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Why Wood? Table of Contents Why Real Wood Floors? Wood vs. Plastic
Laminate Flooring Wood vs. Carpet Engineered Wood vs. Solid Wood
Why Real Wood Floors? Real wood floors made of Maple, Oak, Hickory, Pine, Beech, Elm, and Pecan should be familiar to you as the countless city streets that are named after these trees. Their rich natural colors and handcrafted quality are what we have come to expect in American homes. Now, Anderson has taken wood flooring technology to a place it has never gone before - with Best-in-Class durability. Anderson's RhinoTuff™ and Mountain Classics™ real wood flooring collections, for example, are up to 100% harder than oak lumber. They won't buckle, and they are stain-resistant, wear-resistant, and carry a 20-year finish warranty and a lifetime structure warranty. Some quick reasons why you should choose real wood:
Wood
vs. Plastic Laminate Flooring Plastic laminate flooring looks and acts just like a real wood floor, right? Well, not exactly. The countertop industry has entered the world of floor covering in the past few years with a product called plastic laminate flooring. While these floors have somewhat the appearance of wood, upon closer inspection they can be seen to be more closely related to cardboard. The printed wood image can be as thin as a human hair and when chipped it exposes the fiberboard core of the panel. The visual appearance of the printed wood pattern may look great in a small sample, but in a large area you will notice how the pattern of the flooring panel repeats - usually about every five boards. Also, when you walk upon a plastic laminate floor your footsteps make a hollow, tip-tappy sound. All floor covering wears and when plastic laminates chip, or when they lose their gloss due to wear, they must be thrown away. Most real wood floors, such as Anderson's, can be renewed by applying additional coats of urethane to the surface. And with Anderson, all floors are backed by a lifetime structural warranty. So why "fake it" when you can have a real wood floor that adds real value to your home? Carpeting is more economical, right? Actually, carpeting lasts between seven and ten years under normal residential use. Hardwood floors can last a lifetime and are always in style. Here's a 30-year comparison test you can use when trying to decide between carpeting or wood flooring. Say you installed a hardwood floor. It would typically last for 30 years. During that same period you probably would have to install new carpeting four or five times. At that rate, the hardwood flooring actually costs less than the cumulative cost of all the carpeting you would have to install. Another thing you need to consider is the cleanliness of your home. A large American company that recycles old carpeting has stated that most used carpeting it receives for processing contains at least 35% of its weight in household dirt. The families who owned this old carpeting were actually walking, or crawling on dirt. Hardwood flooring is simply cleaner. If it is dirty, the dirt is plainly visible to the eye, not hidden within carpet fibers. Hardwood flooring my be your best buy and most solid investment. Engineered Wood vs. Solid Wood It's a well-known fact within the flooring industry that engineered wood flooring is much more stable than solid wood flooring in environments where moisture is a concern. Wood and water, however, do not mix. Damp conditions undermine all types of floor coverings. Oak lumber floors, for instance, can have many problems in the presence of moisture, including gaps between planks, squeaking, cupping, buckling, and cracking. Anderson Hardwood Floors' Cross-Locked Engineered™ planks are eight times more stable than solid wood planks, so there is no need to worry about squeaks or buckles in normal indoor environments.
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