Supplier Spotlight: Wide Plank Hardwood

Smith Bros. Floors Ltd.

You may have read our earlier blog on the excellent Mississauga-based supplier TORLYS, with its focus on community and environmentally-conscious distribution process. Our relationships with our suppliers are very important in what we do, so we’d like to introduce you to another: Wide Plank Hardwood in Chilliwack, BC.

The Authentic Look

The best hardwood flooring should offer your home a warm and inviting look and feel. Whether you’re flooring a single room or your entire home, each plank should add to an overall sense of comfort and naturalism. Wide Plank Hardwood believes this is best accomplished through the use of planks that are wide and long so that you can maintain a look of strength and authenticity. This is also accomplished by their eye for the finest quality of their materials. Just one look at their gallery will give you a pretty good idea of how the proper choice of species, grade, and style can take a home from looking good to looking great.

Variety and Versatility

Wide Plank offers a striking variety of species in solid and engineered flooring types. They even offer hardwood for non-flooring home applications such as stairs, feature walls, doors, and beam cladding. This will offer you the utmost flexibility in putting together a cohesive and unique look for your home. Going for a clean, straight look with a rift-sawn texture? Or maybe a bit of rustic character with hand-scraped or distressed planks? With so much variety and freedom for custom applications, not to mention their detailed maintenance expertise to ensure long-lasting quality, the sky’s the limit!

Conscious Practices

On top of their eye for quality and authenticity is a dedication to environmentally conscious materials and practices, including an eco-friendly stain and production of flooring from reclaimed and recycled wood. Lowering environmental impact is one of their highest priorities as a business. Not only this, but they are actively involved in the community, present at local design shows and even a proud sponsor of a participating team at the Prospera Valley GranFondo! As always, we’re proud to be a certified dealer for such a dedicated and skillful Canadian supplier.

As an authorized dealer for this and several other excellent manufacturers, Smith Bros. can offer you the variety you want and the expertise you need. To take your interior to the next level with a beautiful new floor, get in touch at (403) 917-0847 today!

The Right Flooring for You: What to Keep in Mind

Smith Bros. Floors Ltd.

Choosing the right hardwood flooring is a great opportunity to apply your knowledge about your home. Visual preferences will vary from person to person, but here are a few practical questions that will come up in the process.

What Am I Working With?

You’ll have two main choices in types of hardwood flooring: solid and engineered. The basic difference here is quite intuitive. Solid hardwood is cut from a single, natural piece of wood, while engineered types are composed of different materials as pressure-bonded layers. Which one you need will be determined first and foremost by your subfloor.

If you’ve got concrete, you’re more or less limited to engineered hardwood. Workarounds are possible but generally not recommended. You’ll often be limited to specifications that reduce both cost and time efficiency. It’s more likely that your subfloor is plywood. Luckily, this allows you to choose either of the hardwood types. If, however, your subfloor is particleboard, you’ll need to replace this with plywood to consider hardwood flooring at all!

What’s My Interior Environment Like?

How is your home heated? Your options are more open in a forced-air heating situation, but If you’ve got radiant heating, it’s recommended to go with engineered. If you’re set on solid, recommendations will vary, but it’s possible as long as you are aware of a few considerations. One of these is to stick with quarter-sawn planks. Their vertical grain allows them to expand and contract vertically rather than horizontally, making them more friendly to radiant heating.

As important as heating can be, it’s always critical to pay attention to the humidity of your indoor environment. Always follow recommendations on humidity ranges from the experts, especially when climate conditions change across seasons. They’ll know the dimensional change coefficient of your chosen wood according to environmental conditions and other variables.

What Goes on In the House?

Family activity and social functions will always have an effect on the condition of your flooring. Do you have parties often? Kids or pets? The higher the traffic, the harder the wood should be. Make this clear to your flooring company and they will provide you with recommendations. This way you can worry less about damage and focus on enjoying your new floor!

Smith Bros. has been fine-tuning an expertise in hardwood flooring over the course of generations. It would be our pleasure to bring that expertise to your home. Give us a call at (403) 917-0847 today!