Warning: Cheap Hardwood May Be Low Quality

Ben Franklin wasn't wrong when he suggested that the bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten. The same line of thinking applies to the purchase of hardwood flooring for your home! Read on to find out why.

Generally speaking, you pay a premium price for a high quality product when it comes to hardwood flooring. Here in the Greater Toronto Area in 2017, that means you are looking at approximately $6 per square foot. Assuming that you have an average sized home (2500 square feet), that might mean that you need to purchase close to one thousand square feet of hardwood to do the upstairs hall and 3 bedrooms, as an example. If you are looking to do the whole house (first and second floor) that could easily end up being well over a thousand square feet of product!

The tendency of shoppers to be attracted to lower pricing is certainly understandable; if you are shopping for 800 square feet of hardwood, as an example, and you find a price of $6 per square foot at one retailer and $3 per square foot at another, you might start to wonder why you would pay double the price. You may even begin to think that the cheaper product would help you to come in under budget and have some money left over to pay for the installation. However, you should consider why the more expensive product may in fact save you money in the long term, and represent a better value for your money.

Cheap hardwood flooring tends to be manufactured overseas (commonly in China) and it is cheap for a reason. Some issues you may have with this flooring include:

1) Too many short boards in every box

A box of cheap hardwood flooring may have a high amount of short boards (18 inches or less in length) relative to the amount of medium and longer length boards in every box. This is a problem because too many short boards will lead to a finished floor that looks like a checkerboard. There should be a good mix of medium and long length boards in every box, in addition to a few short pieces. If an installer has to deal with too many short pieces, you will end of with a stair stepping pattern in your floor, long hallways that look very "busy" because they are full of short pieces, and a poor job overall. What good is cheap flooring if you can't fully enjoy the finished product because of shortcomings and flaws in the final appearance?

2) Poor quality control

Cheap hardwood flooring will likely exhibit symptoms of poor milling. The ends of the boards may be different heights, as an example. This will mean that when the flooring is installed, different boards will appear to be at slightly different heights, rather than seamless and even. Additionally, with cheaper product, you might find that many boards appear to have visual flaws, such as cracking, uneven staining, or flaws in the wood like knots or rotted pieces that made it into the box. The usual response of customers who have ended up purchasing cheaper wood is disappointment, because once they open the first box after the product is delivered to take a peek they realize that they've purchased a low quality product.

3) No Warranty

The box might state some long warranty period, but this likely doesn't mean anything unless the flooring was manufactured by a reputable company. Good hardwood flooring manufacturers offer a real warranty on their product because they care about their customers. If you ever had a problem with cheap, end of line hardwood that was purchased from a discount store or liquidator, you would likely have major issues getting warranty service. A quality product purchased from an authorized dealer will always give you peace of mind because you will be protected with a real warranty on the product itself.

Hardwood flooring is a great way to beautify and enhance your living space. If you are a homeowner in Toronto or the surrounding area looking for a quality hardwood installation, be sure to contact us at Tremendous Tile today! We are proud to provide quality hardwood flooring installation services to our customers in Pickering, Scarborough, Ajax, Whitby, and Oshawa. If you need assistance in procuring high quality hardwood flooring, we can help you with that as well.

If you want to visit the websites of some quality Canadian hardwood flooring manufacturers to learn more or browse different hardwood flooring options, check out Mirage and Vintage.