade boards are taken from the heartwood of a tree and create a very smooth, uniform look often desired when a clean, classic tone is the goal.
Select:
Select Grade wood will show a fairly consistent face, largely free of “imperfections”. However, with Select Grade, which is cut from both heartwood and sapwood, you will find more color variation between and within the boards as well as subtle diversions in the grain pattern that start to display some of wood’s natural character.
Common:
With common, you will see characteristics like swirls, knots, and streaks in a good number of the boards, though these will be limited in size and prominence.
Cabin or Character:
Cabin Grade wood is just what it sounds like. These boards are sort of like a second string. While they have all the durability, stability, quality of any other board used for flooring, their imperfections tend to dominate their face, displaying large streaks, deep knots and burls, wormholes, and even marks made during the milling process.
****It is important to know when selecting flooring that has knots, splits and any open structure may have an epoxy filler used to provide stability to the product. These fillers are colored by the manufacturer at their discretion and are not in our control.
Hardness Scale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janka_hardness_test
The hardness or density of the wood to withstand impact and denting. The typical flooring that has stood up to normal household use for hundreds of years is found to be Oak flooring around 1300 PSI. There is a chart of all the flooring available which describes all the other species but we typically work with Hickory/Pecan at 1820, Brazilian cherry/Jatoba 2350, White Oak 1360 and Maple 1450.
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