Solid "strip" flooring: The most common type of solid wood flooring is referred to as "strip" flooring. The goal for manufacturers in this area of the industry is to produce large quantities and mass distribute through a channel that ends with retailers. It is a commodity product. Red Oak has long been the dominant specie for strip flooring; however, imports of exotic woods to make into strip flooring are on the rise.
While this type of solid wood flooring is prevalent, and priced lower than custom, plank or antique solid wood flooring, with the volume of production comes consequences:
- Large quantities of flooring are the result of large quantities of trees being cut, sometimes involving the "clear cutting" of forests.
- Again, with volume and speed in mind, the wood is kiln dried in huge batches, which results in wood that is not dried evenly; and dried very quickly at high temperatures, which causes the fibers of the wood to break down. Both factors will bring the stability of the final product into question.
- Massed produced flooring leaves little to the imagination with no opportunity to customize according to your design preferences. This is especially true when you consider that factory finished products now hold a commanding lead over floors that are finished on the job site.
Custom plank flooring: Many companies have entered the industry with offerings referred to as "wide plank". This term is ambiguous because there is no consensus on the exact width that classifies a board as "wide"; though many define it as 5" and over.
The companies that make plank flooring tend to boast the custom nature of their manufacturing. Many of them also justify the use of newly sawn timber with the notion of 'selective harvesting', meaning that trees are not clear cut like their mass produced counterparts, but rather cut one at a time. The issue here is that the trees have to grow for many years to get big enough around in order to produce wide boards; and consumers are becoming more sensitive to the cutting of "old" or "old growth" trees.
Reclaimed antique flooring: There are few credible antique flooring manufacturers in the industry. It's a business that attracts many, but only those companies that have years of experience in finding buildings, reclaiming timber and transforming such old wood into flooring with beauty and integrity are successful. Some smaller shops actually resell products purchased from the more competent manufacturers.
Like other wood flooring products, there are many considerations with reclaimed antique flooring:
- Recycling old wood addresses the environmental concerns about using real wood; the material comes from beams, decking and floor joists in buildings that have outlived their usefulness, so there is no need to cut trees, and a valuable resource is being salvaged.
- The intensive process to make an antique floor lends itself naturally to a custom made product, and a truly unique interior finish; there is nothing 'generic' about these floors, unlike the mass produced strip products.
- It is much more important for the consumer to be educated about the source of the wood. The history of the manufacturer is almost as important as the history of the buildings in which the wood was found.
- Depending on the grade, there may be some variations in the character, color tones and grain structure due to the origin of each timber and the elements that the wood was exposed to during its life in a barn, factory or other structure. This is typically appealing to consumers interested in a unique floor; the natural characteristics inherent to these floors reflect its history and tell a story.
Engineered Flooring: Engineered flooring has certainly come a long way since it was first introduced years ago as Pergo® laminate. Today's high quality engineered flooring, in contrast, is made up of multiple layers. The top layer is the prime part of the material, a piece of real wood from the specie you are buying. This first layer says a lot about the quality of an engineered floor. In some engineered floors, this is very thin, but in some of the newer innovative products it is thick enough to give the impression of a solid floor with its look and feel. The other layers are typically made of different species in the form of planer shavings or plywood; and tend to involve a multi-directional cross-ply construction that enhances the strength of the floor.
Here are a few considerations with this type of product:
- There is a much more obvious disparity between low quality and high quality engineered floors, so consumers are advised to educate themselves on the quality and aesthetics of all of their options.
- Engineered flooring is typically known for its versatility with various applications, most specifically either gluing or floating on a concrete slab. Therefore, it has become the product of choice for many consumers and building professionals, especially in situations where solid wood flooring was difficult to install.