The Myth: Warping or
cupping in hardwood flooring is caused by defective flooring.
We’ve heard this one before, but in actuality cupping is due
to excess moisture or overdrying. Warping or cupping can occur due to a variety
of reasons including a leak, high/low- relative humidity, moisture from spaces
such as a basement or crawl space, but not from defective flooring.
The Myth: Change in
color or fading of hardwood flooring occurs because the finish or wood is
defective.
This one is not true as hardwood flooring can experience a
color shade change or fading over time.
Certain wood species are actually more sensitive and susceptible to a
color shade change or fading as well.
If you use area rugs make sure you move them around from time to time to
allow sunlight that filters into your home to shine equally on all parts of
your flooring to help avoid fading. Doing this will
ensure that your flooring will all equally get some sunlight.
The Myth: All
hardwood flooring species have the exact same hardness factor.
Definitely not true.
There’s a Janka Hardness Scale for a reason. All hardwood flooring species can dent, or scratch depending
the conditions. Consulting the
Janka Hardness Scale will allow you to tell the resistance of a wood species to
denting, marring and overall wear.
The Myth: Roller
chairs, dogs nails, and high heels won’t damage my hardwood flooring.
All of the above could potentially do damage to hardwood flooring, so you need to be very careful about what you allow on your hardwood flooring. If you have roller
chairs you’d like to stick on your hardwood flooring make sure that they don’t
have hard plastic or metal rollers because if they do they can do some damage
to your hardwood flooring. Dog
nails and even high heels, if sharp enough, can also do some damage to your
hardwood flooring. Heels strike
your flooring with extreme force causing damage so minimize high heels walking
on your hardwood flooring.
The Myth: Hardwood
flooring requires a lot of time and effort to maintain them.
This is another myth.
Hardwood flooring can be kept looking relatively new with very minimal
effort. Use cleaning products that
are specifically made for hardwood flooring and then simply spray and dry mop
the floor.
We’ve got plenty more hardwood flooring myths then just
these, so stay tuned for a hardwood flooring myths part 2. If you have a hardwood flooring myth you've heard that we didn’t
cover, feel free to comment below and share it with us.