Before buying hardwood floors for your home in Brampton, there are some factors you need to consider. Hardwood floors are beautiful, no doubt about that. Most of them are durable, plus they ooze a lot of class and good taste. However, there’s more to consider before buying hardwood floors for your home in Brampton or anywhere.
Is the environment in your home conducive to hardwood floors? Yes, they’re durable and can handle most hazards, but they can’t handle everything. Do you know that you have two options for hardwood flooring; solid and engineered hardwood? Do you know that most solid hardwoods are sensitive to temperature, pressure and humidity changes?
There are many considerations to take into account before buying hardwood floors in Brampton. We won’t advise you to jump into installing hardwood floors in your home if you’re yet to consider these factors. It’s crucial that you know everything there is to know before making your final decision.
We’re not trying to discourage you from buying hardwood floors for your home in Brampton. It is an excellent choice of flooring, and you can hardly go wrong with it. However, we want you to be sure of what you’re getting before you install it. Now let’s look at the types of hardwood floors you can buy.
What Type of Hardwood Flooring Can I Get In Brampton?
You can get any type, design and species of hardwood floors in Brampton. Most online stores for hardwood flooring in Toronto will get you solid, engineered, pre-finished, and site finished hardwoods. And a lot of them also sell popular species like white oak, red oak, cherry, walnut etc.
However, very few of them can provide you with exotic hardwood species like teak. It will be a bit difficult for you to find a regular hardwood vendor in Brampton with exotic hardwood materials.
Related article: Essential Factors to Remember When Buying Hardwood Floors
What’s the Best Type of Hardwood Floors to Buy?
That’s the million-dollar question almost everybody asks when they want to buy hardwood floors. Everybody wants the best, and no doubt you want it too.
There are two main types of hardwood floors. These are solid hardwood and engineered hardwood flies. Both are excellent options, and we can consider any of them to be the best. But the best type of flooring for you will depend on some of the factors we’re going to discuss soon.
Understanding these factors will help you to identify the best type of hardwood flooring for you. The species of the hardwood also come into play. What about the finish? All of these come together to determine the best type of hardwood floor to buy.
Nevertheless, if you’re resident in Brampton, we will say the best species of hardwood for you is white oak flooring. It can be solid or engineered — that doesn’t matter oak. White oak flooring has a higher quality than most other hardwood types, and it is also relatively affordable.
Factors to Consider When Buying Hardwood Floors in Brampton
The answers to the following considerations will help you arrive at one important conclusion — the best hardwood flooring for your home or office space.
Do you want solid hardwood or engineered hardwood?
It’s alright to have personal preferences. However, in this case, it’ll be better for you to put your personal preferences aside for a brief moment. This is because the environment in your home will determine the best option for you between solid and engineered hardwood flooring.
If you live in hot and humid areas, you want to install engineered hardwood flooring. Engineered hardwood floors can handle the expansion caused by temperature increases. Some pre-finished hardwoods are also durable enough to handle temperature changes. However, they cost more.
Nevertheless, both solid and engineered hardwood floors are great options in Brampton. The temperature in the city and its surrounding areas are perfect for both solid and engineered hardwoods. Here you can decide based on your personal preference if you want solid or engineered hardwood floors. If you don’t know how to choose hardwood floors, ask for expert assistance.
What hardwood species do you want?
There are varieties of hardwood species you can choose from. There’s the red oak, white oak, walnut, maple, hickory, cherry, just to mention a few of the popular ones. These species are products of different trees, and so there are differences between them.
The white and red oak hardwoods are products of the oak tree species. The other hardwood materials also have their names from the species of trees they are products of. Their strengths, weaknesses and looks differ a lot.
You can quickly identify the species of hardwood material from their features. For example, white oak flooring has a lighter colour than most other hardwood types. It also has tight and straight grains plus a distressed feel to it.
You can pick any of these hardwood species for your homes. Be sure of what you want, and make sure that’s what you get. You don’t want to end up not liking the floors you paid huge amounts of money to install.
Related article: Where is the Best Place to Buy Hardwood Flooring?
Level of traffic in your home
This is an essential factor to consider before you buy hardwood flooring in Brampton. Different types of hardwood floors have different levels of durability. Therefore, they’re able to handle different levels of traffic.
If you have a huge family or a lot of people coming and going through your house, you want something extremely durable. You should go for white oak or Brazilian cherry hardwood with a matte finish. These are very durable and will hold up well under huge traffic.
If you live alone or with 2-3 other people, you can go for anything you like. Most hardwood floors can handle regular traffic of 3-5 people. As long as you don’t place heavy items on the hardwood floors, they’ll be fine for a long time.
Do you want the hardwood pre-finished or finished on-site?
This is another crucial decision you need to make before buying hardwood flooring in Brampton. You have to choose between hardwood floor panels completed by the company or done on-site. They both have their advantages and disadvantages.
Pre-finished floors are complete panels from the factory waiting for installation. They’re easy to install, give no odour, are resistant to scratch and easy to maintain. You can instantly start walking and living in a house after fitting it with pre-finished hardwood.
Site finished panels are semi-finished hardwood flooring that will be completed on-site before installation. Usually, site finished hardwoods have smoother edges than prefinished hardwood floors. They are raw woods that are easy to customize to your preferences. And there’s a lesser risk of finishing problems with site finished hardwood floors.
If you have a specific design in mind that you want, you should buy semi-finished hardwood floors and customize them to your preferences. However, if you want it easy, fast and with no mess, you should go for prefinished hardwood floors. Depending on the type of hardwood floors you buy, it may not matter if it’s pre-finished or site finished.
The type of floor finish you want
This is not a very big factor, but it’s worth considering. You’re going to be stuck with whatever design you choose for a long time. So you want to make sure you choose something you like. You don’t want to wake up one morning and regret choosing that design.
There are different types of surface finishes you can use for hardwood floors. Some of them are;
- Lacquered finish: Gives a smooth surface. It is available in matte and semi-matte textures.
- Oiled finish: This has a rougher feeling to it than a lacquered finish. It also gives a more natural appearance to the floor.
- Brushed and oiled finish: Gives a more textured feel with an authentic appearance.
- Unfinished floor: This is the hardwood floor in its raw form. The surface is only coated with lacquer or oil to protect against liquid spills.
Distressed vs smooth hardwood flooring
A smooth hardwood floor is just a pre-finished or site finished hardwood floor. However, distressed hardwood floors have unique finishes. They usually have artistic features with enhanced textures.
Distressed hardwoods are products of sculpting, wire-brushing, and hand-scraping. Sometimes, age causes a smooth hardwood floor to look and feel like a distressed hardwood floor.
What’s the best colour to complement the feel of the room?
The interior decoration and the theme of your home should influence your decision when buying hardwood floors in Brampton. It’s alright to want to go with current trends. However, the trending hardwood floor may not complement the aesthetics of your apartment.
Look closely at your wall colours, the type of lighting in the house, the cabinetry and the trim work. What colour of hardwood floor will blend in properly and complement the existing aesthetics? Can you get a pre-finished hardwood in that colour, or do you need to customize a semi-finished hardwood into that colour?
Different hardwood colours can go with the theme of your room. Don’t pick a wrong colour that won’t blend in with the feel of the room.
Your budget
If you have a budget that you need to adhere to, try to cut your coat according to your size. You don’t have to dip deep into your budget to install really expensive types of hardwood floors.
Consider the total cost of purchase and installation of the hardwood floors before going for it. Will you need to remove the existing flooring in the apartment? What about fixing the subfloor to make it conducive for the hardwood floors? Before embarking on the project, you need to consider all these and compare it with the available budget.
Do you have radiant heating?
Do not install solid hardwood flooring in a place with radiant heating. The heat will cause the solid hardwood to expand and crack. Then, all you’re going to have are broken hardwood panels on your floor.
Engineered hardwood floors can handle the expansion resulting from the radiant heat. They will do well if this is the case. Take this as a tip for buying hardwood flooring from experts.
Do you have kids or pets?
Kids and pets don’t really care about the type of floor you have in the house. They’re going to do whatever they want to do regardless of the consequences. They’re most likely to go hard on the flooring, so you want to buy something durable.
Pets will scratch the floor surface with their claws; the kids will play with their toys on it. Most likely, they’ll spill their food and drinks on it. You should consider getting a type of hardwood flooring that is resistant to spills and can hide claw marks. The best options for you are hand-scraped, wire-brushed or distressed hardwoods.
Conclusion
The factors you need to consider before buying hardwood in Brampton can seem daunting. However, it will do you a lot of good if you take your time to consider these factors. After considering all these factors, you will realize their importance.
If you’re thinking of buying high-quality hardwood floors in Brampton, stop thinking and start doing. Contact us for any type or specie of hardwood floors you want for your home. With LV Flooring as your partner, you can check out our online store to see different styles and designs of hardwood floors. Let’s give your home or offices a beautiful, durable look!
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