Real wood floors are the best flooring option for your home.
We know there are a ton of flooring options on the market. I am going to provide reasons why you should choose real wood floors for your home.
Centuries of hardwood flooring use have proven its worth and benefits. Real wood flooring creates the healthiest environment possible for your family. It is easy to maintain, and it is proven to be incredibly durable. Also, wood flooring can last for generations, it is timeless in style while capable of completely changing its look with a new stain. Additionally, it’s the best investment you can make into your home. To summarize, there is absolutely no other product that can come close to all the incredible benefits of real hardwood flooring.
OUTDOOR AIR QUALITY
Trees are incredibly sustainable, and purchasing real hardwood from local mills actually helps save the forest – click here for more on that. Wood flooring stores the carbon it absorbed while growing. This helps reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Therefore, locally sourced wood is carbon negative, storing, and that carbon for decades. Local, FSC Certified wood flooring is by far the greenest flooring option of any kind.
INDOOR AIR QUALITY
Real wood flooring directly impacts indoor air quality by minimizing allergen sources. Real wood floors are hypoallergenic; this is a considerable advantage for allergy sufferers. Wood floors do not harbor microorganisms or pesticides tracked in from outdoors as other flooring options can like carpet. There are a ton of low or no VOC finishing options.
BIOPHILIC DESIGN
Biophilic design is the idea that incorporating natural elements in the built environment, such as real wood, water, sunlight, or plants, can improve overall health. Studies have proven that spending time in nature helps people’s overall health. Bringing the natural environment inside is helpful for your family’s health. The Green Building community is increasing their attention to this aspect in their new buildings and are making evidence-based decisions to ensure the built environment provides healthful benefits to occupants.
IMITATION FLOORS
Imitation wood floors like laminate, tile, and vinyl floors have come a long way. Indeed, the higher quality options can look nice in some settings and even resemble wood. There are benefits to these floors. The main advantage is the initial cost is less than most real wood. However, the return on your investment is not good. These floors are like the fast fashion of the flooring world. The floor will not last long, and it will not add value to your home. The warm feeling of the wood, the health benefits, environmental benefits, and connection with nature, cannot be matched by anything other than real wood.
First of all, there are health concerns with these imitation floors. Most are imported from across the globe from countries not adequately regulated. These floors have been exposed to have high levels of formaldehyde, a known cancer-causing chemical. Vinyl flooring is made from phthalates mixed with additives, plasticizers, stabilizers, pigments, and fillers. Phthalates are known toxins, exposing both humans and pets to the risk of asthma, cancer, kidney, lung, and even reproductive health problems.
Secondly, consider the negative environmental impacts of these wannabe wood floors. They are essentially plastics, made from oil, shipped across the planet, used for a short time (5 – 20 years max), and then thrown into a landfill where it will remain for centuries. Not sustainable. Not Green.
REAL WOOD FLOORING IS TIMELESS AND ADAPTABLE
A real wood floor can be installed once in your home. Refinishing is a breeze with the dustless systems contractors have. Refinishing is an inexpensive option to create a new floor for resale or totally change the color to fit a new trend. Replacing damaged wood boards is easy for a professional when you start with unfinished real wood flooring. Unfortunately, with LVP or laminate, or even cheap engineered prefinished, there is the risk of the specific product and color discontinued, which would require a full floor replacement even for a small repair. On the other hand, tile floors can last decades, but it is impossible to change the color and look of a tile floor!
In fact, wood floors are durable and easy to maintain. Furthermore, the new technologies in finishes have truly made light work of taking care of the wood floors.
INCREASE THE VALUE OF YOUR HOME
I can’t imagine a day when someone walks into an old home and shouts, “Oh good! An old vinyl floor!” However, watch any HGTV episode when they pull up the carpet and see a 100-year-old wood floor, and everyone is thrilled. Wood holds its value!
A survey of real estate agents in the U.S. revealed that 99 percent believe homes with hardwood floors are easier to sell, 82 percent believe they sell faster, and 90 percent believe they sell for more money – up to 10 percent more, according to the Nov. 2006 Quantitative Evaluation of Real Estate Professionals for National Wood Flooring Association.
To put that into perspective, if a home valued at $200,000 were to invest $10,000 in hardwood flooring at an increased home sales value of 10 percent, the house could potentially sell for $220,000, doubling the homeowner’s initial wood flooring investment.
This blog was originally posted on alleghenymountainhardwoodflooring.com.
