The Basics of Installing Hardwood Floors on Concrete

There are several different ways to glue a hardwood floor to a concrete slab when installing hardwood floors on concrete. One of the most common ways is to use mastic. This is a very strong adhesive that is used to glue the hardwood floor. A newer method of installing wood flooring over concrete is to simply create a floating subfloor. Most often, a plywood subfloor is a fixed to the concrete slab by various means. These may include asphalt or mechanical fasteners. The hardwood floor, in the past, was also sometimes separated from the subfloor by what were called sleepers, which were two by fours laid perpendicular to the lay of the floor itself. This method is no longer used for installing hardwood floors on concrete as it tended to result in a floor that was much higher than was practical.

The plywood you lay on the concrete has to overlap at the gaps. This provides a seamless barrier against moisture. The moisture content of the concrete will be very important to how well the floor lays, and is crucial when installing hardwood floors on concrete. If the concrete has been freshly poured, you need to let it dry thoroughly before attempting any of this. Once you’ve got the layers of plywood down, you’re ready to affix the hardwood floor to the plywood subfloor. If you’re not sure how to use a circular saw, how to nail boards so that the nails don’t show and how to perform the other complex tasks that go along with installing a wood floor, again, you may want to leave the task of installing hardwood floors on concrete up to a professional.

Installing Hardwood Floors on Concrete: Putting the Floor Down

Installing hardwood floors on concrete starts by choosing where you’re going to install the first row. This row has to be separated from the wall it’s situated against by at least a 1/8 of an inch gap. There are several different types of glue you can use to affix the hardwood to the plywood, as well. Most often, experienced flooring experts prefer to nail the planks down with what’s called a toe nail, driven through the tongue. This technique ensures that the nails aren’t visible in the boards.

You may find out that you have a perfectly viable subfloor when you’re getting ready to install your hardwood flooring. Installing wood flooring on a subfloor that’s up to the job is a much easier task. If you need assistance working with concrete, asphalt or any of the powerful adhesives involved when installing hardwood floors on concrete, be sure to ask an expert.

How to Polish Hardwood Floors: Getting Ready

Before you polish your hardwood, you’ll need to make sure that you get rid of any stains and that you get any dirt on the floor removed. While it may not seem like a major threat, dirt can scuff up a floor very quickly. The easiest way to get rid of dirt is to either use the brush attachment on your vacuum or to use a damp mop. If you’re working on a floor that hasn’t been sealed in a while, remember to avoid getting any water on it. You’ll want to make sure that it has a good coating of wax, oil, or polyurethane before you expose it to any water from a mop.

How to Polish Hardwood Floors: Getting Out Stains

Most of the time, you can remove any stubborn stains from your floor with a little bit of steel wool. This, however, obviously damages the finish a bit. Before you get this drastic, see if a little bit of alcohol will get rid of the stains. Hardwood flooring is actually very resistant to absorbing stains, so you may find that a stain you thought was the big problem is actually just on the surface of your sealant – it’s important when learning how to polish hardwood floors to know the difference between a surface stain and a deep stain.

How to Polish Hardwood Floors: Cleaning

After you’ve cleaned up the dust and the major stains, it’s time to give your hardwood floor a good scrubbing. There are many different products on the market you can use to clean your flooring and they generally offer good results. Remember to remove all of the furniture from the room before you begin this project. When learning how to polish hardwood floors, this is an obvious but important tip: it’s much easier to clean a wood floor when the entire room is cleared out.

After you’ve gotten the floor clean, you may want to consider adding a coat of wax. A good paste wax is easy to apply and it provides an excellent barrier against further damage to your floor. Of course, it also adds a brilliant shine. Some people like to oil their floor, particularly if they live in a dry climate. You may also want to experiment with different finishes to see which one gives the best results.

Hardwood floor care is surprisingly easy. Provided that you protect your floor again scuffs from hard shoes and other sources of mechanical damage, your floor should provide many years of beauty. Remember to only use a product specific to hardwood floors. Don’t use regular furniture polish on wood floors; they make the surface dangerously slippery and aren’t intended to be used in this fashion. Hopefully these tips on how to polish hardwood floors will give you what you need to get started.

What Makes Morning Star Bamboo Flooring One of the Best

Morning Star bamboo flooring, or any bamboo flooring is a lot different than hardwood flooring in many regards. While they can both be of equal beauty, hardwood floors come in as many varieties as there are species of suitable trees, and then some. Bamboo is a grass and there’s only one type available. However, Morning Star bamboo flooring offers a lot of variety in its designs and varying degrees of hardness, on top of that. This means that their choices are very broad, even though they’re only using one material to create their laminate flooring. Some of the options that this manufacturer offers are nearly as hard as hardwood floors.

Morning Star Bamboo Flooring Strand Bamboo

Strand bamboo flooring is made through a lamination process. This is also the most eco-friendly type of product from Morning Star bamboo flooring. It uses the entire bamboo plant. Strips are boiled and then fused together under pressure with glue. This makes them roughly twice their natural hardness and increases the durability of the floor a great deal. It’s a viable option compared to laminate flooring and, as is the case with bamboo flooring in many instances, you may be able to lay it directly on top of your existing floor, vastly simplifying the installation procedure. Bamboo floors from Morning Star bamboo flooring can look a lot of like hardwood floors, but they’re much easier to install and take care of than hardwood. Strand woven bamboo is roughly as hard as northern Red Oak.

Where eco-friendliness is concerned, Morning Star bamboo flooring advertises its contribution proudly. Bamboo is a grass rather than a tree and it takes only 4 to 5 years to grow a stalk of bamboo as opposed to the nearly 100 years it takes to replace a tree. This makes these products popular with those who want laminate flooring but who also want the most eco-friendly form of flooring available.

Morning Star Bamboo Flooring Warranty

Morning Star bamboo flooring such as their Prefinished Qing Dragon Strand Bamboo Flooring comes with a very generous 30-year warranty – one of the best in the industry – and is available online from home improvement retailers such as Lumber Liquidators with free shipping to the store. While bamboo flooring might be softer than hardwood flooring, in some cases, bamboo reeds are certainly durable building materials and Morning Star bamboo flooring is certainly built to last, and a great value for the price.

A Morning Star bamboo floor, despite its durability and quality, does have to be cared for with the same attentiveness that a hardwood floor requires. Make sure to keep people off of it if they’re wearing heels or hard-soled shoes. This flooring is very durable and the prefinished surface will hold up to a lot of abuse. No floor is invincible, however, so make sure you follow the instructions for maintenance that accompany your Morning Star bamboo flooring and never use harsh abrasives to clean these floors.

The Pluses of SwiftLock Laminate Flooring

SwiftLock laminate flooring generally gets good reviews for having good thickness, being durable and for coming in a range of styles. Armstrong, a popular manufacturer of laminate floors, backs up its product well and options such as SwiftLock Plus offers consumers a bit more choice. There are designs that come in natural oak patterns, chocolate-colored wood grain patterns, cherry, tile patterns, and much more. These flooring products mimic the look of hardwood very well. The care, of course, is much easier. Hardwood flooring oftentimes requires that harsh chemicals be used to clean up spills. With Armstrong Swiftlock laminate flooring, all you need is a rag, in most cases, and the finish on these products is very durable.

Installation of Armstrong SwiftLock Laminate Flooring

Lowes maintains how to information about installing Armstrong Hardwood floors, including SwiftLock laminate flooring. Armstrong laminate flooring is advertised heavily based on the convenience of installing the product. However, online reviews, and reviews from other sources, oftentimes detail that the process is a little bit more complicated than some homeowners may believe. While installing SwiftLock laminate flooring is, indeed, very easy, you will need some tools and to be comfortable with doing basic handyman work to be able to install this flooring successfully. It may require preparation, depending upon your subfloor and the type of flooring you’re installing.

SwiftLock laminate flooring is among the brands that can be installed in a floating floor configuration. This means that there are no nails or glue involved for the majority of the floor. However, a laminate floor does need to be glued down in some spots. You’ll also need appropriate tools to make sure that you’re keeping a straight line when you’re installing the product and to make sure that you’re providing adequate gaps at the edge of the floor. Just as is the case with hardwood, SwiftLock laminate flooring needs room to expand and contract as the temperature and humidity levels in your home change. There are products available that can help you keep the correct distance between the walls and other obstacles.

Installing Armstrong laminate flooring should be within the skill levels of most people who enjoy working on their own homes. The product is durable and it comes with a good warranty. Hardwood flooring can be very expensive and, for many people, installing SwiftLock laminate flooring for a fraction of the price and with very similar results is well worth the effort and the money. Lowes generally has quite a few different types of SwiftLock laminate flooring in stock and, of course, you can also order styles that may not be in stock.

The strength of an engineered wood floor comes from the fact that the wood used is protected against the worst your interior environment can dish out, and the best engineered flooring will be resistant to a lot of things that solid hardwood floors are not. For example, the products used to seal and bond the best engineered flooring are resistant to moisture and changes in temperature. You can install engineered flooring right on top of a floor that has radiant heat; something that would ruin traditional hardwood flooring very quickly. There are plenty of other conveniences with this material, as well, including the ability to lay some types directly on the concrete slab below your current floor. This will play into your choice, to a great extent, but with the best engineered flooring, looks are generally the consumer’s first and foremost concern.

The Best Engineered Flooring for Your Home

Consider what type of wood you would get if you were buying hardwood flooring. Would you choose red oak? Perhaps a hickory floor? Most of these woods are available in engineered wood flooring (as well as laminate flooring) that can provide exactly the look you want without the hassles of a solid wood floor. Just about any floor you want is available in one of these manufactured materials, and that means that you don’t have to consider going with engineered flooring to be akin to sacrificing choice.

The best engineered flooring can be placed just about anywhere, which means that you have some interesting choices to work with. You could put a parquet floor in your bathroom or your kitchen and not have to worry about moisture forming a layer under the flooring and ruining it. The best engineered flooring is usually designed to allow you to lay the floor quite quickly. Some designs have interlocking panels that require no glue and no nails. This makes them easy to install for anyone. Make sure, however, that the location you install your floor in, and the method of installation you use, doesn’t void your warranty.

The Best Engineered Flooring Is Easy to Install

The best engineered flooring is designed for simple installation – in many cases, it can be installed without any specialized handyman knowledge. There are also many different options where the pieces are concerned. You can, for example, purchase products of varying plank width, marked with the number of wood strips included. This allows you to get exactly the look you want and makes it easier to work around edges. Make sure you talk to the company about whether or not your engineered flooring needs a subflooring material underneath it. Some of the best engineered flooring has this underlay already attached, but before proceed with installation, check the manufacturer instructions.

The cost of hardwood flooring aside, wood flooring does have some complexities. When you purchase the planks that you’ll be using for your hardwood floors, you’ll generally want to let them sit in the home for a while so that the wood expands or contracts to accommodate the ambient moisture and the temperature. This makes it a lot easier to lay the floor and ensures that your measurements aren’t wrong because of having to deal with the wood expanding or contracting. Whenever you do lay down wood floors, you have to leave a gap to accommodate some expansion. This is usually left along one side of the floor on the place closest to the molding.

The Cost of Hardwood Flooring vs. Laminate Flooring

Laminate flooring is a bit more convenient than hardwood flooring and is a popular alternative for those who are not able to afford the cost of hardwood flooring. Where home-improvement projects are concerned, it’s generally a much easier one to tackle. Laminate flooring is made to essentially click into place. This makes it very easy to lay the floor and, because of the design, you’re assured that the fit will be right between each plank on the floor and that you won’t end up with unsightly gaps.

There are several different types of engineered hardwood that can be used in a similarly convenient fashion, as well. If hardwood floor installation is a little bit beyond your abilities or the cost of hardwood flooring beyond the budgeted price for your home improvement project, you may want to consider going with a laminate.

Reducing the Cost of Hardwood Flooring By Installing It Yourself

If you’re determined to reduce the cost of hardwood flooring by installing it yourself, make sure that you have either learned how to do the cutting, gluing and nailing, or that you have a friend around who has the skills who you can give you a hand. While hardwood floor installation will go very quickly once you get the rhythm of it down, you do have to plan ahead and make sure that you’re doing everything right. This means making sure that the subfloor doesn’t have any moisture and that you’ve given adequate space to accommodate the natural expansion and contraction of the wood.

Laminate does have some advantages over hardwood flooring that you may want to consider, aside from its cost vs. the cost of hardwood flooring. It’s easier to maintain laminate flooring, as the artificial materials are very resistant to spills and other damage. Laminate flooring can be a bit easier to take up in the event that you need to replace one of the pieces, as well, and this makes it popular with many homeowners. And as previously mentioned, the cost of hardwood flooring is usually quite a bit higher per square foot than it is for laminate flooring.

Sanding Hardwood Floors: The Drum Sander

When sanding hardwood floors, you’ll want to start out using the drum sander with a fairly rough grit of sandpaper. Most people start with a grit of around 20 to 30. The drum sander will have a means to lower it onto the surface gently. The easiest way to get the hang of it is to start somewhere that the wood flooring isn’t particularly exposed. You may want to start to sand where you normally locate the television or where a bookshelf is located. Lower the drum, very slowly, onto the floor and start moving forward, somewhat like you would if you were mowing the lawn. Remember that when sanding hardwood floors, it’s very important to keep the drum sander moving at all times. If you leave it sitting in one spot on the hardwood flooring for even an instant, it will start making gouges.

The drum sander will generate a lot of dust and will make a lot of noise. Mastering the drum sander is the most challenging part of sanding hardwood floors. When you’re engaging in hardwood floor sanding projects, it’s important to make sure you have the right safety equipment. You should be wearing hearing protection, a dust mask, a good pair of gloves and a pair of shoes that will protect you against any mishaps. If you have steel toes, the job of sanding hardwood floors is a good occasion to wear them.

Sanding Hardwood Floors: Finishing Steps

After you’re done making the first pass and when you’re sure that the job has taken care of the worst patches on the floor, switch to a medium grit sandpaper: usually around 50 to 60 grit. After that, you’ll want to use an even finer grit for sanding hardwood floors. Most of the time, people finish off the job with and 80 to 100 grit sandpaper. You can use a small hand sander for sanding hardwood floors around the edges. You can use wood putty to seal any cracks that may be exposed and to cover any nail heads that may have been polished by the sander.

After finishing sanding hardwood floors, it’s time to apply the stain. Hardwood floor refinishing is moderately difficult as far as home improvement projects go, but with a little bit of practice, you’ll probably get very good at it. If it is the first occasion where you’re doing the wooden floor sanding yourself, start in a room that doesn’t get that much traffic. This way you can practice sanding hardwood floors effectively and hone your skills before you move on to the most important rooms.

Installing Laminate Floors: Laying The First Row

The hardest thing about installing laminate floors is getting the first row right. You’ll want to lay this entire row down and make sure it’s straight before you start with the rest of the floor. In some cases, you may be working against a crooked wall, which can be very difficult. The exterior walls of houses are usually straighter and these will provide a better way to align your flooring. You’ll need to leave an expansion gap of at least 1/8″ between the wall and the first row of laminate flooring boards. Leaving a gap when installing laminate floors allows the flooring to expand a bit when it gets moist. If the wall is crooked, be sure the narrowest gap between the flooring and the wall is at least 1/8 of an inch – special spacers made for installing laminate floors can help here.

You may or may not need to worry about the underlayment in the room where you’re installing laminate floors. Laminate can sometimes be installed right on top of the old floor, particularly if it’s a floating floor. If you need underlayment or a new subfloor, the project will be more complex. When installing laminate floors, be sure to consult with the company you buy from about which products work best with their laminate flooring.

If you have carpet in the room, you’ll obviously have to remove it before installing laminate floors. This is a job you may want to have a professional handle. Carpet is extremely heavy, very dirty and needs to be cut up before it can be removed, in most cases. If you’re taking up your own, just pull it away from the tack at the edges of the room and roll it up. Be careful of the tack strips; they’re very sharp and probably filthy, as well. You may also need to remove any existing wood baseboard molding before installing laminate flooring.

Once you have the floor prepared and the first row laid down, installing laminate floors becomes fairly easy when adding the rest of the rows.

Installing Laminate Floors: Finishing the Job

Most laminate floor snaps together via tongue and groove joints. You bring them together at an angle and then lower them until they’re flush to snap them in place. After you do this, you simply move onto the next plank and continue the procedure for each of the following planks. This part of installing laminate floors is one of the easiest home improvement projects imaginable.

Once the floor is in, check the rows to make sure that everything is snapped together correctly. The gap at the ends of the first row should be exactly where it was when you started and the flooring should not be flush with the wall on all sides. Check with the manufacturers instructions, but in some cases, when installing laminate floors, you may want to glue the first row down to make sure it holds fast.

Laminate Flooring Cleaners Should Be Free of Abrasives

Any good laminate flooring cleaners on the market are free of abrasives. Abrasives will ruin these floors and the finish on them prevents anything from staining the wood beneath, anyway. Make sure that you don’t use a floor cleaner that contains scrubbing agents. One of the things you’ll also want to avoid is using an upright vacuum cleaner on laminate wood floors. Using one of the brush attachments to remove dirt is fine, but the actual beater brush on the upper attachment may scar the floor. Depending upon what type of flooring you have, the harder wheels on the vacuum cleaner may also damage it.

You may be wondering what laminate flooring cleaners to use on a tile laminate floor installed in the kitchen. Even though these floors tend to take some serious abuse, you don’t need to use anything other than a dry mop to clean them the most of the time. If you do manage to spell something on your floor, you can usually get it cleaned up with a damp cloth. Wipe the area vigorously before depending on the laminate flooring cleaners to take up the stain.

The Best Laminate Flooring Cleaners

There are some good products out there for cleaning laminate floors. Bona makes a product that’s designed for use on these floors. Armstrong also makes good laminate flooring cleaners. You can also learn how to make your own cleaner. Simply mix a little bit of white vinegar with water. The usual formula for do-it-yourself laminate flooring cleaners is about a quarter cup of vinegar to roughly 30 ounces of water. Put it in a spray bottle and spray it directly on any stains on your floor. It’s cheap to refill and does a great job, nearly as good as many of the commercial floor cleaners. Some people also use ammonia highly diluted with warm water as homemade laminate flooring cleaners (never mix ammonia and bleach).

Floor cleaning is generally an easy task were laminate floors are concerned. Remember that laminate wood floors are designed to resist becoming stained, so you don’t have to worry about actually taking a layer of material off to get rid of the most stubborn stains as you might with hardwood flooring. The products used to clean hardwood floors should never be used as laminate flooring cleaners. Use only the cleaning products that are designed specifically for this type of flooring or make your own. Most of the time, you just need warm water.

Make sure that any laminate flooring cleaners you use don’t violate the terms of your warranty. Even though most laminate floors come with warranties, the manufacturers will not consider themselves responsible for damage that you caused by using laminate flooring cleaners that are specifically not recommended for use on their products because they may damage them.

Hardness is a huge area of concern where bamboo floors are being considered. While bamboo flooring is affordable and durable compared to other products, it cannot take the kind of abuse that hardwood flooring is famous for being able to endure. To make this a more suitable covering for more floors, strand woven bamboo flooring is altered by using glue to bond various strips of bamboo together, after they’ve been boiled to eliminate the sugar from the plant. The sugar acts as an attractant to termites, which can create a significant problem, obviously.

Carbonized Bamboo in Strand Woven Bamboo Flooring

Among the most popular bamboo products is carbonized bamboo. This is bamboo that’s put through a boiling process that makes it a bit darker than natural bamboo flooring. Unfortunately, the boiling process also makes the wood even softer. The strand woven bamboo flooring products on the market offer alternative that can still provide the rich color associated with carbonized bamboo with the very hard planks characteristic of other materials. Compared to hardwood floors, bamboo will likely not match them in hardness. However, with proper care and by using bamboo products such as strand woven bamboo flooring, you can get incredibly durable floors that will provide many years of service.

The Universal Benefits of Strand Woven Bamboo Flooring

Strand woven bamboo flooring has the same advantages that natural bamboo flooring has. Principally, it’s incredibly easy to keep this flooring in good shape. Provided you keep people off of it when they’re wearing hard sold shoes or high heels, it should stand up to most of the abuse you visit upon it. When the planks become dirty, all that’s required to clean them, in the vast majority of cases, is a damp cloth and a little bit of elbow grease. There’s no need to use harsh cleansers on strand woven bamboo flooring as is the case with hardwood floors.

You should be able to get a warranty with any strand woven bamboo flooring. Check to see how long the manufacturer will back up the product and what they protect against. You have to keep in mind from the start that your bamboo floor will not be appropriate for areas were people are entering the house or any other area where they are likely to be wearing boots with hard soles. In a living room, however, the slightly softer characteristic of even a strand woven bamboo floor can be very appealing. Strand woven bamboo flooring can sometimes be laid right over the top of your existing floor, so be sure to ask if this is an option for your home.