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Hardwood offers many well-known advantages. Its’ natural, beautiful warm, and easy to maintain. It costs about as much as high quality floor coverings, but it lasts dozen of years. It also creates a healthy environment, minimizing the risks of dust allergies.
Hardwood is available in many styles with a wide variety of features, hardwood flooring can complement any décor. Hardwood enhances a home’s interior and adds to its resale value.
Take the time to compare the many possible floor coverings and consider their benefits over the long term. Think about the feel you want to give your home. Avoid imitations – especially wood- look laminates
Hardwood Flooring Positioning:
Your wood flooring should ideally be installed opposite direction of your subfloor joists. You should also consider the shape and size of the room. For example, installing the strips, lengthwise may make a long room look even longer, and may be more flattering to lay the strips diagonally. If you like an original look but still have more traditional tastes, try a “herringbone” design.
Maintenance:
Your floor’s worst enemies are water, soap and sand. Don’t use a wet mop or commercial soaps. All you need is a damp cloth or use the care products recommended by the manufacturer and vacuum regularly.
Humidity:
Unlike other floor coverings, wood is a living material. That means you have to be particularly careful of the humidity level in your home before, during and after installation. To avoid stressing your floor, you should always keep the average relative humidity at about 45%.
Hardwood Flooring Finishes:
The quality and durability of polyurethane finis is not determined by the number of coats, but rather by the quality of the polyurethane and the application procedure used. Applying a polyurethane protective coat with aluminum oxide particles in factory and drying it under ultraviolet light is a popular method that has proven its worth. There are ways to tell whether a product has a good factory finish. For example, the stain should reach to the bottom of the joint to ensure a uniform color. Polyurethane should also be applied in the joints so they don’t absorb dirt and water, which would quickly darken. Make sure the color is consistent from on box to another.
Lighter woods are more likely to change color or turn yellow from the effect of intense light or sun’s rays. To reduce and slow discoloration, some manufacturers mix a UV treatment directly into their polyurethane finish.
Hardwood Flooring “V” Joints:
Once assembled, prefinished hardwood floor strips form a “V” joint, the V joint shold be as small as uniform as possible to hide imperfections in the subfloor. This will also prevent premature wear on strip edges and make it easier to move furniture without damaging the wood or the finish. If the joint is too deep, dirt and dust will accumulate and your will be harder to maintain.
2/6/2009 11:25 AM
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