Carpet-Rite; Professional Carpet, Hardwood, Laminate, Installation and Area Rug Showroom; Scottsdale Arizona

HOW HARD IS YOUR HARDWOOD?

Carpet-Rite — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 19:13:26 +0000

When shopping for hardwood flooring, it’s important to know just how “hard” your hardwood actually is. This is partially a function of the finish on your hardwood flooring (usually aluminum oxide or polyurethane, occasionally oil finish). Primarily, however, the “hardness” or durability of your hardwood flooring – and, therefore, it’s ability to resist normal wear and denting – is determined by the species of hardwood you select. The industry standard test used to rate hardwood “hardness” is called the Janka hardness test. The Janka test is a measurement of the force necessary to embed a .444 inch steel ball half its diameter in the wood being tested. The hardness of wood species varies significantly. Here are some of the more common species used for hardwood flooring (The list runs from the softest hardwoods to the hardest hardwoods):

Pine 420-840 (depending on the species)

Birch 910

Black Cherry 950

American Teak 1000

Black Walnut 1010

Red Oak 1290

White Oak 1360

Maple 1450-1500

Hickory & Pecan 1820

Santos Mahogany 2200

Brazilian Teak/Brazilian Walnut 3500-3650

As the above hardness data indicates, pine, walnut, birch and cherry are relatively soft hardwoods. If you select one of the species for your hardwood flooring, you’ll need to be more careful with regard to wear. Maple, hickory and pecan will give you a more durable hardwood floor, with Brazilian teak and Brazilian walnut being among the most durable hardwoods used for hardwood flooring. If you need a particularly durable hardwood flooring product, you may want to consider commercially rated hardwood flooring products. These hardwood products have been specially treated to make them more durable for use in retail stores, bank lobbies, etc. In addition to hardwoods, you may also want to consider strand woven bamboo. Technically, bamboo is a grass rather than a hardwood, but strand woven bamboo flooring is often used for both commercial and residential applications due to it’s durability.

For more hardwood species hardness information, google “janka hardness test”. You’ll find an extensive list of hardwoods for you to consider. And remember! Inform yourself before you go shopping for hardwood flooring. You’ll be able to make a better hardwood flooring product selection based on the amount of wear you know your floor will be receiving.

Caring For Your Hardwood Floors

Carpet-Rite — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 17:49:13 +0000

As anyone who lives in a desert climate should know, it can be a challenge to maintain certain kinds of hardwood flooring. These challenges come from the lack of humidity in desert areas and the reaction of certain types of hardwood species to low humidity. Here are some pointers on caring for hardwood flooring in the desert:

-When hardwood flooring is delivered to a home, each box will include a brief instruction manual that details the proper environment for the product. Read the manual, particularly the section that deals with humidity levels in the home (keep them above 30%, if possible.).

-The home should be at it’s usual temperature during the installation of hardwood flooring.

-There are certain species of wood that do not perform well in low humidity environments (eg, pecan, hickory, maple).

-If you decide to get hardwood flooring in these three species, try to avoid a smooth surface product. Get a handscraped product, eg, a product with surface texture. If the product checks, it will show less on a handscraped product. (Checking is not considered a product defect in desert areas. It is not covered by the manufacturer’s product warranty.)

-Know where your hardwood flooring was manufactured if you decide to use pecan, hickory or maple. Chinese manufactured product has a significantly greater possibility of checking than American manufactured product. We’re not trying to wave the flag. American manufactured hardwood flooring is simple more resistant to checking than is Chinese hardwood flooring.

-Don’t damp mop your hardwood floors. Use Bona Kemi hardwood flooring cleaner. It’s widely distributed and easy to find. You can also buy it on line from a variety of sources.

-Don’t vacuum your hardwood floors with a vacuum that has a beater bar. Don’t use a Dyson vacuum on hardwood floors.

These are some basic tips for hardwood flooring care and product selection in a desert climate. If you need to know more, please feel free to contact us at Carpet-Rite

Oil Finish Hardwood Flooring

Carpet-Rite — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 20:40:54 +0000

The majority of hardwood flooring products have either a polyurethane or an aluminum oxide finish. There is another category of finish: oil finish hardwood. The look of oil finish hardwood flooring is distinctive in that it has a very natural low sheen look. The look is similar to the much more expensive reclaimed hardwood products that cost anywhere from $9 to $20/square foot. Oil finished hardwood flooring comes in two general categories:

-Maintenance oil is applied as soon as the installation is completed. The maintenance oil does not have to be applied again until traffic has caused enough surface abrasion to require some touching up. This could take place in 6 months or several years. The time period depends on the type and amount of traffic on the oil finished floor. The reapplication of the maintenance oil will refurbish the surface of the wood and eliminate much of the visible wear and tear.

-No maintenance oil is required when the installation is completed. The maintenance oil is applied when traffic has caused enough surface abrasion to require a touch up. Again, this can be happen in a few months or a number of years. Two examples of this kind of hardwood flooring are the Gallaher French Connection collection and the Provenza Heirloom collection.

-The maintenance oil itself can range from tung oil that can be found at any Home Depot to a maintenance oil manufactured and sold by the manufacturer of the hardwood product.

So if you’re looking for a very natural, low sheen finish, take a look at oil finished hardwood. You’ll find it to be a very attractive hardwood flooring possibility.

Hardwood Flooring & Arizona’s Humidity – Or The Lack Of It

Carpet-Rite — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 21:29:53 +0000

Not all hardwood is suited for the Arizona climate. With average humidity around 10% and the required humidity for hardwood being around 32%, sometimes problems arise due to the very dry climate. There have been instances where specific hardwood products (eg, pecan hardwoods) have been withdraw from the market in Arizona due to the low humidity. So, what happens to hardwood flooring in Arizona that can cause you problems? The primary problem is called “Checking”. Checking is a network of cracks, ranging from very small to large, tjat develop in the surface of the hardwood once it’s been installed. The real problem is this: Although the cracks appear, hardwood manufacturers do not consider checking a product defect. They consider it to be an artifact of the dry Arizona climate – and they will not replace checked hardwood. So, what can you do? Two things:

-Talk to your flooring dealer about hardwood. If he knows hardwood, he’ll explain checking and the fact that it’s not a product defect.

-Keep the humidity in your home above 30% in the rooms with wood flooring. Humidifiers can be used to do this.

Manufacturers don’t hide that fact that hardwood can crack in the Arizona climate. Most manufacturers put a brochure in each box of hardwood describing humidity levels and how best to care for your hardwood. But the real key is this: Make sure your flooring dealer knows his stuff and is willing to share it with you prior to purchase wood flooring. If this is the case, your chances of problems are greatly reduced.

Hardwood Flooring Vs. Carpet: A Cost Comparison

Carpet-Rite — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 17:33:15 +0000

If you’re trying to make a decision between carpet and hardwood flooring, here are some numbers that may help you:

1. Good carpet (fully installed: carpet, padding and installation included) costs around $27-$40/sq. yd. (or $3-$4.45/sq. ft.).

2. Hardwood flooring price has several components:

-Hardwood itself: $4/sq. ft. – $7/sq. ft. This range covers a broad selection of good intermediate quality hardwood flooring products.

-Installation cost: $2/85- $3/sq. ft. (This includes adhesive.)

-Take out of existing flooring:

Carpet: $.15/sq. ft.

Hard surface: $2/sq. ft. (hardwood, stone or ceramic)

-Trim costs: This involves what to do with you baseboards, whether you’ll need t-molds where you wood butts up against your hard surface, etc.

Add the various costs up and you’ll see the following:

-Carpet: $3-$4.45/sq. ft.

-Hardwood: $6.85-$10/sq. ft.

So, as a rough conclusion, hardwood flooring is usually 2.5 to 3 times as expensive as carpet, particularly if your home requires the removal of an existing hard surface flooring.

CARPET-RITE: A SHOP SMART ENVIRONMENT

Carpet-Rite — Thu, 24 May 2012 21:11:38 +0000

With the economic downturn of 2007, the high overhead flooring showroom became an antiquated, no longer viable business model . High overhead requires high prices, something that very few consumers can now afford. There are better, more economical ways to buy flooring. So, how do you do it? What do you look for in a flooring dealer that will allow you to Shop Smart?

At Carpet-Rite, we’ve been working for years to enhance our efficiency – and to pass on these efficiencies to our clients in the form of lower prices and a simple but very thorough shopping experience. We’ve done this in several ways, the first of which was to create a very well organized showroom. With over 500 carpets and 400 hardwood products in our 1275 square foot showroom, our clients have an extremely large product selection to choose from, far larger than the usual retail flooring showroom. Additionally, when clients are in the Carpet-Rite showroom, they’re dealing with the owner. There are no layers of management to get in the way of decision making, no unnecessary paperwork to delay the product selection or purchase. And, finally, “sales” in the Carpet-Rite showroom is an information exchange. We find out your needs and show you products that will satisfy them. There is no pressure, only a process of finding the right product for the client’s particular requirements.

And, finally, our estimates are free – and easy to read. There are no add-on charges, no bogus pricing offers that appear to be advantageous but aren’t what they seem. The paperwork is simple and the subsequent installation will be done by installers that you’ll be very comfortable having in your home. Simplicity, quality and efficiency – the basics of a Shop Smart environment. Come see us at Carpet-Rite. We’ll make sure you Shop Smart.

The $99 Installation Scam

Carpet-Rite — Thu, 17 May 2012 22:18:44 +0000

Many retail companies – including a very large company with “Depot” in its name – make it very complicated to find out what your carpet will cost. Rather than providing a fully installed price (carpet, padding and installation combined into one total number), the price is broken out into separate lines including carpet, padding, installation, furniture moving, existing carpet take out, etc, until things get unnecessarily confusing. Your carpeting source should provide a fully installed price per square yard or square foot and any incidental costs such as furniture moving, step installation or existing carpet take-out (carpet take-out should be included in the fully installed price. Many companies don’t do this. They definitely should.) Additionally, there are large companies (you know who they are) that offer carpet installation for only $99. Here’s how they do it – and, yes, it’s a scam of sorts. They provide a carpet price and a separate price for padding, usually in the $5-6 range. A standard rebond padding usually costs $1.50-$2/sq. yd. The additional charge that raises the padding price to the $5-$6 range is actually where the company hides the installation charge. So the $5-$6 padding charge is actually padding plus installation. Hence, the extra $99 is nothing more than extra profit that the company pockets. Hence, the $99 for installing your whole house is no deal. It actually allows the company to charge you for carpet + padding + installation and then $99 more. It’s a bad deal….but a hard one to spot unless you’re actually in the flooring business.

STRAND WOVEN BAMBOO

Carpet-Rite — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:31:35 +0000

We’re frequently asked if there’s a surface other than laminate that can handle children and big dogs. Aside from tile and stone, our recommendation would be strand woven bamboo. The bamboo strands are put together with an eco-friendly adhesive and pressed into blocks from which the planks are sawn. The resulting product is over twice as hard as oak and very green. The range of colors and patterns available are broad, ranging from the standard look of bamboo to a look that’s almost impossible to distinguish from hardwood. In the extremely dry Arizona climate, we recommend using an engineered strand woven bamboo rather than a solid strand woven bamboo. The engineered strand woven bamboo will be more dimensionally stable than the solid bamboo. Carpet-Rite carries the Teragren and U.S. Floors strand woven bamboo lines. Come by our Scottsdale Airpark Showroom and we’ll see if strand woven bamboo is right for your home.

BIG DOGS & HARDWOOD FLOORING

Carpet-Rite — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:36:32 +0000

In a word, DON’T!! As much as we all love dogs, hardwood flooring (particularly if your floor is one of the softer woods) and big dogs can be a cosmetic problem. Although hardwood flooring manufacturers would have you believe that most hardwood can resist large dogs, the surface of hardwood flooring is susceptible to clawmarks from any dog above 20 pounds, particularly if the dog likes to run and play indoors. So those of you with golden retrievers, labradors, mastiffs, and all the other large breeds will have to be careful with your selection of hardwood flooring. So, what can you do? To begin with, buy a furniture repair pencil with a color that matches your floor or, if possible, buy a can of Duraseal or a similar hardwood flooring stain that also matches your floor. This will help you lessen the visibility of claw marks that will ultimately show up on your floor. If you’re still in the selection process for your hardwood flooring, consider strand woven bamboo or a commercially rated hardwood flooring such as Performance Plus from Armstrong. Both strand woven bamboo and a hardwood like Performance Plus will be more resistant to dog damage – but still not completely resistant. Unfortunately, it’s a trade off you’ll have to make if you want hardwood and have big dogs. The point of this blog is to let you know if you’re considering hardwood flooring, large dogs will ultimately produce enough surface damage to require some form of repair.

POLYESTER VS. NYLON

Carpet-Rite — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:35:55 +0000

The two most popular fibers for making carpet are nylon and polyester. So, you may ask, which is better? To help answer that question, here are a few important points to remember about both fibers:

1. Nylon is more durable than polyester. For high traffic, high use areas of your home (eg, staircases, hallways with bedrooms off either side), nylon would probably be the better choice of fibers.

2. Polyester is more stain resistant than nylon. For rooms where stains are an issue (eg, childrens’ rooms, hobby or craft rooms), polyester might be the better choice.

3. Nylon cleans up better than polyester on lighter colored carpets that have been soiled by dirt. Don’t confuse dirt clean up with stain resistance. They’re two different things.

4. Polyester is less expensive than nylon. That’s why you see many carpet pricing deals that offer polyester products.

Use the above 4 points to help you make your decisions. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to give us a call. We can help you.