Engineering your wood flooring to perfection

Almost everyone knows what wood flooring is, but do you know what engineered wood flooring is? You may have seen it at the home improvement store or in a magazine. The top face consists of a layer of the actual wood species of your choice and plywood layers below. The top layer can vary from the thickness of card stock to half the thickness of the floor. Additionally, the ply layers can range from as few as two or three plies to as many as nine plies.

You wouldn’t be alone if your reaction to this “different” wood floor is believing that it is cheap stuff or skimping on the wood. Depending on how much wood is on the top layer, this may be true or false.

The negative reaction to engineered wood flooring is the very reason why Shirley Pai Hilton of Kahala Pacific Floors decided to start her Wood and Stone Flooring 101 seminars seven years ago.

“Wood flooring and the other products related to this category of floor covering can be very complicated,” explained Hilton. “We do a lot of educating when the customer walks through that door, and so I thought it would be a great idea to organize that education and deliver an organized, consistent message.”

Hilton explained that “engineered” wood flooring gets its name from the fact that the wood is arranged or manipulated to form a product that will overcome the natural tendency of wood floors to warp, twist or move. “It’s not about skimping, but rather about creating a piece of flooring with more dimensional stability,” she said.

With a solid piece of wood, the cellular structure of that piece is running in one direction so that the entire piece wants to move in unison. With an engineered floor, every other layer of ply is crisscrossed so that, while it still wants to move, every other layer keeps the next one in check. This is known as “cross tension. “The result is that engineered flooring does not have to be secured with glue or nails — like the solid does — and can save homeowners a lot of money with a floating installation. This is when the boards are glued to one another but not to the subfloor, sitting on your slab like an area rug and moving as one big piece.

As a CPA by training, Hilton’s nature is to delve into details and she did the same when she entered the flooring business a number of years ago. Since then, Hilton has been called upon for her expertise in wood flooring and about five years ago this led her to develop a product that is her pride and joy — the Kahala Floors line of engineered wood flooring. Featuring a thick top layer of wood, the fi nest Birch plywood and German finish, Hilton and her staff in Shanghai are literally hands-on at the factory to assure their customers of the highest quality.

But did you know that the top layer of your engineered floor could be considered too thick? Hilton invites you to attend the company’s next seminar to fi nd out why this is and so much more. Best of all, Hilton offers seminar attendees an exclusive private sale pricing on all products and services, the lowest she ever gives. Call 847-7711 to reserve a seat for the Nov. 14 session.

KAHALA PACIFIC FLOORS
contact // 847-7711
address // 926 Kohou St.
web // kahalapacificfloors.com