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There are more of a variety of Flooring materials than ever before that offer a combination of fashion and function. All of the attractive new options might leave you feeling somewhat confused about what best may suit your needs. If you want to install new flooring but aren’t sure what type of flooring to choose, keep reading to understand some of the practical and aesthetic factors that should help you make your decision 

LAMINATE Flooring

     High-performance laminate flooring can look like wood or tile. Laminate flooring is extremely durable and easy to clean. Laminates feature engineered, layered construction and can stand up to just about anything. Laminate flooring does not scuff or show wear-through. The surface is burn-resistant and resists scratching from pets. The surface will not indent with normal family usage. The surface will not color fade. Cleanup is easy, requiring only a damp cloth and vacuum. Laminate flooring works well in moisture-prone areas: Kitchens, bathrooms, foyers, family rooms, laundry rooms, offices, and all high-traffic areas.  Select Here to Read More

HARDWOOD Flooring

     Most people prefer the natural, rich beauty of genuine wood floors. Upscale and elegant, hardwood flooring creates a warm and inviting look. Hardwood flooring comes in two categories, solid wood and engineered wood. Solid Wood, the most common consists of solid one-piece boards. Solid wood flooring is usually nailed to a sub-floor of wood. Solid wood is not recommended for basements or below-grade installations. Engineers wood consists of two or more layers of wood laminated together. The top layer is usually a hardwood veneer of varying thickness. The lower layer is a softwood backing. Most engineered wood floors are glued down rather than nailed down. Some engineered wood flooring applications are installed as “floating floors”, meaning the edges of the panels are glued together but not attached directly to the sub-floor. Engineered wood floors can be glued directly to a concrete slab making it suitable for below grade applications. 

    Most wood flooring is available in three formats, with the most common being the the wood strip. Also available are parquet squares or wider width planks. Most engineered wood floors are pre-finished. Unfinished floors installed on-site allow you many choices for types of finishes and colors.  Select Here to Read More 

CERAMIC AND STONE TILE Flooring

     Creates an elegant, natural look. Ceramic and stone are almost indestructible, easy to maintain. Ceramic tile can be glazed or unglazed. Stone tiles vary in texture and color for a distinctive look. Both tiles are suitable for moisture-prone and heavy-traffic areas such as kitchens, bathrooms, foyers, laundry rooms.  Select Here to Read More 

VINYL Flooring

     Vinyl flooring is easy to maintain and is very durable, making it suitable throughout the home. Vinyl is available in sheets 6 to 12 foot widths in any length needed. Vinyl is also available in luxurious tile squares suitable for the finest interiors. Vinyl comes in an extensive variety of subtle to bold, bright colors, patterns, designs, and textures. Vinyl works well for active families. It stands up to heavy household traffic, children and pets. Vinyl will provide you with years of care-free beauty. Quality Vinyl flooring is available in good, better and best categories, suitable for any budget. Select Here to Read More 

CARPET Flooring     

The clay used to make the slab may be for red firing or white firing. Both the floor tiles and the wall tiles are impermeable ceramic tiles that are normally made using a clay slab and vitreous coating called ceramic glaze.

Where can Tiles be installed

The wide range of ceramic products currently available on the market is conditioned by the different uses of this construction material. Depending on their use, there are different types of products with different characteristics. They are currently used for floors and facing.

Manufacture of ceramic floor and wall tiles

The manufacture of ceramic floor and wall tiles has undergone considerable and continuous changes over the past years. Ceramic wall tiles are normally porous, which helps their adhesion to walls. Floor tiles have low porosity, with low-medium water absorption, which gives them better technical characteristics.

Traditionally, tiles were manufactured following different methods and by means of a practically manual process. As from the seventies, the process has gradually been automated and methods have been unified considerably, with dry pressing being the most common and allowing the product to be manufactured in two different ways:

The Double firing process

In this process, the pressed body is fired to form a bisque and subsequently a glaze is applied on top of this and the body is once again fired to obtain the final finish.

The Single firing process

In the single firing process, the glaze is applied directly on to the pressed and raw body; both are fired simultaneously to obtain the final finish.

For many years there has been a controversy with regard to which of the two methods is better. In fact, having the correct formulation of both the body and the glaze, and keeping strict control of all the manufacturing stages, it is possible to produce good tiles using any of the methods.

Traditionally the double firing process was used more, with firing cycles of forty and twenty hours for the first and second firing respectively (firing of the body and of the glaze). It is currently more convenient to follow the single firing process, with cycles that last only forty-five minutes.

Moreover, in addition to the economy of the single firing process, it is very easy to automatize the different manufacturing processes, which in turn results in cost reductions.

Ceramic floor and wall tiles are obtained by preparing a composition of purified raw materials comprising aluminous silicates, with different compositions in the case of floor and wall tiles in red body or in white body.

These compositions undergo dry or wet grinding until a fine grain size is obtained, after which they undergo granulation or drying by subsequent atomisation in order to obtain granules with defined characteristics (size, shape, apparent density, fluidity, etc.).

The granulated powder is the base for the obtention of the ceramic product and its homogeneity guarantees the constancy of the physical properties of these materials. The granules feeds a oleodynamic press with a force of 600 to 1400 MT, that forms the tile into the shape and thickness chosen, for which metallic moulds with the exact dimensions are available.

Subsequently, the shaped tiles are dried and glazed with several layers of glazes of different compositions and with optional decorations in accordance with the models available.

Once the tiles have been glazed and decorated, they are placed in an oven for firing in more or less quick cycles and high temperatures, depending on the type of product being manufactured. Maximum temperatures depend on the type of product to be obtained.

The ceramic glaze and decoration embellish the tiles and give them the technical superficial characteristics desired. In the case of ceramic wall tiles, these are impermeability, resistance to detergents, etc, and in the case of floor tiles, they are resistance to abrasion, acids and scratching, etc.

The techniques, process control requirements, careful design that meets the needs of each atmosphere and the care taken in classification, give the product homogeneous characteristics that are in accordance with the requirements of its use.

One thing to keep in mind: Solid floors may not  perform well in areas of high humidity or areas with large temperature changes.  Because solid flooring is a 3/4-inch-thick section of a tree, it responds to
water and moisture like a tree. If the air is hot and humid, the floor will soak
up that moisture, causing it to swell. When the air dries out, the floor will
shrink, leaving gaps in between the boards. The wider the boards the bigger the
gaps and the more likely it will “cup,” so most solid wood floors are either
21/4 inches wide or 31/4 inches wide.

For this reason, solid flooring is most  common in areas with low humidity such as the Northeast and Midwest. One reason why people like solid hardwood floors is because they are traditional and can be
sanded many times. If they are finished on the job site, they are relatively
easy to sand and refinish. And it is possible to achieve a “true square edge”
profile with a “sand and finish” floor. On the downside, if a solid wood floor
is finished on site, it can be difficult to show your customer a “true color”
sample. In addition, installation can take a long time as each layer of finish
must dry before the next coat is applied.

Engineered wood The PT boats that were  used in World War II were actually constructed out of several layers of wood, with each layer’s graining facing in the opposite direction of the layer above
or below it. It was this concept that gave birth to engineered flooring. To
better understand this concept of “cross plied” wood, let’s look at the basics.
A tree uses its roots to take water from the ground and deliver it to the leaves
using straw-like cells to move the water up the trunk. These cells get plumper
when they are full of water and shrink when they are dry. Just as these cells
change with moisture in a tree, they will also change with moisture within a
floor. By stacking veneers with these cells facing in opposing directions, no
one layer can grow or shrink too much in any direction.

Because engineered floors can handle a certain amount of moisture from the subfloor, they can be
installed anywhere in the house; on, above or below grade, on concrete or
plywood subfloors with glue, nails or even by floating. Most engineered floors
are finished at the factory, so they generally have aluminum oxide in the
finish. Aluminum oxide is the hardest manmade crystal in the world and therefore
adds years to the finish warranty. As for sanding and refinishing, an engineered
floor can be sanded about twice depending on the thickness of the wearlayer. The
aluminum oxide, however, makes it very difficult to actually sand the finish off.

The Trowel will impact the effectiveness of the adhesive

Adhesives were first used as an installation method in the wood flooring
industry more than a half century ago. The process was simply a matter of
spreading the molten asphalt onto the prepared subfloor, then embedding the wood flooring into the asphalt before it began to set. The work was difficult, messy and dangerous. 

Things have changed a bit since then. Today’s advanced  technologies make adhesives an ideal installation method for most types of wood  flooring. Determining when and how to use adhesives properly will be the
difference between a quality installation that will last for years and one that
will cause headaches for the customer. 

Here are eight things to know about adhesives: 

1. Adhesives work by creating a bond between the subfloor and the
wood flooring. While all adhesives work on the same principle of changing
chemically from a viscose liquid to a solid, they differ in the carrying agents
or catalysts that activate them based on the chemical properties of the
adhesive. 

2. There are three types of wood flooring adhesives on the market
today: water-based, solvent-based and moisturecuring. Because each has different
application and performance characteristics, do your research to find the
product that will best fit your installation needs. Some considerations are ease
of product use, product performance span and VOC regulations where the
installation will occur. 

3. All wood flooring adhesives require the same degree
of jobsite preparation to ensure a successful installation. In fact, thorough
jobsite preparation is crucial in the long-term performance of the floor and
becomes even more critical if the installation will occur over concrete. 

4. Make sure the wood is properly acclimated to the jobsite. While this takes place,
turn your attention to the subfloor. Make sure it is flat. In addition, the
subfloor should be cleaned thoroughly by removing anything that could negatively
impact the bonding characteristics of the adhesive. 

5. Be sure to use the adhesive specifically recommended by the flooring manufacturer. Different
adhesives have different chemical properties, which impacts their spread rate,
flash time and longterm performance. Certain types of wood work better with
certain types of adhesives. 

6. Be certain to use the trowel type specifically recommended by the adhesive manufacturer. Trowels have different teeth, different widths between the trowel teeth and different depths in the gaps
between the trowel teeth. Both the size and shape of the trowel teeth and the
notches between the teeth will influence the effectiveness of the adhesive as
they determine the spread rate. 

7. As a general rule, you only want to put down about as much adhesive as you can effectively work with in a 15 to 20 minute period of time. Any longer than that may cause the installation to fail as the
bonding reaction may already have begun before the wood is installed over the
adhesive. 

8. Once the installation has been completed, the floor should remain
untouched for at least 24 hours to allow the adhesive to cure properly. The
absence of foot traffic during this process will greatly improve the long-term
bonding performance of the adhesive.

Tools: You will need a utility knife, a carpenter’s square, a chalk line, a tape measure, a 100-lb. three-section roller, a pencil, and a 1/16” x 1/16” x 1/16” square-notched trowel.  When cutting the NAFCO product, score the face of the product with a sharp blade and snap it apart.

Underlayment / Subfloors:

NAFCO Recommends an APA approved ¼ inch plywood underlayment on single wood subfloors. Always remember to patch seams with a Portland cement based patching compound to level surface irregularities.  Concrete subfloors are also great for NAFCO installations. Be sure to check for moisture and prep the floor properly before installation. Another suitable application for the NAFCO product is over existing resilient floors.

Here are a few helpful tips when going over existing resilient floors:

• NAFCO should be no more than the third layer of flooring on a surface
• NAFCO should only be installed if the existing floor is secure and level
• When placing NAFCO over sheet vinyl, the existing product must be full spread adhesive
• Some installations may need a skim coat of Portland cement based patching compound.

Floor Layout:

When installing NAFCO tile/plank, there are many options to consider for installation and design.  NAFCO products can be installed using a stagger, diagonal, or straight lay method.  For information pertaining to these methods, please call technical services at 1-800-227-4662.

Adhesives: NAFCO offers three excellent adhesives: NAFCO #800, NAFCO #400, and NAFCO #850.

• NAFCO #800 is designed for convenience and quality. This adhesive is pressure sensitive and should be allowed to dry completely before an installation begins. Please consult the adhesive chart and/or technical services to ensure proper use of this adhesive.
• NAFCO #400 is a wet-set adhesive that should be spread and installed with an open time not exceeding 20 minutes.  Please consult the adhesive chart and/or technical services to ensure proper use of this adhesive.
• NAFCO #850 is a semi-wet/semi-dry set adhesive. This product is designed for installing NAFCO plank and/or brick over properly prepared existing resilient floors. Allow this adhesive to set up or skin over for approximately 30 minutes before installing NAFCO.  Please consult the adhesive chart and/or technical services to ensure proper use of this adhesive.

• NAFCO floors are only as level as the surface on which they are applied.
• Any subfloor irregularities should be leveled with a Portland cement based patching compound.
• Be sure the correct NAFCO product is matched with the correct adhesive for the installation.
• All installations should be rolled with a 100-lb. roller.
• Do not wash the flooring for 48 hours following the installation.

The  one characteristic consumers cherish most about  a hardwood floor, the nature  part,
is covered with a plastic film,  not too different from the see-through  plastic slipcovers grandma  used to  put over  the living  room sofa.  Living up  to its mantra, “Manufacturer of Unique and Sustainable Floors,” US Floors has  embraced the  “naturalness”  of a  hardwood  floor by  developing  an extensive  line  of hardwood and strand  woven bamboo floors  that are each  unique AND sustainable.

Navarre  Timeless Wood  Floors With  24 wide-plank  oak selections,  US Floors’
Navarre Timeless  Wood Floors  provide retailers  and homeowners  alike with the
widest array of natural oil finished engineered oak floors available today. Wide
widths ranging from 71/2  to 101/4 inches and  a 12-inch-wide 3- strip  platform
combine with a tailored color pallet  for a seductive, selection of oak  floors.

Proprietary  finish enhances  natural beauty  US Floors’  proprietary Natural-E
natural  oil finish  penetrates the  wood fiber,  protecting the  surface while
enhancing  the natural  beauty and  texture of  the floor.  Navarre floors  are
crafted  using  a  variety  of  surface  techniques  including  hand  sculpting,
antiquing and wire brushing to achieve a truly timeless look. A 6 mm  (1/4-inch)
oak surface  layer, the  industry’s thickest  wearlayer, provides  a distinctive
valueadded feature only available on  select Navarre styles.

Certified FSC  Pure Navarre Timeless Wood Floors are not only beautiful but environmentally friendly as well, carrying the 100% FSC Pure certification label designating that Navarre
floors  are harvested  and manufactured  using responsible  forestry practices.
Strand woven bamboo like no other US Floors also offers Natural Bamboo Wovens, a
collection  of  natural oil  finished  strand woven  bamboo  floors. The  Wovens
collection features nine oil finished  strand woven bamboo references plus  four
additional  references  of US  Floors’  exclusive, patentpending  Corboo  with a
Natural-E natural oil finish.

Corboo is an innovative strand woven bamboo  floor with seams  of cork  infused into  the bamboo  strands. This  innovative process provides a durable and dense strand  woven bamboo floor with a truly  unique and distinctive visual along with improved sound properties suitable for residential
and commercial applications.