why choose hardwood floor over tile or carpet

The natural beauty of wood alone should make anyone want to have wood floors in their home or office. Add to this beauty that hardwood floors are also durable, eco-friendly (green, renewable), cozy, and very forgiving to life’s accidents (unlike carpet which seems to stain if you look at it the wrong way) and hardwood really is the perfect flooring solution.

ok so wood floors look great, but are they for me?

So you’re wondering if wood floors will work in your situation right? Because your home is built on a concrete slab? Or because you need new floors for your basement? Or because somebody told you that your home is not suitable for hardwood floors? It is true that certain applications may not be suitable for a traditional, solid hardwood floor. The good news is that there is a solution for nearly all applications! That solution is called Engineered Hardwood Flooring…

engineered wood floors

Engineered wood flooring is a wood floor product that can be used below grade, ie: basements, on a concrete slab, and nearly any interior space really. Engineered hardwood is real wood, and is made up of multiple layers of a plywood-like core, laid up in a criss-cross pattern for enhanced stability (so it doesn’t expand and contract significantly) with a real hardwood wear layer on the top as the visible surface.

Besides first floor installations over a concrete slab, or basement flooring, other good applications for engineered wood floors are installations over in-floor radiant heating, installations where humidity is on the higher end, like water-front properties, etc…

Wood Flooring vs Carpet

Wood flooring is far superior to carpet because of it’s hypo-allergenic properties. It’s relatively common for doctors to tell their patients that they need to get rid of the carpet in their home and replace it with hardwood floors. The reason for this is that carpet fibers will harbor airborne pathogens, dust mites and hundreds of allergy-causing creatures that even the strongest vacuum cannot extract. Because wood flooring is a solid surface it does not trap allergy-causing entities, and can easily be wiped free of impurities using just a broom, cloth or some type of a spray-jet mop that is recommended for use on real wood floors.

Hardwood vs tile

Probably the strongest advantage that hardwood has over tile is a wood floor’s lack of maintenance requirements. Contrary to what your parents wood floors were like, today’s factory finished wood floors, and even jobsite-finished wood floors finished with polyurethane, require no regular maintenance aside from simple cleaning. When compared to tile, which requires regular sealing of grout annually to prevent the grout from staining, hardwood is the better choice. Not to mention that grout lines in tile are typically slightly lower than the actual tile’s surface making grout lines a great place for dirt and grime to hide from your cleaning efforts and eventually cause odors and possibly even a bug problem in your home.

Here’s the bottom line

If you consider the different characteristics between tiles and carpets, wood flooring actually offers the best of both worlds. It’s both hard and soft enough, (harder than carpet, yet easier on the feet than tile) is easier to maintain, easier to install, and has a long life expectancy.

So what are you waiting for? Browse our enormous selection of quality hardwood floors and find the one that is right for you!

White Oak is an excellent choice of flooring material for people who are searching for a hardwood floor that is not only beautiful, but incredibly durable too. White oak, which has a botanical name of Quercus Alba, has a numerical hardness value of 1360 on the Janka Hardness Chart. This Janka Hardness Rating for White Oak is slightly harder than that of its near-relative, Red Oak. Often times people choose White Oak vs Red Oak simply because White Oak is harder, when in reality, White Oak has some other qualities to consider when comparing with Red Oak.

Not only is White Oak harder than Red Oak flooring, it is also more dense (yes, density and hardness are different), meaning it is less likely than Red Oak to dent or be gouged. Also, White Oak flooring is more dimensionally stable than Red Oak, meaning it will expand and contract (move) less during seasonal changes and changes in RH (relative humidity). White Oak is also a better choice than Red Oak for applications where you will be staining the floors any shade of brown, since Red Oak tends to cast a reddish hue altering the color of brown stain colors.

White Oak is grown in North America. White Oak has a high variability in coloring and ranges from light tan to medium brown. White Oak can be used in residential or commercial flooring and can be used in several different decors, due to its varying colors and character. In fact, because of it’s neutral brown and tan tones, White Oak is arguably the most neutral hardwood that can possibly be chosen, and works with the most widely varied group of interior designs. White Oak Flooring is offered in different Grades, each with it’s own varying degrees of natural blemishes, from Select Grade which is near perfect with little or no blemishes, along down the line to #1 Common, #2 Common and finally #3 Common, getting more “rustic” as the grades go down. A wide variety of unfinished and prefinished white oak flooring is available.

Because of these different grades, white oak flooring can be used in virtually ANY home decor. More contemporary, victorian, and craftsman style homes, as well as other styles, tend to look best with Select White Oak Flooring. Homes that are more casual tend to gravitate to the Common, or “Character” grades of White Oak flooring. Character Grade usually refers to a floor that is a blend of multiple grades together, sometimes a blend of #1 and #2 Common, and sometimes even a blend of Select, #1 and #2 Common all together, which is sometimes referred to as “Mill Run” by industry professionals.

If you are convinced that White Oak is the flooring choice for you, then you can start comparing prices right now, just click either Unfinished White Oak or Prefinished White Oak flooring. Or to learn more just continue reading…

As previously mentioned, Select Grade, or “Select & Better” grade white oak flooring is virtually free from natural blemishes, so you shouldn’t expect to find any considerable amount of knots or mineral streaking in this grade. But the Common grades are the ones that are a little bit more tricky to figure out, until now that is… Use this little guide to understand the difference between the different grades of White Oak Flooring:

Select & Better White Oak – Clean and almost entirely free from natural blemishes such as knots and mineral streaks

#1 Common White Oak – Slight color variation because a small amount of sap wood is allowed, some small tight knots and occasional small mineral streaks

#2 Common White Oak – Color variation is prolific, mineral streaks are larger and more frequent than you would find in the higher grades. Larger knots are allowed, although very few of them will be open, and knots will be rather frequent in some cases, depending on the geographic location where the timber was grown

#3 Common White Oak – This is the lowest grade, and therefore basically allows basically everything that the higher grades do not allow. Expect extreme variations in color, prolific mineral streaking, insect workings, worm holes and large knots, some of which will be open knots requiring filling (filler that is formulated for wood floors is available at flooring supply stores in most areas). #3 Common is also the only grade that allows milling defects to be included, such as broken and missing tongues/grooves, splits, cracks and other defects. Typically about 70% of #3 Common grade white oak flooring can be used.

For more in depth descriptions of these grades, visit www.NWFA.org, the website of the National Wood Flooring Association.

As you begin shopping for White Oak flooring, you will soon notice that different manufacturers offer their flooring in different lengths. For example, you may see Select White Oak flooring from one company may come in Random Lengths from 1 to 7 feet, while another company may offer their Select White Oak flooring in Random Lengths from 1 1/2 to 11 Feet. Usually, longer is better, but it usually costs more too. Also, many manufacturers offer Long Length upgrades as well, such as Random Lengths from 2 to 10 feet, or 3 to 12 feet, or 6 to 12 feet, or even longer lengths are available to suit different people’s tastes.

You will also find that White Oak flooring is available in a rather large variety of widths. It’s possible to find white oak flooring as narrow as only 1 inch wide, and as wide as 20 inches, and even wider. The vast majority of white oak flooring that is made and sold in North America is between 2 1/4″ wide and 8″ wide, while 1 1/2″ white oak flooring is purchased rather frequently as well, mostly when remodeling older homes that were built when 1.5″ planks were still a standard width for hardwood floors.

The last thing you may consider, but still very important, is the way the White Oak flooring is cut. What we mean by that is when a log is cut to be made into flooring, it can either be flat sawn, which simply cuts the log to yield the most possible lumber regardless of quality, or it can be quarter sawn, which yields less lumber from the log, but produces a more dimensionally stable product, and a highly sought after visual appeal. When a log is quarter sawn, some of the lumber that is produced is called Rift. This Rift white oak is very highly prized for it’s tight, straight grain pattern and it’s dimensional stability. Rift & Quarter Sawn White Oak are usually sold together, however you may choose white oak flooring that is either all Rift, or all Quartered. We have just about any white oak flooring that you can imagine.

If you are interested in the varying styles and beauty of White Oak hardwood flooring, please browse our products now to see what Flooring.org has to offer!

#1 Reason to Choose Unfinished Flooring

No dirt traps! Unfinished flooring is almost always manufactured with Square edges, meaning each plank buts tightly against the next plank, without any “bevels” or “micro-bevels” to catch dirt. This means that your entire floor will be flat across the entire space, from wall-to-wall. This is a perfect solution to one of the biggest complaints about Prefinished wood floors, which are almost always manufactured with beveled edges, which are notorious for collecting dirt and grime, which is not easy to clean out of those little grooves.

#2 Reason to Choose Unfinished Flooring

A perfect seal! Think about it, when a prefinished floor is installed, each plank is butted up to the next as tightly as possible, and when the installation is complete, the floor is instantly ready to be lived on, which is great! But…

Since each piece of a prefinished floor is finished individually, there is nothing being done about the tiny seems that are left between every single board. This is where Unfinished flooring becomes the superior product. When an unfinished floor is installed, not only are the edges square, so the butt together tightly, there is another benefit to using unfinished wood floors. After an unfinished wood floor is installed, you have the opportunity to fill any unsightly cracks between planks, or trowel fill the entire surface like the professionals do. But the most important fact is that once you have finished filling, and the whole floor is sanded flat and smooth, the entire surface is finished with multiple coats of wood floor finish!

This means that (if the floor is installed and finished properly) you actually have a surface that is water tight sealed! Does this mean that you can just spill liquid all over the floor and let the dog wet the floor and you don’t have to clean it? NO! But it does mean you can relax, and live a much more care-free lifestyle on your wood floors, and when an accident happens, just wipe it up and forget about it! Because there’s no liquid getting between the planks to cause moisture damage!

#3 Reason to Choose Unfinished Flooring

Choices! Once an unfinished wood floor is installed, it is literally a blank canvas to do with whatever you please! (well, almost anything) You can stain your unfinished wood floors a huge variety of colors, not just colors that we traditionally associate with wood flooring, like brown and red tones… Some hardwoods like Ash and White Oak can be stained nearly any color you can think of, like pink, blue, red, green, even white! Or you can leave the floor natural and just finish the wood with a clear finish.

The customization doesn’t stop with color. Once you have decided on a color, you can actually choose exactly how glossy, or how NOT glossy you want your floors to be. Most wood floor finish manufacturers offer their finishes in 3 different sheen levels: High-Gloss, Semi-Gloss, and Satin. Sometimes you will even see a Matte finish, which by definition has almost NO sheen at all. While high-gloss finishes were very popular through the 80′s and 90′s, the new millennium is demanding Satin and Semi-Gloss finishes for a more up-to-date look. Aside from their visual appeals, a lower gloss finish also hides scratches and other flaws better than a high gloss finish. Also many complain about the fact that when you look across a wood floor that is finished with a high-gloss finish, most of what you see is a glare from nearby lighting, instead of actually seeing the beauty of the wood flooring.

#4 Reason to Choose Unfinished Flooring

Easier Repairs! If you’ve ever had to repair one or more planks in a modern prefinished wood floor, then you know that it is practically impossible to repair the Aluminum Oxide enhanced finishes that are used on these floors. The only solution in these cases is board replacement, where the damaged planks are cut out of the floor and replaced with new ones. This includes not only major damage like water damage, but even just scratches can result in board replacement with prefinished wood floors.

On the other hand, if you install an unfinished wood floor, and have it finished on-site, repairs can be done much easier. Since all on-site finishes are repairable problems like scratches and gouges can be fixed by simply sanding the effected area, re-staining if necessary, and applying a few coats of finish with a brush or applicator pad. No board replacement! With an unfinished floor that is finished on-site, board replacement will only be necessary when major damage occurs, like flooding or fire.

We hope you’ve learned enough to know whether you want an Unfinished wood floor or a Prefinished wood floor. If you’ve decided to go with Unfinished flooring, you can browse our huge collection of Unfinished Flooring now! If you decided to stick with Prefinished flooring, go check out our huge assortment of Prefinished wood floors now!

Solid Hardwood Flooring in Florida

Generally speaking, most Florida homes are not good candidates for traditional, 3/4″ thick, solid hardwood flooring. Now, technically, those of you who have multi-level homes may certainly be able to install a 3/4″ thick solid hardwood floor on the second or third floor of your Florida home. While that is certainly possible, and I have personally done it many times for customers who simply insist on having that 3/4″ hardwood that they grew up on up north, I do not personally recommend 3/4″ thick solid hardwood flooring in Florida.

That being said, if you insist on having solid hardwood floors in Florida (and you want to avoid the same problem in the picture above) here are a few factors that will go a long way in preventing serious damage that Florida’s climate (humidity) can inflict on your floor:

• Stick with narrow planks, 2 1/4″ or 3 1/4″ is probably as wide as you should go (if you absolutely have to have wider planks, please choose engineered hardwood instead)
• Perhaps a thinner hardwood will meet your need for solid wood, but also reduce your risk of cupping, warping, etc… We have a great line-up of 1/2″, 3/8″ and 5/16″ solid hardwood flooring to choose from
• Use Quarter Sawn and/or Rift Sawn hardwood flooring – this type of flooring is more dimensionally stable, and can generally withstand a harsher climate than plain sawn flooring
• Use your HVAC system, especially in the summer! The summer months bring nasty humid air to Florida homes, making a mess out of hardwood floors in Florida if the HVAC system is not running to remove the humidity from the air inside the home.

Engineered Flooring in Florida

As a resident of Florida, and an ex-hardwood install professional in Florida, I strongly advise the use of Engineered hardwood flooring in nearly ALL hardwood floor applications in Florida.

Engineered flooring is specifically manufactured to withstand the torment of humid air, quick changes in relative humidity, and is the perfect hardwood floor for installing over your concrete slab OR plywood or OSB! Even tile and vinyl flooring that is flat/level and still well adhered, can make a suitable substrate for engineered hardwood flooring. The bottom line is that engineered flooring is the perfect Florida hardwood flooring!

Generally made of 5 or more layers, or “plys” of wood, engineered flooring IS REAL WOOD. I will repeat that, engineered hardwood flooring is real hardwood flooring. Obviously, the biggest concern, and rightfully so, with engineered hardwood, is how thick is the wear layer? After all, the wear layer, is the top layer that you: Look at, Walk on, and hopefully, Sand and Refinish one day if it is thick enough.

You can click this link to our engineered flooring page to see a wide variety of engineered flooring, including a collection of engineered hardwoods that have wear layers almost exactly as thick as the sandable surface (the part above the tongue & groove) of 3/4″ thick hardwood!

Of course like any other product, engineered flooring will come in a wide range of qualities, from the worst to the best, and everything in between. And like anything else, you get what you pay for.

Now that you have a little bit of knowledge about choosing the right hardwood floor in Florida, start shopping by selecting one of the hardwood flooring categories at the top of this page.

What is wide plank flooring?

The answer to that question is kind of a gray area, depending on who you ask really. In certain regions, and/or according to certain manufacturers, you might say anything 4 inches or wider is considered “wide plank” flooring. I would have to disagree. I think anything that is 4 inches or wider is certainly considered “plank” flooring, but Wide plank flooring? That would be a little stretch of the imagination. But again, there is probably not a “right” or “wrong” answer to the question “what is wide plank flooring?”

That being said, in my opinion, any wood flooring that is 6 inches wide, or wider, is truly Wide Plank Flooring. I don’t care if it’s solid hardwood, engineered hardwood, or even softwood (like wide pine flooring), generally speaking, wide plank flooring is plank flooring that is 6 inches wide or wider.

Why should I choose wide plank flooring?

Wide plank flooring can achieve a number of different aesthetic goals, depending on what your project is. For example, if you are trying to reproduce an old colonial home in New England, you may very well be needing Wide Plank Eastern White Pine flooring to make that goal a reality. Or if you’re trying to bring a Penthouse suite up to date, you might want to ditch the old strip flooring, and opt for a Wide Plank Rift White Oak floor with some contemporary appeal to it. Whatever your project is, Wide Plank floors will certainly make your project quite a bit more appealing than that strip flooring you see over at the neighbor’s house.

Another area of consideration when debating whether or not to use wide plank flooring, is ease of installation. For example, if you’ve ever installed any strip flooring, you know that getting across a 20 foot wide room requires some pretty intense labor when you’re working with 2 1/4 inch wide material! How much more quickly could that job get done using 8″ Wide Plank Hickory flooring, or even 20″ Wide Plank Eastern White Pine flooring? Imagine how quickly that same room would get done, when each plank is 4, or even 9 times wider!

So if you’re an installer, you can see the increased profitability of a wide plank job verses a strip flooring job, and if you’re a do-it-yourselfer, you can see how wide plank flooring can turn a 5 day project into a weekend project.

Won’t wide plank flooring just buckle and warp?

If you do your homework, and talk to the right people, you can find the right wide plank floor that is right for you, for nearly any climate your project may be located in. For example, it is very common to find plank flooring that is 20″ wide in New England, where that same flooring might not last a week in Florida without cupping or in some way distorting from it’s original shape. With the possibility of wide plank engineered hardwood flooring being manufactured up to 12 inches wide, and perhaps even wider, we can now offer wide plank flooring in places where it was once thought impossible. That’s not to say that there is a wide plank flooring option for EVERY situation, but generally speaking, for most climates, there is a proper wide plank wood floor available that will not fail after installation.

What kind of wide plank flooring is available?

We have found that nearly any kind of hardwood and softwood that is commonly used for flooring, can be, and has been used to make wide plank flooring. While wide plank oak flooring, and wide plank hickory floors are very readily available, we can also very easily obtain wide plank walnut, cherry, hard maple, pecan, ash, beech, pine, sugar maple, birch and even wide plank exotic hardwoods like Brazilian cherry, African wenge, santos mahogany, genuine mahogany, Brazilian walnut, and more.

You can browse hundreds of wide plank flooring products on our website where you can learn a ton about flooring and save hundreds when you buy from us at wholesale prices!

Q. What is solid hardwood flooring?

A. Solid hardwood flooring is always made from one single piece of hardwood. While the great majority of solid hardwood flooring is 3/4″ thick, the thinner solids, such as 1/2″ thick and 5//16″ thick hardwood flooring are growing in popularity. Solid hardwood is recommended for installation over plywood, OSB or other wooden sub-floors. Solid wood flooring is usually not recommended for installation over concrete slabs or areas beneath the surface such as a basement floor. Solid wood floors come in a variety of different woods and finishes. Some of it comes unfinished which gives you the option to choose your own custom color and gloss level, although sanding and finishing a hardwood floor can prove difficult for the do-it-yourself-er. Another option is to buy prefinished solid hardwood flooring that comes completely finished from the factory with several coats of extremely durable finish. Solid hardwood flooring that is prefinished just needs to be nailed or stapled down, and you’re ready to enjoy it right away!

Typically, solid wood floors are more expensive than engineered wood floors (not always) but they can add more value to a home than engineered flooring, because of the general public’s misconception that solid hardwood flooring is “better” or more “real” than engineered hardwood flooring. The biggest downside to solid hardwood flooring again is the cost which makes hiring a professional an important consideration as attempting to install it yourself can end up costing you more money in the long run.
Solid hardwood flooring prices can fluctuate drastically based on the type of hardwood being used, the grade of the lumber that is used, how wide the flooring planks are, and whether the flooring is prefinished or unfinished.

Q. What is Engineered hardwood flooring?

A. Engineered Hardwood flooring is made up of several layers of hardwood that are glued together to create floor planks. Essentially, a hardwood flooring manufacturer will start with a plywood substrate, and adhere the hardwood veneer to the surface, and mill the tongue and groove into the sides and ends of the planks, creating an engineered hardwood floor.

The most common thickness of engineered wood floors is 3/8″, although engineered hardwood flooring is available as thin as 1/4″ and as thick as 3/4″. The advantage to this engineered flooring is that it can resist the damages of job-site moisture and fluctuations in humidity levels. In some areas where solid hardwood flooring would warp and bow, engineered hardwood flooring will remain flat and straight. When a 3/4″ thick piece of hardwood is exposed to excess humidity in the air or moisture in the sub-floor, it has no choice but to bend and/or warp, know as “cupping”. Because engineered flooring is comprised of several, thinner pieces of hardwood, glued together in a “criss-cross” pattern, this type of wood flooring is much more stable and capable of handling higher humidity and moisture levels without visible movement and warping of the planks. This makes this flooring type extremely suitable for low areas such as a basements, and installation over concrete slabs and in-floor radiant heating systems.

Engineered hardwood flooring comes in a variety of shades, colors and patterns and can often be impossible to tell the difference between its solid hardwood counterparts. The advantage of engineered hardwood is it’s inevitable stability while in-service, and that it makes it possible for one to have a real hardwood floor in their basement, or over a concrete slab sub-floor, or radiant heating system.

Q. So what is best for me? Engineered Hardwood or Solid Hardwood?

A. While it is hard to say for sure that either one is better for you, it is safe to say that engineered hardwood can be used anywhere that solid hardwood can be used, but it cannot be said the other way around. In other words, if you are concerned about the moisture levels in your sub-flooring, or if you need hardwood flooring in a humid area, or a basement, then engineered flooring is the way to go. If you insist on having 3/4″ thick hardwood under your feet, and you are very concerned with adding value to your home, then solid hardwood may be the solution for you. As always, consult with a professional installer in your area, and click here to shop our huge collections of Solid Hardwood flooring and Engineered Hardwood flooring now!

Hardwood Flooring Price Variations

Probably the first thing you will notice once you have started shopping for wood flooring is the drastic variations in hardwood flooring prices from one flooring dealer to the next. You may find a particular Bruce hardwood floor at The Home Depot for $3.49 per sq. ft. and then find that same exact Bruce Hardwood Floor at Carpet One or some other retail flooring outlet for $5.99 per sq. ft. Perhaps what is most confusing is when you go online and find that same Bruce Hardwood floor for only $2.89 from a reputable online hardwood flooring dealer.

Hardwood Flooring Prices by State

Your hardwood flooring cost does not have to be determined by where you live, even though the price of a particular wood floor will vary drastically from one state to the next. For example, hardwood flooring in California may cost significantly more than hardwood flooring in Florida. That is the nature of any product you may be shopping for. However, for those of you who just happen to be shopping for hardwood flooring in California, or perhaps if you’re researching hardwood flooring prices in New York, there is one way to shop for hardwood flooring in another state where you can not only find that hardwood floor for a much lower price, but you can also buy hardwood flooring tax-free… online!

Hardwood Flooring Prices Online

Hardwood flooring prices online will nearly always be lower than those of local dealers and specialty stores. The web simply allows an online dealer to reach more consumers than ever before, giving the online hardwood flooring dealer a higher volume of customers. While most reputable online flooring dealers do have a showroom to maintain, they are able to service hundreds, or thousands of customers each year from that one location, therefore reducing the effect of the real estate’s impact on the dealer’s bottom line. Simple economics tell us that if the online hardwood flooring dealer has less costs associated with each customer, that dealer is able to offer a better price to the consumer.

Hardwood Flooring Prices Online Tip #1: Know What You Are Looking For

Once you set out to find hardwood flooring prices online, the process will go very smoothly if you know what hardwood floor you are looking for. If you started out looking at a local store, hopefully you remember the manufacturer, the model, and the manufacturer’s item number. Having those three important pieces of information handy will make your search for hardwood floor prices online go very smoothly.

Know how much hardwood flooring you need for your project. Many online dealers will have a different price for the same product based on how much flooring is being purchased at one time. For example: Over 1,000 Sq. ft = $3.99… Under 1,000 Sq. ft. = $4.29. If you need help figuring out how much hardwood flooring you need for your project, here are a few easy tips to help you measure each room and calculate your total:

To find the total square footage of a square room: Just measure one wall in the room. Now take that number and multiply it by itself. Ex: If one wall in your square room is 11 feet long, then multiply 11 times 11, to get a total of 121 square feet.

To find the total square footage of a rectangular room: An example of a rectangular room would be a living room that is 13 feet wide and 21 feet long. In this example, you would simply multiply 21 times 13, to find the total square footage of that room is 273 square feet.

If you have a room that is triangular shaped, or some other shape, like a circle, or an octagon, we will leave that up to the pros at Calculator Pro.

Hardwood Flooring Prices Online Tip #2: Find Out the Total Price Including ALL Costs

Probably the cost that is most often overlooked is the cost to get your new hardwood flooring delivered to your home. Many online hardwood flooring dealers will have hidden costs that will surprise you at the end of the purchasing process. One example of a hidden cost is shipping. Hardwood flooring, and even laminate flooring for that matter, is very heavy. Many online flooring websites are small, low volume sellers, and therefore do not receive discounted shipping rates from the freight carriers. Other flooring dealers simply do not have the technology to provide a shipping quote on their website. And even other online hardwood flooring dealers will simply try to hide the shipping costs from you until you have already started the buying process.

If you are comparing hardwood flooring prices online, you will inevitably come across one or two websites that offer “free” shipping, or some low, flat rate shipping. Anything free is always great, but do your homework first to make sure that they didn’t just hide the shipping costs into the price of the materials.

The bottom line is that it is inevitable that shipping costs will be a factor in hardwood flooring prices, there’s just no way around it. It costs money to ship something very heavy from one place to the other. Just make sure to find out what the TOTAL cost of your hardwood flooring order will be. And don’t forget that not ALL hardwood flooring that is purchased online is exempt from sales tax. Remember, if you buy hardwood flooring from a dealer that has a location, or even a business entity, located in your state, then that dealer is required by law to charge you sales tax, if you live in a state that has a state sales tax.

Quarter Sawn White Oak - This is engineered hardwood that was installed unfinished, then lightly sanded and finished on-site with Bona Traffic - Satin water-borne finish

Here at National Hardwood Flooring we get very excited about quarter sawn oak flooring, especially quarter sawn white oak flooring, and while we will soon be offering our blog followers a full, comprehensive blog post dedicated entirely to quartered oak flooring, and indeed all kinds of quarter sawn hardwood flooring, including quarter sawn walnut flooring and even quartersawn cherry flooring, for now we must stay on topic.

If you don’t mind, we can’t continue with this post without making mention of one of our favorite oak flooring choices… Rift oak flooring. Whether it is rift white oak flooring, or rift red oak flooring, the same concept applies. The most formal type of oak flooring available is rift oak flooring. The grain pattern of a rift oak hardwood is straight and vertical, with such tight, consistent lines that you might wonder how it came from the same tree as the all-so-familiar plain sawn oak floor. Often, both quarter sawn, and rift sawn oak flooring are mixed together and sold as Rift & Quartered Oak flooring, which from a manufacturer’s perspective makes perfect sense, considering that rift hardwood is a by-product of the quarter-sawing process. This also makes sense from a consumer’s point of view, because the combination of both rift and quartered oak is quite lovely to look at, and the two compliment each other perfectly. Just don’t be fooled into thinking that the two cannot be separated, when in fact, a rift only oak floor, or a quartered only oak floor is most certainly available when one or the other is desired for a certain application.

Allow me to get back on the subject (after all, we’re in the middle of a wood crisis here!) For the past several decades, homeowners and contractors both have enjoyed low prices and consistent availability of red oak flooring and white oak flooring in a wide assortment of colors, textures, finishes, and sizes. Typically, there has been an oak hardwood floor available for nearly any application. Today we have engineered oak flooring for applications on grade level, above grade level, and even below grade level (often used in basements), and wonderful for use over in-floor radiant heating systems. We of course have traditional solid hardwood flooring, suitable for installation on or above grade level. And last, but not least, we have quarter sawn and/or rift oak flooring, available in both solid and engineered construction, for installation in nearly any interior application. In fact, even solid quarter sawn oak flooring can be installed over in-floor radiant heating systems.

But what if you called your local hardwood flooring store, or your favorite online hardwood flooring dealer, and much to your surprise, the unfinished solid oak flooring you once enjoyed for $3.49 sf from your local store was now as high as $5.00 sf or more, and while the same product was recently $1.99 sf online, is now $2.99 sf. And as if that news wasn’t bad enough, what if the floor of your choice was out of stock, and backordered 6 to 8 weeks, or even longer?

That’s exactly what is happening right now all over the country, as supplies are scarce, and in many cases non-existent, prices are rising rapidly. So I guess now you want an explanation…

With a little bit of sarcasm, I’ll say that “perhaps” you’ve heard a little bit about the economy lately. Something about the economy being bad, right? Well, it took a little while, but eventually this bad economy that caused oak flooring prices to get so low (which is what is expected to happen in such times), seems to now be causing those oak flooring prices to go up. But how is that possible?

Let’s take a look at the oak hardwood supply chain for our answer…

In order for an oak hardwood floor to be made, a logging crew first has to harvest the timbers for the raw materials. But what happens when the loggers cost to go out and get the logs is more than they can get paid in return for those logs. What if harvesting and selling oak lumber to an oak flooring mill actually results in losing money? When the market gets to that point, the loggers simply stop logging oak timbers.

With less raw material coming in, and a surprisingly steady flow of oak flooring going out, inventory becomes scarce. At that point, flooring mills take the opportunity to increase prices due to a new, improved ratio of supply and demand. (In all fairness to the flooring mills, I have been personally told by several major players in the industry, that for the past year and half or longer, they have actually been losing money on solid strip oak flooring.)

The above is just our interpretation of the current facts, but here’s the good news. Oak lumber, like all commodities, has ever changing price trends. If you want an oak hardwood floor, and need it now, then expect to pay a little more for it than you would have this time last year, and also expect to wait at least a few weeks for it. At the end of the day, oak hardwood flooring is still the most versatile, affordable hardwood flooring available, and we don’t see that trend changing any time in the near future.

If you are perhaps wanting a substitute for oak flooring that may be less costly at this time, perhaps Ash flooring might do the trick. Ash hardwood displays a very similar grain to oak, and while naturally has more yellow tones, Ash flooring can be stained nearly any color you like, and is available online in our store at wholesale prices. While ash hardwood flooring is beautiful, and attractively priced, it too has it’s fare share of availability issues. Ash hardwood can blame it’s inventory shortages on the emerald ash borer, a wood boring beetle, which is not indigenous of the US, but has managed to destroy literally billions of ash trees in North America.

We leave you with this comment from a giant in the world of design, Bernard Wharton, who said “Oak is the greatest… it has a pronounced grain and can be stained any color you want. And using oak is traditional, not trendy – like owning a pair of gray flannels.”