Finally, the day you’ve been waiting for is here! You’re pulling out that carpeting and putting down hardwood floors throughout your house. Of course, there are a lot of decisions to be made before you actually get to the installation part.
Who knew there would be so many choices and details? What kind of wood? You’ve always dreamed of walnut flooring but now the contractor shows you the Janka Rating System and you discover that oak is denser which means it will damage less easily. What about the stain? Should you try to complement the furniture or set a tone that you can imagine living with for years? There’s also the question of arrangement of the individual planks. Should it be a simple linear pattern or something with a little more style?
How about when your contractor asks if you have a preference for quarter-sawn or plain-sawn? Will you have any idea what he’s talking about?
The milling process makes a big difference in how the flooring will look in your home. Everyone knows that trees record their growth by developing a series of concentric rings that start in the center and move outward. One ring is added for each year. The pattern that results is what we refer to as wood grain. How these rings will look on your floor is determined by the angle that is used when the logs are cut into boards.
There are three basic cuts for logs destined for flooring. They are plain-sawn, quarter-sawn and rift-sawn. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.
Plain-sawn, sometimes referred to as flat-sawn, is the most common cut and results in the tree’s growth rings being parallel to the face of the board. Many people request this cut because it highlights the swirls of the grain and character of the wood. A big advantage to this method is that there is less waste than other cuts. Besides being environmentally friendly, less waste also lowers the cost. Plain-sawn is somewhat less structurally sound than the other cuts which means that the boards may have a tendency to cup or warp.
Quarter-sawn, although not as efficient a cut as plain-sawn, positions the log so that each plank displays the pattern created by the rings of the tree. This makes this cut very popular. There are certain species that appear to contain flecks of gold in their planks. The quarter-sawn cut displays that special flecking and highlights the sheen that is so highly prized in hardwood flooring.
Rift-sawn, while yielding far more waste, results in the most stable of all the methods. Planks are cut from the center of each log which means that each board will have a straight grain appearance and a uniformly pleasing pattern. This technique creates an end product that will not be overly affected by changes in temperature and humidity levels.
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