Wood Flooring in Cedar Park, TX
What are the Benefits of Wood Flooring?
Many homeowners choose hardwood floor as it gives a rich look to the home interior. Apart from this, wood flooring has many other benefits. Here are some of them:
Long Lasting
Good quality hardwood floors last for several decades as they are strong and durable while people often have to replace other flooring such as carpet every five years because of stains, wear and tear, and holes. With an affordable maintenance program, wood flooring looks better as it gets older.
Easily Cleanable
Wood floors can be cleaned quite easily when compared to carpets. A light vacuum, a brush, or a damp mop is enough to clean wooden floors.
Healthier And More Hygienic
Wooden flooring is healthier than other types of floors as it attracts less dust and due to its non-electromagnetic nature and organic origin. Therefore, it is a great choice for people suffering from issues such as dust allergy. As wood floors are more hygienic than carpet floors, it is recommended by doctors all over the world.
Provides a Medium for Underfloor Heating
In recent years, wood flooring has enjoyed a great boom in popularity due to its advantages such as durability, attractive look, easiness to clean etc. However, people often doubt whether they can have an underfloor heating system if they have a wood floor. Actually, wood provides a very good medium to install underfloor heating, which is the most effective and efficient way to heat a house. As wood can hold onto heat for a very long time, the room will remain warm for quite some time even after the heating system is turned off.
Cost Effective
Though hardwood flooring can be a bit expensive initially, you can ultimately save a lot of money due to its excellent features. Wooden flooring can be maintained easily and it provides better air quality. Additionally, its high durability makes it a really cost effective flooring option. If your wooden floor has been damaged a bit after several years because of wear and tear, you can easily bring it back to new using simple sand and seal techniques.
Suitable for All Budgets
Wood has always been considered available only to very rich. However, due to some new production methods, certain types of wood flooring can be manufactured cheaply. Therefore, now wooden floors are available to all budgets.
No Color Fading Problem
Carpets may lose their color and shine over time. But hardwood does not have this issue. For this reason, the life of hardwood flooring is far longer than that of carpet flooring. As it does not have the color fading problem, hardwood floor looks fresh and pristine for longer.
Comfortable and Less Prone to Damage
Wooden floors are extremely comfortable for babies and kids to play on them. Additionally, when compared to laminated and engineered floors, hardwood floors are less prone to damage when heavy objects fall on them.
Improve Acoustics
Wooden flooring improves the acoustics in the room. Due to this particular quality, most music halls and dance studios install hardwood flooring. In a house, improving the acoustics could add a benefit to the sound system or home theater.
HOW ENGINEERED HARDWOOD FLOORS ARE MADE
It all starts with beautiful trees that are carefully cut down, loaded, and sent to a factory where the engineering magic begins. There are a wide variety of tree species that engineered hardwood floors can be made from, each with varying degrees of strength!
First, the large chunks of tree must be de-barked using industrial machines for preparation. A question lurking in the wood flooring industry is what to do with the bark chippings from this mandatory process. So far the best use is for bark mulching – which is used for gardening and landscaping for various purposes. One example of bark mulch’s benefits is that it can hold in moisture for plants, effectively slowing down the time it takes for them to dry out.
After the trees have been debarked, it’s time to turn large chunks of solid wood into fine-engineered hardwood floor planks – the ones that are actually installed in your home. The tree is shaved into slices of real wood known as veneers. This veneer is what will be featured on the top of your engineered floor, giving it the hardwood appearance you seek. Below this veneer contains multiple layers of strategically placed plywood. It’s strategically placed because these plywood layers are stacked on top of each other in opposite direction. This is what gives engineered hardwood floors the benefits they have over solid hardwood flooring options: dimensionally stable and more resistant to changes in temperature and humidity reducing expansion, shrinking, and warping, as well as reducing the tendency of split wood.
The final step of the process ends at a finishing factory where your wood floors are prefinished with different sealants for added protection and longevity. Your engineered hardwood floor may also be sent through a distressing process that involves hand scraped finishes or wire brushed finishes for customizability-sake. It all depends on what you want your floor to look like – old, modern, exotic, etc. It then ends up carefully laid into your home (often by a professional), waiting to receive compliments from your family and friends.
The process of how engineered hardwood floors are made is truly fascinating. Hopefully you begin to see exactly why we love engineered hardwood flooring so much. Really though, we love all hardwood floors!
