Types of Wood Flooring

You want wood flooring, but don't know what type of wood flooring you want. Let's break down the often-confusing world of wood flooring types with this cheat-sheet:

• Solid Hardwood Flooring: Solid wood from top to bottom, side to side. It's expensive and requires professional installation.
• Plank Flooring: Plank is a type of solid hardwood. Width defines a wood flooring as "plank" (six inches or more). Plank is not a common type of flooring.
• Strip Flooring: Strip is every other kind of hardwood flooring that is not plank. Strip flooring ranges from 1 1/2" to 2 1/2" wide, and is the most common type of solid hardwood.
• Domestic Hardwood Flooring: Hardwood is either domestic or exotic. Domestic refers to North American hardwoods like maple, cherry, red oak, and alder.
• Exotic Hardwood Flooring: The exotics typically come from South America, Australia, and Asia. Exotic hardwoods tend to rate very high on the Janka hardness scale for wood toughness. As you might expect, domestic hardwoods are cheaper than exotic hardwoods.
• Hand-Scraped: Hand-scraped wood flooring has come into vogue lately. Hand-scraped woods have long, flat lines that create an attractive, random appearance.
• Distressed Flooring: Distressed is often confused for hand- or machine-scraped hardwood. Distressed hardwood flooring is lightly machine-beaten to create an antique look.
• Smooth Finish Hardwood Flooring: Hand-scraped and distressed flooring is still a rarity. Most wood flooring is produced with a mirror-like smooth surface.
• Engineered Wood Flooring: A modern marvel, engineered wood flooring looks like solid hardwood, but it isn't. It's a veneer of real wood on top of a plywood material. Engineered wood flooring rarely saves you money over solid hardwood, but it performs better in moist environments.
• Pre-Finished vs. Unfinished Wood Flooring: Most wood flooring today now comes pre-finished with a polyurethene coat that is very tough and allows for you to walk on the surface immediately after installation. Unfinished wood flooring allows you to pick your stain and sealant, but all factors combined--extra materials and labor--rarely saves you money over pre-finished.