The Installation of Hardwood Flooring   

Engineered Handscraped Chocolate Hickory 7.5″


Image by FactoryHardwood
Our hand scraped hardwood flooring is characterized by random distress marks throughout the bold flowing grain patterns of the hickory hardwood. The deep, blackish-brown tones of our chocolate stain give the wood floors a beautiful luxurious appearance. The natural hardness of the Hickory species combined with 9 coats of PPG aluminum oxide make our Natural Hickory hand scraped flooring extremely tough and resistant to scratching. These hardwood floors are ideal for floating, glue down, or nail down installation methods.

Article by Rich Kessner

Rich Kessner is the owner of New York Floorman LLC, a family-owned and operated business in Manhattan. According to Kessner, a hardwood floor can definitely be placed over a concrete base as long as the hardwood itself is engineered rather than solid. Whereas engineered hardwood is frequently glued directly on top of concrete, solid wood floors need to be placed on top of a plywood subfloor.

When you first begin looking into what type of flooring you are going to have installed at home, it is important to do the necessary research on both solid hardwood and prefinished engineered floors.

Solid Hardwood FloorOne of the options that homeowners have when choosing which type of floor to install is a solid hardwood floor. This type of flooring comes finished or unfinished, and the installation is generally an easy process. The problem for many apartment-dwellers, though, is that neither finished nor unfinished solid hardwood floors can be laid over a concrete base. Before a solid floor can be installed, a 3/4? thick plywood subfloor must first be put in place. Then, the solid strips will be nailed onto that.

Because my company handles hardwood flooring installation jobs for clients in Manhattan, I frequently work with people whose apartments do not have enough height to allow for the use of a plywood subfloor in addition to the solid wood floor. (Typically, plywood subfloors must be at least 3/4? thick in order to be useful.) Together, the width of a plywood subfloor and a solid wood floor can quickly add up, and some people who live in apartments with low ceilings simply cannot forego those additional few inches of height. For these people, an engineered floor is the obvious option.

Engineered FloorEngineered floors are typically sold in strips, and are made to be installed in places with high humidity or where installing a plywood subfloor is not an option. Engineered floors can be glued directly onto concrete or nailed onto a plywood subfloor, giving homeowners a number of options when it comes to the installation of their new hardwood flooring in Manhattan.

If you prefer not to glue your engineered hardwood floor to a concrete base, then another option exists. Engineered wood floors can be floated over a concrete base with the help of a foam piece, which is what the engineered floor itself actually sits on. Although this is not necessarily as popular an option as simply gluing the hardwood directly onto the concrete, it is something that is available for people interested in having hardwood flooring installation in Manhattan.

On the other hand, the only downside to installing an engineered floor on concrete comes up if there is too much moisture in the concrete itself. In my experience, the installer should make sure that the concrete that the wood is being placed upon is completely dry and that there are not any water or humidity issues that could cause the wood to buckle.

What We DoAt New York Floorman, my staff and I always check for these types of issues automatically, so homeowners do not have to worry about when they are having an engineered floor installed. If the moisture level of the concrete is checked and it is determined that it is at a level that is too high, then the next option would be to install the foam layer and float the engineered wood over the foam. The foam acts sort of as a moisture barrier. This type of application would be most common in a basement floor, where it is common for humidity levels to be especially high.

We service all hardwood flooring needs from work as simple as sanding and refinishing, to repairs and custom installations. Because my company is located in Manhattan and the majority of our customers live in apartments with concrete floors, that most of the floors we installs are of the engineered variety. While we install plenty of solid floors as well, people who live in apartments with low ceilings almost always prefer engineered floors because they can be placed directly on top of concrete without having to build up a plywood subfloor first.

Remember, solid hardwood floors are more common in downtown loft buildings, where the ceilings tend to be much higher, while engineered floors are more common in uptown apartments. Price-wise, the price of an engineered wood floor and a solid wood floor are very comparable. Although installing a solid hardwood floor does require the extra step of first putting down a plywood subfloor, the costs associated with that are minimal. The cost of a project in total always depends on the square footage, but people who have more work done can usually get prices that are somewhat less per square foot.

About the Author

Rich Kessner is a writer for Yodle , a business directory and online advertising company. Find a roofer or more roofing articles at Yodle Local.

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