Installing And Finishing Hardwood Floors
After making the wise choice of hardwood flooring, the next step is installation. Putting down a solid, unfinished hardwood floor is a multi-step process. It is recommended to use a professional installer, but for you DYI’ers, here is a step-by-step guide.
Solid hardwood flooring is installed using a nail-down method, fastened to a plywood subfloor. Once the floor planks are in place, the finishing process must begin. The first step is to make sure the surface is flat and level. This is done by sanding the entire room with coarse grit sandpaper. You can use a belt or drum sander and an edger to get the perimeter. This step will ensure that your finished floor will be completely flat, with no protruding pieces sticking out.
Once the floor has been sanded, it is ready to stain. The most popular brands of wood floor stain are MinWax and DuraSeal. The stain is applied with a lambswool applicator. DuraSeal and Minwax can be applied instead of a sealer, as they both “penetrate and seal” the flooring.
The next step in the process is to seal the floor. Sealing wood prevents liquids from penetrating the wood, which causes all sorts of problems like warping and gapping. There are a couple of options for sealing the floor. You can use a universal sealer, a lacquer sealer, or a super speed sealer. Each will cover approximately 300 SF per gallon. Shellac, or universal sealers, such as the kind made by Garco or Dunhams, soaks the wood and is probably the best base. Lacquer sealer is solvent-based, dries faster than shellac, but is much more flammable. Super speed sealer is a much thicker base, recommended mostly for commercial jobs, or dark floors. You want to put one coat of sealer on the hardwood floor using a lambswool applicator, and let it fully dry. This usually takes up to one hour, but you need to make sure the air is at least 20 degrees Celsius.
Once the base is completely dry, you need to screen/polish the entire floor before applying the first coat of polyurethane. An oil-based polyurethane will be thicker than a water-based one, so it is recommended to use two coats for oil-based poly and 3 coats for water-based. Different brands of polyurethane have different dry times, so be sure to consult the technical data sheet. In general, water-based polys dry in approximately 2 hours, while oil-based polys dry overnight. Be sure to screen/polish between all coats.
Important notes:
1) It is recommended to use the same brand of sealer and polyurethane.
2) Some finishes and sealers can be very flammable, so use caution!
3) Primer doesn’t spoil, but Polyurethane should be used right after opening
4) Water-based poly should be continuously stirred after opening (One person stirs, another person applies)
Engineered Vs Solid Hardwood
Your guide to understanding the difference between Engineered vs Solid Hardwood flooring
The process of choosing the right wood flooring product should not be taken lightly. Any professional installer or contractor will tell you that selecting the proper material for your job is essential to achieving the results you want. In today’s market, wood floors are separated into two main categories: Engineered vs Solid Hardwood. Each has distinct advantages and disadvantages over the other, and this article will explain how to select the best option for you.
To begin, let’s Define Engineered Vs Solid Hardwood:
Solid hardwood means each plank is made from a single piece of wood. This type of flooring ranges from about 3/8” thickness to 1”, but the overwhelming majority of solid wood flooring is ¾” thick.
Engineered wood flooring consists of a top layer of solid wood over a multi-layer construction beneath.
Engineered Vs Solid Hardwood – Dimensional Stability:
The engineered construction has several benefits over solid hardwood. The most important one is how the material reacts to temperature and humidity. We know wood is a natural product, and it will expand and contract with changes in temperature and moisture levels.
Engineered wood flooring is less susceptible to these issues, due to the multi-layer construction. Each layer of wood will expand or contract perpendicular to its grain. By adhering several layers of wood together, with alternating grain orientation, you have a plank that is significantly more stable dimensionally, and much less prone to warp. This fact also allows engineered planks to have much wider widths and longer lengths than regular solid boards. With engineered wood, you can feel more comfortable installing long, wide planks in an environment prone to climate change. Please keep in mind that there are still guidelines for temperature and humidity levels that are optimal for engineered wood, but they are far less stringent than those for solids. This is often the main factor when deciding engineered vs solid hardwood.
Installing Engineered Vs Solid Hardwood Flooring:
Engineered wood floors also offer an advantage in the installation methods. In most cases, they are much easier to install than a solid plank. When installing solid hardwood, the process usually requires a plywood subfloor which the wood will be nailed to. This adds a costly, and tedious, step to the installation. Gluing down solid hardwood is usually out of the question since most adhesives are simply not strong enough to grip a ¾” thick, solid hardwood plank, and be flexible enough to expand and contract with it. The adhesives that can do this are much more costly. Engineered wood can be simply glued down over a level concrete subfloor, or in some cases floated using a click-together system where the planks simply “click” to one another, and the boards are simply floated over padding or underlayment, without requiring the use of glue or nails. The ease of installation is a major factor when considering engineered vs solid hardwood.
Maintenance Of Engineered Vs Solid Hardwood:
Depending on the thickness of the wear layer of engineered flooring, they can be sanded and refinished only a small number of times as compared to solid hardwood. This is the main advantage of solid over-engineered: you can prolong the life of your flooring by sanding and refinishing the floor. With an engineered floor, you can do this 1 or 2 times usually, before you completely strip the top layer off. With solid hardwood, you can do this any number of times (until you reach the tongue and grooves).
Generally speaking, solid hardwood floors will tend to last longer than engineered ones with the same levels of care and maintenance. At the same time, engineered floors will react better to seasonal changes. Engineered, prefinished floors also come in a much larger variety of options than solids.