We’re seriously considering replacing the carpet in the main part of our house (entry, living room, dining room) with hardwood. We’re leaning toward solid hardwood, but also considering engineered. I’ve been doing quite a bit of research online, so I feel like I have a decent handle on the major issues, but if you’ve had this job done and can think of anything non-obvious we should know, please speak up. I’m especially curious if there are any questions we should be asking the companies we’re getting estimates from.
We just had new floors put in our new house. One of the pleasant surprises is that Oak flooring is cheap right now! Evidently with all the new ‘green’ flooring choices there is a glut on the market of Oak. So we went with a solid oak floor stained a light cherry color–it looks awesome! We haven’t moved into the house yet and so we opted for the traditional floor finish which has quite an odor–you will need to vacate your house for at least two days if you opt for that finish. There is a water based finish which doesn’t have the odor but I haven’t ever used it, but I hear good things about it. But if you can do the traditional finish I believe it is a better finish, but to be honest I didn’t do much research on it. My flooring guy did what he wanted to do and as I was not going to be here I was fine with his decision. I liked the idea of solid wood as I could sand it down in the future if it gets scratched, etc. Veneers have some flexibility there but not like solid wood. But the costs may make your decision for you. But if you do go solid, you might look at oak and stain it the color you want. Good Luck!
Thanks! Almost all of the samples we have right now are oak. We were actually really surprised by the pricing. We were originally planning to just do new carpet, but when we saw the prices on the wood, we changed our minds. I think we’ll probably do pre-finished solid wood, because I don’t want to deal with the hassle of finishing in-place and the pre-finished stuff we’re looking at is really nice (probably not as nice as a custom in-place finish, but there’s a balance to be struck).
When you use pre-finished, any liquid you pour on the floor will go through the cracks. A tight finished-in-place floor will probably not leak if you pour a glass of water on it.
Of course, in both cases you want to clean up the mess right away, but this is a small distinction between them.
I assume you did take a quick peek under the carpet to see what is there? My wife was overjoyed to find oak flooring under all of the nasty old carpets in our home when we moved in.
It’s plywood subfloor. The house was built in 1988, so I think it’s a bit too new too have hidden hardwood floors. It does actually currently have a small area of hardwood in the entryway, but we’re going to pull it out and replace it if we do this, because I think it would look silly butted up against brand new wood of a different style (and it’s such a small area, the cost difference will be minimal).
We had our whole house done in hardwood this winter. We love it… I’ve been able to stop taking Claritin.
I can’t think of any major pieces of advice (other than HAVE A PROFESSIONAL INSTALL IT), but before the work crew is completely gone, scoot over every inch of the floor with your sock feet. We found a couple of egregious un-level places that were easily fixed, once the boss was aware of them.
There are many advantages to an engineered wood floor vs. solid wood floor.
I recently installed an engineered wood floor (oak) in our basement. It’s very high quality… 9/16" thick with a 4 mil wear layer. Am very happy with it.
Follow the manufacturer’s directions exactly. Make sure you use the proper staples, the proper staple gun, proper air pressure, etc.
There’s absolutely no chance we will be installing this ourselves. Several years ago, we did a small room with laminate (much easier), and vowed never again. I’m at a point in my life where I’d much rather just pay someone who knows what they’re doing than try to save money by doing it myself. I don’t enjoy it, I’m not very good at it, it takes longer and it’s just generally not worth it to me.
Sounds good, but you should also do your own research.
In my post above, it may have sounded like I did the actual installation myself. I didn’t; I paid someone to do it. I probably could have done it myself, but decided not to for a variety of reasons.
None-the-less, I contacted the flooring supplier and asked what kind of staples to use, what kind of stapler to use, etc. It was a good thing I did this, because my hired contractor was going to use the wrong staples! He was going to use a standard crown stapler (1/2" wide staples), which is what is normally used on a *solid *hardwood floor. But my supplier said a standard crown would damage the tongue, and that we needed to use a *narrow *crown stapler (3/16" wide staples). So I ended up purchasing the stapler and staples, and then handed them to my contractor. He did a great job putting it down. (I don’t fault him for not knowning about the special staples for use in engineered floors. His experience was with solid floors, and he genuinely didn’t know.)
Oh, and be very picky about who you hire to install it. The person who installed our floor has been doing construction and home improvement on the side for over 40 years. He lives a few miles from me, and his primary job is ranching/cattle. He is well known in the community and has an excellent reputation. When it comes to contractors, *trust *is more important than anything else, including knowledge. I would much rather hire a trustworthy person whom I have to help (doing research, etc.) than a “pro” from out-of-town whom no one knows…
Thanks Crafter_Man. Great info – exactly the kind of “lesson learned” I’m looking for!
Definitely the biggest drawback to not doing home improvement and repair work myself is that it’s really hard to find reliable contractors. I don’t know what it is about that business that attracts flakes and people who will happily claim to be able to do things they have no idea how to do. Thankfully, we have a few pretty solid sources for recommendations on this kind of thing, and we’ve had great success with them so far.
When we put in our engineered hardwood floor, the big decision after the wood was the install technique. Staples, glue, or float. We went with a floating floor. We like it, but it is a bit different than the other options. There is a slight give in the floor, and because of the padding it sounds different. It is popular around here, but it is different. The key for installation in my opinion is leveling the floor. Our contractor took a long time to level the floor before installation. In my opinion it is a key step.
If you’re even considering the floating technique with engineered floors, definitely make sure to have a long walk-around in a sample room. I’ve only walked on a floating engineered-wood floor once, while I was looking at condos over the winter. I hated, hated, hated it! It felt - spongy - underfoot. I was like, “Ew, ew, ew, what’s wrong with this floor?” and my Realtor explained what it was and that it was normal. I walked right out of there.
To each his own, but definitely make sure you walk around on a large area of the stuff first.
Here’s something you might not want to hear but it can make a big difference in the results you realize:
Before installation, take the flooring out of the box or unstrap the bundles. Spread out the pieces as much as you can in the room that they will be installed in for a few weeks. That allows the wood to acclimate to the conditions. If you don’t do that you can end up with a floor that has gaps at the joints. The results will look terrible.
Yes, you hate to delay the project but it may make a huge difference.
I installed a quality oak laminate floor on the first floor last fall. I will complete the project upstairs probably this winter. My advice is simple - buy the best quality you can afford. Go a notch higher if you can. If I had to do it all over again, I would go for a solid wood prefinished floor. I didn’t go for a solid wood floor because I was not going to sand and seal the new floor because we have pets. Despite all my “research” before the fact, I didn’t find quality prefinished solid wood flooring until after I had the laminate down.
The first floor is now all painted (by me) and I’m installing solid wood baseboards. The MDF baseboards originally installed when the house was built 10 years ago are crap, then and now.
The best thing is to open the ends of the boxes, but *not *remove the boards until you’re ready to install them.
I actually screwed up this step. I opened up each box and stacked the wood. I placed Q-tips between the boards so air could circulate between them. A week later the boards started to warp. I called the manufacturer. They said not to worry, and the boards would flatten out during installation. I then read the directions that came with the flooring. It said to leave the boards in the boxes until you’re ready to install them. :smack: After thinking about it a while, it made sense… in the boxes, the boards are stuck together in pairs (tongues in grooves) and stacked about 5-high. This helps to keep the boards flat during acclimation.
Amen to this.
Generally speaking, when it comes to engineered hardwood flooring, there are two things you want to pay attention to: overall thickness and thickness of the wear layer (i.e. the hardwood top layer). The greater the overall thickness, the better. And the greater the thickness of the wear layer, the better. Personally, I think the latter is the most important. Unfortunately few people check it, and so it is the one area where manufacturers cut corners; most use a very thin wear layer.
So I first went to the usual places… Lowe’s, Home Depot, Menard’s, etc. Their best quality was around $6 per square foot. I wanted hardwood laminate (“engineered” flooring), and most board thicknesses at these places were 3/8". The thickness of the wear layer was usually less than 1 mm.
So I started searching online. I found a supplier that sold 9/16" (!) oak engineered flooring with a 4 mm (!!) wear layer. For $5 per square foot. It looks beautiful. By ordering from an online supplier, I got a much higher quality floor for less money than what was available from the big box stores.
I called the manufacturer. They said not to worry, and the boards would flatten out during installation. I then read the directions that came with the flooring. It said to leave the boards in the boxes until you’re ready to install them. :smack: After thinking about it a while, it made sense… in the boxes, the boards are stuck together in pairs (tongues in grooves) and stacked about 5-high. This helps to keep the boards flat during acclimation.