So Where do you buy your flooring

[Dave Hammelef]

Hi, I am going to be installing a hardwood floor in an l shapped hallway in the near future and am pretty sure i want an enginnered floor system. But I am not sure where to buy it / what brand or where to find good info about these.

Dave

[Gary Hern]

I can't help on brands, it's been a couple years since I went through the training on these and we never had many calls for it. There are definately different grades of this stuff though. Some of it is even rated for installation below grade which with regular hardwood flooring is a no no. But chances are, you won't want or need the expensive stuff. It is similar to the different grades of plywood in that the amount of layers is important as is the thickness of the surface layer. Hartco was my brand of choice when I was selling it because of having vvery few QC issues or callbacks. Good luck!

[Glenn Clabo]

Dave I'm in no way shape or form associated with these guys...but I did get excellent service and advice. We put done Mirage engineered maple and I can tell you it's the best floor I have ever done...and/or owned.

They are also the TOH flooring consultant.

Hosking Flooring (http://www.hoskinghardwood.com/)

[Jim Moore]

Hi Dave, for a small area, why not try making your own? I just made some walnut flooring for a samll area in a new family room I am building. It was fun making the flooring. If you have a large area though, I would tend to go with the engineered stuff also. I just needed the natural dark walnut to match the rest of the trim in the room.

Jim

[Jason Roehl]

Check out the engineered stuff carefully. I just did a paint job on a remodel where the customer had some beautiful oak-veneer engineered flooring put in. The installers had to replace a section in the fridge area because they badly gouged it putting the fridge back. Their dog has already put some slight gouges in it with his nails. Upon closer inspection of the flooring, one could see that the veneer was pretty thin, and the layer immediately below was either pine or poplar! So I would think you would want to find something that was hardwood throughout the layers.

Jason

P.S. Even though there were gouges from the dog, the finish was unbroken.

[Dave Avery]

Dave,

Have recent experience with ifloor.com..... great prices on cork flooring, OK service. Reminds me of the old adage, "price, quality, service - pick any two".

As far as wood is concerned, I have only the real stuff. Prefinsihed lower grade oak (shorter lengths, more color variation) that I paid < $3.00 af 6 years ago. It's taken a beating from 3 kids and the recent major addition. While it could use refinishing, doing so is easy with real wood. Installation was hard work, but easy to execute. Dave.

[Glenn Clabo]

Just to clarify some common misconceptions about engineered flooring...

It is real wood. The top layer on the better flooring can be refinished as many times as solid wood floors. Don't buy cheap. Once you get so deep, on solid or engineered, you hit the nails/staples before you get through the solid surface. The engineered floor I used can be refinished 4-5 times. More than a lifetimes worth.

There are many advantages to engineered wood...beside the ease of installing it. It is much more stable, the better stuff has 5 layers plus solid top layer...so it can be used in a wider variety of places. It can be glued or stapled...but stapling is fast and cheaper. It is VERY consitant...which really helps during installs.

The biggest disadvantage is cost. It cost more than solid but most installers would say it's made up in install time and comebacks.

We have 2 labs...they put little dents in it...just like the solid wood floors we have other places. I call it patina.

[Bob Boake]

I put down about 180 sq ft last year. It was a "speedplank" type flooring. Came in 6"x5' planks. Each plank has 3 rows of oak laminate strips in various length glued to what looks like a pine plywood substrate. I glued it down to the slab rather than installing as a floating floor with underlayment. I used pb plank adhesive (sold at lowes) to install most of it. Started out with a HD glue (Custom Product?) that was not nearly as easy to work with. I understand now that many have a preapplied glue base.
I bought an noname product that was being sold off at a discount building materials outlet. I installed in a dining room and is mostly is covered by a rug. I think I paid around 2.50 per sq ft for the flooring. I it looks good so far, I get a lot of compliments on it.Took 2 good days for me to install.

I would do it again. the planks are easy to install and installing with adhesive worked better than I anticipated. I ran my own oak trim to transition between the wood and carpet as the premade pcs looked really clunky

[Dan Stuewe]

I purchased a few hundred feet from fastfloors.com. For the most part it went well, but I have had a couple of problems. first off, the price could not be beat for the brand we chose (we picked it out at a local flooring showroom, and then went price shopping). It only took a few weeks to deliver and delivery across the country was only a bit over $100. The problems I've had are that they sent the wrong trim. This was taken care of with little problem. The other is that their web site has the wrong length for the trim I bought. So I ended up buying twice as much as what I needed, and, as you will find out, the trim is where all the money goes! I still haven't heard back about returing a few hundred $$ worth of trim I won't need. (This may not have been their fault, a quote I got from an installer had the same info on the trim and fastfloors.com)

By the way, their web site is pretty good, but it seems like they have more ideas than time to fulfill them.

Oh I almost forgot, floridawoodfloors.net has some great info too (the guy is an installer, not a salesman).

Dan