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Choosing Your Perfect Hardwood Floor
The allure of exotic hardwood lies not only in its beauty, but in the value it adds to the home. Ark offers two different hardwood flooring constructions... Engineered and Solid. While much ado is made about the advantages of one over the other, the fact is that both are equally beautiful, and in most situations, equally long lasting. We offer a lifetime structural warranty and a 25 year finish warranty on both constructions (see warranty for details). Here is an quick overview of the key differences between the two constructions.
| Solid Construction |
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| This is just what it sounds like. Each plank is a single 3/4” thick, solid piece of your chosen species of wood, topped with multiple layers of our protective polyurethane finish. Solid construction can be sanded and refinished if necessary and for this reason is often the preferred choice of homeowners particularly worried about long-term damage to their flooring. |
| Engineered Construction |
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| Here each plank is created using five layers of natural hardwood laminated “cross-grained” to each other. This base is then topped with a premium layer of your chosen hardwood species and multiple coats of our protective polyurethane finish. This construction counters wood’s natural tendency to expand and contract with seasonal temperature changes. It also gives our floors unusual resistance to warping and buckling. Engineered flooring is your best choice for any area at risk for moisture, particularly installations over concrete or “below grade” (ground level). Engineered floors are also generally thinner than solid. This has little impact on floor life, but it can minimize the height differential between your new floor and the other floors around it. Unless otherwise indicated (ESTATE COLLECTION, SONOMA COLLECTION, PATINA COLLECTION), our engineered products have a 2MM wear layer). |
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