So why would or wouldn’t you want to choose solid wood floors? Let’s start with talking about what is solid wood floors are. Each strip is made from a single of wood. Therefore the main pro is their wear layer is a 1/4 inch, weather it’s 3/4 inch strip or parquet square pattern. So they can be sanded and refinished more often, considering floors are refinished about every 20 years, and solid wood floors can be sanded about 20 times, which means they can last as long as 400 years, now that’s a long life span. Now for the negative, since solid wood floors are made from single pieces of wood they swell and contract in one direction. So they do not do well when it comes to moisture, which means they can not be installed in basements or over cement slabs. But if you use quarter sawn cut flooring, then you can glue them down to the cement slab, an example of this type of solid wood flooring is parquet flooring. Or if you lay down a layer of 1 inch plywood then you can nail down quarter sawn 3/4 inch strip flooring. The reason for this is, instead of cutting the wood long ways the mill cuts the wood diagonally, so the wood now expands and contracts in horizontally and vertically, so it won’t move as much. To sum it all up solid wood floor is suggested to be installed above grade or above ground level and nailed or glued down to a plywood sub floor to insure less movement during seasonal changes, and they have the longest life span do to their thicker wear layer.
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