Definitions

A floating floor is essentially a number of hardwood boards bound together to form one continuous sheet. The sheet floats meaning it is not nailed down into the subfloor. Often a barrier separates it from the subfloor below. The barrier may be waterproof or have sound proofing qualities. There are three common methods of binding the boards together. They may be glued, clip-locked (the pieces are design to lock together without glue) or nailed into plywood boards. In the former two types, the boards have to be designed specifically to float. They are always prefinished and usually engineered with each engineered piece being 5 to 6 inches wide.

Click-lock laminate flooring.   These products are very quick to install.   The substrate is MDF.

There are exceptions however, one being with strand woven bamboo. The later type can use any type of hardwood floor pre-finished or not. The continuous sheet is formed by overlapping sheets of plywood that are glued and screwed together (when done right). The hardwood is shot into this continuous sheet to bind them. This method creates a floor that has excellent stability. The mass of the floor helps with sound insulation.

A nailed-in floor simply refers to hardwood which may or may not be prefinished that is nailed in to the subfloor. The hardwood pieces are tongue and groove and the nail is shot through the tongue.

Durability

Durability depends on a number of factors: the wood species, the finish, and the construction. Woods differ in hardness and resistance to denting. A high Jenka rating indicates strength. The wood will dent less in respond to something falling on it or a high heal shoe.
Janka Hardness Rating
(Highest to Lowest)

2350 - Brazilian Cherry
2200 - Santos Mahogany
1820 - Hickory
1450 - Hard Maple
1360 - White Oak
1320 - Ash
1300 - American Beech
1290 - Red Oak(Northern)
1260 - Yellow Birch
1010 - Black Walnut
950 - Black Cherry
870 - Southern Yellow Pine (long leaf)
690 - Southern Yellow Pine (short leaf)
380 - White Pine

Finishes can also differ in their ability to impede a scratch. Factory finishes tend to be harder than those put on in the field because they’re baked in and have up to 7 coats. Field finishes rarely are more than 3 coats.

The construction of the wood when it’s manufactured also makes a difference. Many floating floors have a thin layer of veneer backed by a substrate.

These engineered wood floors have variable-thickness veneers and a plywood substrates.   2 mil veneers may not survive more than one sanding (if that) where 4 mil veneers may survive up to 3 sandings.  These all have factory finishes with Alluminum Oxide which creates a very durable finish.

Substrates like MDF are less prone to dent then substrates such as pine. Strand-woven bamboo flooring takes bamboo strands and mixes them together in a stable substrate often baking them in the process. The result is a very dense floor with little of the softness of native bamboo.

     Strand woven corbonzied bamboo is very hard and full thickness.  It can be sanded multiple times.

Refinishing

Eventually, you may want to refinish your floor. In general, floors made of solid wood will refinish multiple times. We have refinished floors form the early 1900’s and they can look great. Engineered floors – mostly floating – will not hold together that long. Mostly they can be sanded and refinished up to 3 times, though I’m not certain many will make it more than once or twice. The thicker the veneer the more times the floor can be sanded. They however cost more.

Repairing

If you have a small scratch in your floor it’s best to consider it the “Patina of Use” than worrying about it. Most owners find scratches much more acceptable after the offending mover or contractor has paid some compensation to repair them. If a board has to be removed for some reason, a nail down floor is much easier to work with. It’s extremely difficult to remove a board out to the center of a floating floor where the boards are glued or click-locked together. But I imagine a method will soon be invented.

Cost

The costs are remarkably similar for a prefinished floating floor and a nail down floor for common varieties. However, for exotic woods, prefinished floating floors are often less expensive since they are applied veneers and use less of the exotic wood. Most floors will last 5 to 15 years which longer than most people stay in their homes. The cost then for redoing a floor is usually bourn by a future owner. If however you are planning to hand down your house to your children, it’s best to consider full-thickness boards. The cost of floating a floor on plywood usually adds 2 to 4 dollars a square foot.

Sound

Floating floors are much better than nail down floors for percussive sound. Many high rise buildings require them for good reason. In my experience, the best sound separation is achieved by nailing onto plywood which floats over a quarter inch of cork. I have such an installation in my own house and have never heard a complaint from my neighbors nor have I ever heard them other than when I slept on the floor because of my hurting back. Then I did hear them through the bedroom floor but only briefly.

Installation

Prefinished floors floating floors with clip-locks are significantly easier to install than nail dwon floors. They can be done with a saw and few other tools. Glue together floating floors are slightly more time consuming. All prefinished floors are easier to install than floors that require onsite finishing. Sanding a floor results in dust that takes weeks to fully settle. The coating and stains on a floor often require the owner to move in with relatives for multiple nights. It’s also easier to move furniture onto prefinished floors. While flooring installers are geniuses at moving furniture around and can pack whole houses into linen closets, it’s much easier to move furniture across the room than across the house to an area that won’t be worked on. Sometimes there just isn’t anywhere to put furniture making it necessary to move the furniture out or do the residence in sections.

Appearance

Hardwood looks great anyway you lay it. Some connoisseurs insist that nail down site-finished flooring has tighter joints but this is not necessarily true. Nailed-down site-finished flooring can dry over time and open between joints. Prefinished engineered flooring may or may not open over time. Much depends on how well the joints were put together and how constant the temperature and humidity is kept. Wood expands and contracts seasonally because of these variations which may expose joints. (It’s also important that the floating floor not extend all the way to the wall but rather have its edge come up short by 3/8th to ½ inch to allow the floor to expand. The edge is covered by quarter round so the gap is not seen. If this critical space is over-looked the flooring can buckle on a yearly basis.)
For more on hardwood floors or for installations in the Chicago area, please send us your questions or call.

Mitchell Newman, the author, is the principal of Stratagem Construction.