Maple hardwood flooring is one of the popular choices for homeowners. However, despite this popularity, new homeowners tend to wonder why they should choose maple hardwood flooring.
There are many answers to that question because maple hardwood flooring has numerous benefits. Whether you’re designing your new home looking to redo your flooring, maple hardwood flooring combines much-needed aesthetics with the highest level of functionality.
If you are among those who wonder why you should choose maple hardwood flooring, you will find all the answers you need in this article. Here, you’ll learn more about maple wood flooring features that make it a top choice for homeowners.
More importantly, we’ll provide the inside track on the amazing advantages of maple flooring. Let’s get into it.
About Maple Hardwood Flooring: Here’s What You Need to Know
Maple hardwood’s popularity when it comes to interior decor is in many ways relatable to its beauty and durability. The floor type has a Janka rating of 1450, making it among the hardest hardwood flooring types available in Canada.
Besides this durability, maple hardwood flooring is available in a variety of shades. Hence, it’s easy to find a style, colour, and design that fits your decor preference. These and many more are the features that make maple hardwood a standout when compared to other types of flooring options.
Types of Maple Wood
If you want to choose maple hardwood flooring, you must know maple wood comes in two categories. These include soft maple and hard maple.
Hard Maple
It typically refers to a specific wood type — Acer Saccharum, commonly called Sugar Maple or Rock Maple. Hard maple may also refer to a different maple hardwood species known as Acer nigrum and commonly called Black Maple.
Besides flooring, hard maple is used in making cabinets, furniture, and, more surprisingly, billiard cues. Despite being called hard maple, this maple wood category is malleable in comparison to other wood types.
Soft Maple
It does not refer to a specific maple type. Instead, softwood refers to a series of maple wood types. These maple wood types include red maple, bigleaf maple, striped maple, box elder maple, and silver maple. This maple wood category is not as hard or as strong as hard maple.
Soft maple species differ in terms of hardness. For example, red maple or bigleaf maple has a higher hardness level than silver maple and box elder maple. However, none of the soft maple types are harder than hard maple.
You should note that despite being termed soft, soft maple is not too soft that it can’t be used for flooring purposes. It is just a comparison term to differentiate it from hard maple.
Types of Maple Hardwood Flooring
If you want to buy maple hardwood flooring, it’s important to note the forms it comes in. Maple hardwood flooring types include engineered maple hardwood flooring, solid maple hardwood flooring, prefinished and unfinished maple hardwood flooring.
Solid Maple Hardwood Flooring
Like it is called, each maple wood flooring piece of this type is solid. Solid maple hardwood flooring planks are usually shaped on their ends and sides to allow them to fit together seamlessly.
There is usually a protective layer atop the wood for solid maple wood flooring. This prevents the floor from scratching or denting easily. The protective layer on the flooring is usually transparent. Hence, it does not affect the flooring’s colour or grain.
Based on sizes, solid maple hardwood flooring is mainly sold at a thickness of 0.75 inches. However, you can find it in various widths and lengths. The exact size you will find is dependent on the particular manufacturer.
Solid maple floors are usually installed using nails instead of gluing or stapling the planks into place. One of the many solid maple hardwood flooring benefits is its durability.
The wood is entirely solid and cannot be cut with or by a weaker material. Hence, you can stain, sand, and refinish it multiple times during its lifespan.
Engineered Maple Hardwood Flooring
Unlike solid maple hardwood flooring, engineering maple wood flooring consists of multiple layers. Usually, its bottom and top layers are 100% maple hardwood. About five to seven plywood layers come between the bottom and top layers. These plywood layers cross in different directions and don’t lay straight.
If you choose engineered maple hardwood flooring, one major benefit is that it’s unlikely to contract and expand like most wood flooring types.
Many wood flooring types contract and expand as a response to humidity and temperature. However, with engineered maple wood flooring, your flooring is unlikely to buckle. This is why many people use the floor type in areas prone to such conditions. An example is the basement in your home.
When installing engineered maple hardwood floors, there’s no need for nailing. Engineered maple wood floors are usually glued or stapled. You can also install the floor type as a floating floor if the wood pieces are joined or locked together.
Prefinished Maple Hardwood Flooring
If you choose maple hardwood flooring, one of your considerations is whether you want it prefinished or unfinished. Before making such decisions, you need to understand what prefinished and unfinished means.
A prefinished hardwood floor is a flooring type that is finished at the factory. Hence, all you’ll need to do is to install it in your home. These floor types come with protective layers to prevent them from being scraped or scratched.
Another thing to note about prefinished floors is they may be stained when you buy them. It means the flooring’s natural colour may be altered to a differing aesthetic. Prefinished flooring is easy to install because the installer does not necessarily have to apply any finishing to it.
Unfinished Maple Hardwood Flooring
Unfinished maple hardwood flooring does not have a top layer of protection and does not come prestained. It is also called site-finished flooring. It takes longer to install than prefinished flooring.
After it’s installed, the installer still has to sand and stain. There is also a need to add a top layer of protection if you don’t want your wood to be bare and prone to scratching or scraping.
If you want your wood finish to be unique, you should go for unfinished flooring. You should also go for it if you want your flooring to match your home’s interior or have a preferred custom finish.
With unfinished flooring, you can add customized details like inlays to your maple hardwood floors. You should note that most prefinished flooring is more expensive than unfinished flooring.
Related Article: What Is The Cost Of Installing Engineered Hardwood Floors?
Features of Maple Hardwood Floors
At this point in the article, you may be asking yourself, “is maple hardwood right for me”. One good way of answering this question is by knowing the flooring type’s features.
Here are the features of the maple wood that makes it an excellent investment for your home.
Hardness and Durability
As earlier said, maple hardwood flooring has a Janka hardness rating of 1450. The Janka hardness test measures a wood’s hardness. It’s a way to see how it will fare against denting and regular wear.
You should note that it’s hard maple that has the Janka rating of 1450. Soft maple’s Janka rating is about 950. A few variations exist for softwood, depending on the soft maple you are using.
You may be wondering, “Is maple flooring durable?” Hard maple’s Janka rating of 1450 makes it a very durable wood type. Hence, you can use it for the areas in your home prone to heavy traffic, like your kitchen and living room.
Colour
Maple hardwood generally has light colouring. Its colours range from almost white to darker shades. With light-coloured maple, your room appears more extensive and more open. On the other hand, darker shades give your space a more traditional appearance and make it look warmer.
The colour of maple hardwood colouring isn’t solely dependent on the maple hardwood type you use. It also depends on the part of the tree the wood comes from. Woods from sapwood or a tree’s outer trunk usually have a lighter colour. The colour is creamier or like a yellowish-tan.
On the other hand, wood cut from the tree’s center trunk or heartwood appears darker. Such wood has a reddish-brown or grayish-brown colour.
It’s best to use maple hardwood flooring in its natural tones. This is because of the wood grain’s density. The wood grain’s tightly clustered cells make it difficult to stain maple in darker colours. Hence, maple represents a great option if you prefer light-coloured and durable hardwood.
Maple Hardwood Varieties
If you choose maple hardwood flooring, you are spoilt for choice on the variety to choose. This variety means you’ll be sure to find a maple hardwood flooring design that fits your preference or matches your budget.
Whether it is solid, engineered, or laminated maple hardwood flooring you desire, you will have your needs met with unique design styles.
Maple Hardwood Flooring Price
You have to consider maple hardwood flooring’s price before deciding if you should choose it or not. However, you can rest assured that the cost of this flooring type will not eat too deep into your pocket.
On average, it only costs between $6-$8 per square foot of unstained maple hardwood flooring. On the other hand, you will need to pay between $7-$14 for a square foot of sealed or stained maple hardwood flooring. The costs stated above also factored in the installation expenses.
You may be wondering why the prices vary. Recall that there are various types of maple hardwood floors. You have engineered, solid, and even laminate maple hardwood flooring. Hence, the cost of each one of them differs from the other.
Solid maple hardwood flooring is usually more expensive than the rest. This is because it is not cut by cheaper wood. Engineered maple wood flooring consists of a top and bottom layer of maple wood with layers of plywood between them. Hence, the variation of high-quality lumber and cheaper plywood reduces its cost.
Laminate maple hardwood flooring is a budget-friendly option for you. It costs between $1-$5 for a square foot.
Maple Hardwood Flooring Grade
Just as there are various maple hardwood flooring types, it also has different grades. Many maple hardwood lovers like it when their flooring has a light cream colour look coupled with its fine graining.
However, if you desire, you can buy your maple hardwood flooring to have more heartwood characteristics to suit your style better. There are three grades of maple wood flooring including:
Clear or Select Grade
This maple hardwood flooring grade has very little to no variations in colour. It is the tree’s sapwood that has a light cream colour. You will not observe any dark colours or knots of the heartwood. The clear grade is the highest maple hardwood flooring grade you can buy.
Grade 2
This grade features colour variations. Mostly, these variations range from cream-coloured shades to darker shades. It has fine and linear graining but possesses minimal swirls and waves. It also features some knots though they are not many.
Grade 3
It has more blemishes and variations than you’ll find in all other grades. It is mainly referred to as Character Grade Maple hardwood flooring. This grade is usually a combination of the clear grade and grade 2. In grade 3, there are multiple wormholes and knots. You’ll also find the domination of light cream to dark brown shades.
You must note that maple hardwood flooring’s grading has no impact on its integrity or durability. Due to its minimalistic pattern, clear grade maple hardwood flooring is best suited for contemporary and modern design concepts. It leaves a soft and light effect on the eye, making it perfect for such designs.
Meanwhile, second and third-grade maple hardwood flooring are best suited for cabin, rustic, farmhouse designs. Their characteristic colour variations, wormholes, and knots fit such designs perfectly.
Whichever grade of maple hardwood flooring you choose for your home, it will make a difference. Hence, you need to choose carefully.
Advantages of Installing Maple Hardwood Flooring
When you choose maple hardwood flooring as your flooring type, you gain the following benefits.
- The flooring type is widely available, and you have multiple varieties to choose from.
- It is very affordable. The available grades suit most people’s budgets.
- Maple wood possesses a fine grain. The property makes each wood plank have a uniform look.
- The flooring type has a clean backdrop that works for most interior decor designs. This means your flooring remains viable even if you change your furniture often.
- It represents a popular choice among homeowners and is perfect for contemporary, airy, and clean decor.
- It has a high Janka hardness rating. Hence, it is not prone to scratches or dents and has high durability.
- It is easy to clean and maintain.
- You can refinish multiple times throughout its lifespan.
Why Choose Maple Hardwood Flooring Over Oak Flooring?
When deciding if or when to install maple hardwood floors, another flooring type that can cross your mind is oak flooring. There are many differences between maple flooring and oakwood flooring.
In terms of colour, maple flooring possesses more hues than oakwood flooring. Therefore, if you want wood flooring that will most likely match your home’s interior, maple flooring is the best bet. Oak flooring provides a traditional and general look.
Both flooring types are durable. Thus, you are ensured of an excellent investment with both of them. However, Maple edges a bit in durability with its higher Janka rating.
The significant difference between both flooring types is in their colour. Oak has darker colour shades and is perfect for traditional or older homes. Maple flooring fits best for modern homes and decor.
Related Article: Why Wire Brushed Hardwood Flooring Is “In”
Choose Maple Hardwood Flooring Today
In this article, we’ve been able to cover the key features of maple hardwood flooring. Now you know why you should choose maple hardwood flooring for your home’s flooring. It is a flooring type that is both durable and affordable and offers you many varieties to choose from.
However, always ensure you purchase from the best wood flooring vendors. Poor quality wood may mean you’ll end up losing out on the numerous benefits maple wood has to offer Buying the right kind of wood flooring is very crucial.
If you want to purchase only the best quality maple hardwood flooring for your home, you have to buy from the best. Look no further than our online store for different maple hardwood flooring designs. Here at LV Flooring, you will find the right kind of maple flooring you need and the type that matches your budget. Look through our collections today.
