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Grading Hardwood Flooring
People have been using hardwood floors for hundreds of years - examples can be found in some of the oldest castles and palaces in Europe. In the era when those floors were laid, hardwood floors were constructed by hand in every aspect, from cutting down the lumber to applying the wax.
With the advent of hardwood floor manufacturing machinery, however, an entire industry was born. While installing, sanding and finishing a floor remained a specialized skill, creating the floors themselves was no longer a painstaking process. Around the turn of the century, mills were established specifically for the production of hardwood floors. Not long after, the burgeoning wood flooring industry saw the need to implement standards, or grades.
Today, nearly a century later, grading is an essential part of doing business in the hardwood floor industry. Grades group flooring with similar qualities, bringing a degree of consistency to products from different mills. Grades tell the purchaser the minimum to expect when buying product, including surface characteristics, required lengths and milling tolerances. Grades also help ensure that money isn't wasted either by consumers or producers - buyers can confidently expect to get the quality of product they pay for, and manufacturers know they aren't wasting money by selling high-quality product at a lower-quality price.
In some cases, industry associations, such as the National Oak Flooring Manufacturers Association and the Maple Flooring Manufacturers Association establish grades. Association guidelines apply to more than 90 percent of the solid wood flooring manufactured in the United States and Canada.
To give you a better idea how the grading system works, the common characteristics for determining the grade for oak flooring are included below. While, the grading characteristics for other wood types such as Maple or Pine will be slightly different, the general principals remain the same.
OAK FLOOR GRADING RULES
Clear Oak |
| A flooring product of mostly heartwood with a minimum number of character marks and discoloration, providing uniform appearance while allowing for all heartwood natural color variations. |
Select Oak |
| A flooring product with coloration variations produced by differences of natural heartwood and sapwood. The face may contain unlimited sound sapwood and slight imperfections in milling. |
No. 1 Common Oak |
| A flooring product which contains prominent variations in coloration and varying characters. Does not contain broken knots over .5 inches, large grub wormholes, and splits extending through the piece. |
No. 2 Common Oak |
| May contain sound natural variations of the forest product and manufacturing imperfections. The purpose of this grade is to furnish a floor suitable for homes, general utility use or where character marks and contrasting appearance is desired. The following are not admitted: shattered or rotten ends, large broken knots, excessive bad millwork, shake, advanced rot and similar unsound defects. |
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