Parlor at Jefferson's Monticello

A wood floor will last for centuries; consider Monticello, President Jefferson’s home from the 1890’s with its magnificent parquet floors. Wood has always been considered one of the floors of choice. According to a  “A Brief History of Wood Floors,” as late as 1625 most European houses still featured beaten-earth floors as opposed to wood or other surfaces. Even when wood flooring made its debut, it was mostly rough and coarsely finished.  Finely finished, elegant wood flooring did not make its true debut until the Baroque era (1625-1714), when sanding, staining and design truly came to the forefront.

The popularity of wooden floors was boosted by the abundance of wood in the American colonies (1607-1780). Many homes featured boards of random widths nailed to floor joists in any configuration possible.

Wooden flooring was first mass-manufactured late in the American Victorian era, 1840-1910, and an E. L. Roberts mail-order catalog from 1903 features “wood carpeting” made of 1 1/2″ by 5/16″ wood strips glued to a 3-foot roll of heavy cotton canvas, made to be installed by tacking down the “carpet” with brads every foot or so. This was the grandfather of the modern prefinished floor.
Choices of wood flooring today include the usual American hardwoods such as maple, oak,

Mannington Chesapeake Hickory Plank

hickory or even pine, but exotic species and reclaimed woods are also popular.

Mannington Chesapeake Hickory Plan (close up)

Wood can be made to look distressed or antiqued.  It can be very contemporary with a piano finish.  It can be wildly colored like Tiger wood; there is no end to the choices.  There are no limits to the ways to express your personal decorating tastes.

Not only are there numerous choices of wood, but also manufacturers have dramatically improved the finishes they apply at the factory. Years ago the only way to care for your wood floors was to wax them, often times by hand. The new protective coatings, such as urethane embedded with aluminum oxide particles, dramatically increases the scratch resistance of wood flooring. Because of the natural softness of wood, however, it should be noted that wood can be scratched and dented. This should be considered part of the beauty and character of the floor, as well as the inherent nature of wood.

Shaw's Scuff-Resist Finish

Today’s new finishes are easy to take care for.  Sweeping or vacuuming on a regular basis keeps gritty particles from scratching the floor.  Using one of the handy spray cleaners and drying the floor as you go makes upkeep easy.  A walk off mat in front of the doors will keep sand and gritty particles from being tracked in from the outside.

Wood floors add beauty and comfort to any home.  Enjoy!

This article is brought to you by the people at Carpet Network.

Natural Birch

We are just at the beginning of heating season and in many areas of the country, that can coincide with reduced humidity levels indoors.  Just like people, wood floors need normal living conditions to function properly.  Typical recommendations are between 30 and 50 percent relative humidity and a temperature between 60 to 80 degrees.

In climates where low relative humidity coincides with the heating season (in the Northeast and Midwest for example), a whole house humidification system that turns on with the heat can really help.  Whole house humidification systems that aren’t dependent on heat are available for arid climates such as the Southwest (at minimum, small portable humidifiers can also be used).  Keeping humidity levels constant – even if they are on the low or the high side – is better than a roller coaster of relative humidity levels.

Lack of moisture can cause a host of problems for wood floors.  Once issue is the appearance of seasonal gaps between boards.  In some areas of the west where relative humidity levels can be as low as 4.5%, floors experience “dry cupping” which happens when the top of the boards is drier than the bottom of the board.  Typically the cause of the imbalance is excess moisture from the subfloor but it can also happen because of excessive drying on the top of the board.

In conclusion, maintaining the relative indoor humidity in your home can have an added benefit, as you make the wood floors, wood furniture and cabinetry in your home more comfortable, you will be more comfortable too!

This blog is brought to you by the people at Carpet Network.

Bamboo can grow from sprouts to harvesting in three to five years, thus an acre of bamboo can provide more flooring than an acre of trees.

When bamboo shoots are cut the roots remain intact and fresh new sprouts grow in their place.
The dense root mass of bamboo helps prevent soil erosion and provides a viable crop opportunity in hilly acres where other crops cannot grow.

The species used for flooring is harvested from selected groves in Southern China. And, good news — this species is not eaten by Pandas.

Bamboo can be an attractive alternative to hardwood because it is eco-friendly, is dimensionally stable, 27% harder than Northern Red Oak, 13% harder than hard Maple, can either be nailed-down, glued-down or floated, and it’s resistant to flammability.

Bamboo flooring comes in planks and is installed just like engineered hardwood floors. These floors can be installed over many different types of subfloors.

In winter when the air in your home is dry due to round the clock heating, you will notice that the wood in your home contracts – the structural wood, the moldings, the furniture, the cabinetry and yes, your hardwood floors as well. You will observe hairline cracks, slight height variations or both. A whole house humidifier will help minimize shrinkage and keep movement to a minimum.

Gaps and cracks are much less noticeable on darker colored wood floors than lighter ones. Narrower width boards generally perform better too, since wider planks are more prone to moisture and heat fluctuation. Another note, hardwood does not expand or contract equally in all directions.

Engineered wood floors, rather than solid floors, are your best bet for a dimensionally stable floor since they are made with a cross-ply construction.

In the warmer months, when humidity levels rise, wood floors will expand. Gaps will tend to diminish. The use of air conditioning will help keep your home at an ideal comfort level of 35% to 55% relative humidity – good for people! Good for floors!

Electric radiant heating systems are often installed under naturally cold surfaces, such as tile, stone and hardwood. The heat from the system penetrates the flooring and warms from the ground up. The warmth transfers directly to you and warms everything it touches as it radiates throughout the room. It’s sort of like stepping out of the shade and into the sun; the air temperature is essentially the same, but you feel warmer.

Operating your floor heating system with an Energy Star rated, programmable thermostat further reduces energy consumption. You can program your thermostat to be “on” only during the time that you actually want to enjoy your electric floor heating system. If we can turn our thermostats down and stay as warm (or warmer), thereby wasting fewer resources, why wouldn’t we do that for Mother Earth?

Many of us will have to replace our floors at some time, so why not add radiant floor heating then? You can even go one step further to reduce your carbon footprint by selecting hardwood flooring. Hardwood is a popular floor covering option and can be installed in virtually any room in your home. Recently, the National Wood Flooring Association (NWFA) published an article, Radiant Wood Floors: Wood Floors Over Radiant Heat Reduce Carbon Footprint, and explained that, “Because wood floors are sustainable and renewable, they increase radiant heat’s benefits.”

Why not complement the strength and beauty of your hardwood flooring with radiant floor heating and be ecologically responsible and comfortable?

“One of the often untold stories about wood flooring is that because it does not collect dust and allergens, many health professionals say that wood flooring is a good choice for homes where one or more inhabitants suffer from allergies,” says Ed Korczak, CEO and executive director of the National Wood Flooring Association.

In fact, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimates that 50 million Americans suffer from some form of allergies and 20 million suffer from asthma.  The National Center for Healthy Housing (www.centerforhealthyhousing.org) and other recommend hard surface floors such as hardwood to help eliminate dust, animal dander, microorganisms and other potential allergens in the home.

It is our opinion that the maintenance of hard surface flooring is extremely important to the health of individuals who suffer from asthma and allergies.  If dust and dander are allowed to accumulate and swirl around in the air, then any hard surface flooring benefits are voided.  A daily routine that picks up and removes this material will prove to be more effective.

Wood flooring has a great story to tell from both a macro- and micro-environmental perspective.  That is, wood flooring is good, not only for the environment in the big picture, but also for the interior environment of customers’ homes, and that is something health conscious customers should be aware of.

“One of the often untold stories about wood flooring is that because it does not collect dust and allergens, many health professionals say that wood flooring is a good choice for homes where one or more inhabitants suffer from allergies,” says Ed Korczak, CEO and executive director of the National Wood Flooring Association.

In fact, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimates that 50 million Americans suffer from some form of allergies and 20 million suffer from asthma.  The National Center for Healthy Housing (www.centerforhealthyhousing.org) and other recommend hard surface floors such as hardwood to help eliminate dust, animal dander, microorganisms and other potential allergens in the home.

Renewable

Consumers who buy green focus on many issues, but products that come from renewable resources rank high on the list, and wood flooring fits that bill perfectly.  Whether wood flooring is made from domestic North American hardwoods or from exotic imported species, the good news is that the world’s forests are alive and well and proliferating.

According to a recent report by the University of Georgia Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, the U.S. has one of the world’s largest and most productive forest resources, with more than two billion acres of forest area – and annual growth of U.S. forested acres exceeds harvests by 37% each year.  The nations’ forest land area is still about two-thirds the size it was 400 years ago, in spite of the conversion of 370 million acres of forest land to other uses, principally to agriculture.  The resort’s authors add that more trees are growing in America’s forests today than at any time since the early 1900’s.  Net annual forest growth has increased62% since 1952 and total growth per acre has increased 71%.  Nationally, standing timber volume per acre in U.S. forests is 30% greater today than it was in 1952.

There’s also good news in other parts of the world, according to a November 2006 report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  “Contrary to common belief, forests in many nations are expanding, not shrinking,” the researchers concluded, adding that from 1990 to 2005, forest area increased in 18 of the 50 nations studied.

“There is a trend towards in improvement in forests both in terms of the area they cover and in terms of their condition,” said Roger Sedjo of Resources for the Future, an independent institute in Washington, D.C.  The researchers used data from the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
That’s true for most species in North America, but some imported species have gained environmental cachet.  High on the list of renewable wood sources are cork and bamboo, both of which have become increasingly popular in recent years, in part because both species are able to regenerate quickly.

Recyclable

Reclaimed wood flooring has also grown in popularity in recent years, with several companies specializing I the manufacture of wood flooring made from reclaimed structural timers, as well as timber recovered from river bottoms.  If newly harvested timber is environmentally responsible – and it is when it is harvested from sustainably managed forests- reclaimed wood will appeal even more to some consumers.  SmartWood Certification Systems, an international sustainability certification body, estimates that reclaiming one million board feet of lumber preserves on thousand acres of old growth forest.

The National Wood Flooring Association currently lists more than 130 companies specializing in reclaimed wood flooring in 21 species, ranging from beech to walnut.

Sustainable

Many wood flooring manufacturers have gone the extra mile to ensure that their products come from sustainably managed forest resources, whether the source in sin North America or elsewhere.

“As an industry, we believe that only wood logged and approved by the country of origin for export should be used in wood flooring,” says NWFA’s Korczak.

You may also find that wood flooring will appeal to a segment of the building trades that emphasizes green building principles.  The National Association of Home Builders, for example, has developed a green-building program that recognizes, among other things, the use of renewable and recycled materials such as wood flooring.

Will all customers place a high value on eco-friendly flooring?  Probably not, but being able to address the green aspects of wood flooring may just be the key selling point that will enable customers to purchase the wood floors they want with a clear environmental conscience.

The Author:  Rick Berg, is a technical writer/advisor for the National Wood Flooring Association.  Rick also writes for Floor Focus Magazine where this article appeared in the February 2008 Issue.