Hardwood flooring is a beautiful, durable, and long-lasting option for your home. The floors are easy to clean, install, and maintain. Hardwood flooring is an ideal choice for homes with high-traffic areas and pets, and when looking for the best way to install wood flooring, consider that hardwood floors vary in type, color, and texture. They portray a natural look that matches other hard surfaces like stone, tile, metal, and laminate.
The best way to install hardwood floors on concrete is by using a vapor barrier membrane underneath the wood floor so that moisture does not get trapped in the concrete slab. Many types of wood flooring are available today, ranging from maple to oak to birch. Each type of wood has unique characteristics which make it appealing in any room. One best way to install hardwood floors is over existing carpeting or tile using different adhesives, nails, or screws.
Hardwood floors do not require any maintenance other than regular cleaning and polishing after years of use. The best way to lay hardwood flooring includes applying a sealer to protect the finish from water damage and stains. It is essential to use only quality tools and materials.
If you are considering putting in new flooring, you have a lot of options. While many people go with wall to wall carpeting, it accounts for just over 50% of the flooring market in the United States, hardwood flooring is also a very popular option that offers many benefits over carpet, vinyl tile, laminate flooring ceramic tile and other flooring options.
Some Benefits to Hardwood Floors Over Carpeting:
- It will last a long, long time. Properly installed and maintained hardwood floors should last up to one century. When people have carpeting, it typically needs to be replaced at least every five years. This is because carpeting gets stained, gets ripped and generally looks pretty crappy after even a small amount of wear and tear. Hardwood floors, on the other hand, continue to look great year and after year. You should remember that when you install natural wood flooring, you need to bring it into your home to get it acclimated to the climate in the house. The temperature and humidity level of your home have an impact on the wood and you need it to expand accordingly before completing the installation.
- Hardwood floors are easier to clean and maintain. When you have a carpet, you have to vacuum it often. At least once every year, you have to bring in professional carpet cleaners to do a thorough cleaning of all of the carpets in your home. Hardwood floors, by contrast need little more than a damp mop to get rid of dust and dirt. Even if your kids or pets have run amok in your home and carried in mud, cleaning this kind of flooring is a breeze.
- You get a more hygienic floor with hardwood. Carpets are magnets for germs, dust, allergens, pet dander and dirt. All of these things can be really hard for people with allergies, asthma or other breathing conditions. Wood flooring can save you all of the hassle of dealing with these health issues that arise with carpets. If you own pets such as dogs and cats, it is much easier to deal with their fur and hair that they shed during the warmer months.
- Maintenance on hardwood floors is easy. If you find you have scratched or otherwise damaged your hardwood flooring, all you need to do is sand the trouble area and then apply a sealer. This is easy to do and will restore your floor to the way it looked when you first installed it.
- Wood flooring smells better. When carpets trap dirt, mold and other contaminants, the result is often bad odors that linger in your home. Even if the carpet gets damp, it can start to smell of mildew and cleaning it to restore a fresh smell to your home is a lot harder. Hardwood flooring can be cleaned with a variety of oils that add to the pleasant smells in your home.
- Hardwood flooring has a timeless appeal. Whereas other kinds of flooring may be popular for a season or two, nice hardwood floors never go out of style. They add a certain class to a home and make a home look more dignified than carpeting.
- You add instant value to your home with hardwood flooring. Real estate agents report that the homes they list that have hardwood floors are often sole much faster than those with carpeting. They often can sell as quickly as twice as fast as homes with other kinds of flooring and sell for more than the other houses.
- If you want to install under the floor hearing, wood flooring may be the best way to go, This surface is easy to put in the efficient heating systems in your home. These systems work very well under hardwood flooring and can cut down on your energy bills.
Hardwood flooring is a very popular option for many homes. It adds a beauty and class that cannot be achieved with carpets. The ease of maintenance and cleaning make it great for busy people with pets and children. It also can make a huge difference for people with breathing problems such as allergies and asthma as this kind of flooring is much easier to disinfect. At the end of the day, you cannot go wrong with hardwood floors.
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