all about hardwood floors

everything you need to know about wood floors and more

To ensure that you have good floors in your house, just knock on wood. Nothing rivals the way wood warms up a room, its classic good looks, or how long it lasts — qualities that earn it the distinction of being This Old House's favorite flooring.

Whether you're laying a wood floor in a new house or replacing one that's damaged beyond repair, there are dozens of species to pick from, including trusty domestics, such as oak and maple, and intriguing exotics, such as tamarind and acacia.

Avoid using rubber-backed or non-ventilated mats or rugs as they can damage your floor. Instead, use mats or rugs made especially for hardwood floors and shake them out often.

You also have a choice of widths — be it rustic wide planks or traditional narrow strips — and stain colors, which allows you to tailor your floors to your house's style and decor.

And thanks to modern adhesives, a wide variety of species are available as "engineered" boards. Made from a stable sandwich of veneers, rather than solid stock, engineered floors can go places where it wasn't practical to install wood before: over radiant-floor heating systems and concrete and in basements.

FLOOR FAQS

What it costs

From $1.50 to $8 per square foot depending on wood thickness, species, and grade. Some prefinished solid-wood and engineered wood floors are DIY-friendly, but if you plan to hire a pro installer, tack on $2 per square foot, minimum.

How it will hold up:

Some prefinished solid-wood boards come with a 50-year warranty. With regular care, though, any solid-wood floor can easily last twice that long. Warranties on the finish for engineered wood range from 10 to 30 years.

How to maintain it:

Fight a finish's biggest enemy — abrasive dirt— by vacuuming regularly and laying runners and doormats near entries.

Abrasive particles like dirt, sand or gravel gather on the surface of your wood floors, making them look dull and causing scratches. Mats, runners or area rugs placed near entryways help catch dirt where it enters. In fact, doormats can eliminate 80 percent of the dirt tracked inside a home. To start, clean up food and water spills immediately. Then make sure to mop and vacuum frequently. Mop the floor with a cleaner especially made for the type of hardwood floors that you have installed. If you use the wrong cleaner, it won't adhere to the finish as well and could cause the floor to peel." Looking for a chemical-free approach? Invest in a steam cleaner. Or kick it up a notch with a combination vacuum/steam mop.

Where to install it:

Just about anywhere, except in areas prone to extreme humidity and standing water.

Its hardness makes oak ideal for high-traffic foyers. Clear-coated white oak works with cream wall paint and a peach stair runner for a serene color palette

WHAT TO KNOW BEFORE YOU BUY

Ask yourself these questions to narrow your search for the right wood floor:

Where do you plan to use it?

Kitchen and entryway: Choose a hard wood, such as oak or hickory, which can handle heavy foot traffic better than a soft pine.

Bedroom and home office: Rooms off the beaten path are good locations for softer woods, such as black cherry or black walnut.

Basement: Avoid using solid-wood flooring below grade, where high humidity prevails. An engineered wood floor is a better option here because it's more stable.

Bathroom: Water can warp wood, making it a poor choice for baths with tubs and showers.

What's it going over?

Plywood subfloor: As long as it's solid and flat, you can install any type of nail-or glue-down hardwood, as well as click-together engineered strip or cork plank floating floors.

Existing wood floor: Thinner boards with long-wearing factory-applied finishes are better here to ensure safe, no-trip transitions to adjacent rooms, hallways, and stairways.

Concrete slab or tile: Nails aren't an option. Consider a click-together floating floor or one that can be glued down.

Radiant floor: Engineered flooring is ideal because it's thinner and more stable than most solid wood.

Add it up

To figure out how much your floor will cost, calculate the room's square footage, then add five to 10 percent for cuts and waste. Multiply this figure by the board's square-foot price to get your cost. Don't forget to add on a few extra bucks for door thresholds, shoe moldings, and any nails or staples you might need.

HARDWOOD BASICS

Thickness: Solid ¾-inch boards can be refinished up to 10 times. Thinner ones can't be sanded as much,but when topped with durable factory-applied coatings, they shouldn't require frequent refinishing.

Length: Longer strips mean fewer distracting end joints. To make a small room appear bigger, use shorter strips.

Width: Six-inch planks have a rustic appeal, but the joints open wide during dry spells; 2¼-inch strips look busier but stay tighter. Mix widths for the best of both.

Hardness: The harder the wood, the less prone it is to dents and gouges. The table shown shows how various species stack up.

Plainsawn is the most common cut. Characteristics are its pleasing appearance, and varied grain appearance. It is easier to produce from the log.

Quartersawn is more expensive than plainsawn. Characteristics are greater wear resistance, less tendency to cup and twist, less shrinkage in width, and uniform grain appearance with ray flecks. Ray flecks appear in flooring that cuts across the wood’s ray cells, which creates a shimmering flake figure spread over the wood.

Riftsawn is more expensive than plainsawn. It's similar to quartersawn without the ray flecks.

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