I had a chance to visit a showroom in South San Francisco called Golden State Flooring and check out my contractor's recommendation, WFI (Wood Flooring International). They also had Mirage and BF111 models.
The short of my information gathering:
- All three companies are targeting the same higher end market and make a very nice engineered hardwood.
- engineered hardwood is much more durable and scratch resistant than regular hardwood. It is coated in aluminum oxide which provides extra scratch resistance.
- if you have a concrete floor, engineered is the best choice as it is best glued down. It can also be nailed or glued to a wood floor base but it is cheaper to use thick hardwood over this subfloor.
- you are not supposed to sand the engineered hardwood unless you first remove the aluminum oxide coating with a chemical and then reapply it afterwards.
- very important to make sure your crawl space under the floor is sealed from the ground. If you have a crawl space, best to put a 6 millimeter plastic sheet across all the ground and stapled up the sides with bricks to hold it down. This keeps humidity from hitting under the floor and causing floorboards to bend.
- 1 month leadtime on order for the type I want - American Woods Collection red oak.
- you need to leave the wood a week at the new house to "climatize" - i.e., adjust to the moisture content where it will be installed.
Since my contractor highly recommended WTI, having installed multiple brands, I think we're going to go with this one. Even though it will be attached over a wood subfloor, that should still be ok. Golden State quoted me $10.78/sq ft which is way higher than prices on the Internet at $6.60 sq ft - check out
www.hardwooddirect.com
www.hardwoodinstaller.com
www.fastfloors.com
