Types Of Softwood Wood Floors

When you’re considering your wood flooring project, you’ll have a number of decisions to make.  How you want your room to look is probably your most important, but even behind that, there are several decisions to make in order to establish that you’re making the best choices.  One of the many decisions will be whether to plump for a cheaper softwood flooring option or indeed if you’d be better off making the additional investment and going for a hardwood.

Softwood is wood that comes from evergreen trees, such as pine, spruce, cedar, larch and fir.  These fast growing trees yield flooring timber faster than their deciduous counterparts and as such, the end product tends to be cheaper.  Commonly used in the construction of houses, wood cabins and furniture, softwoods are also often used to make wood flooring.  In most instances, softwoods tend to be somewhat less hardwearing than hardwoods, although there are a few exceptions to this rule, and it’s important to say that strength is not the reason for classifying a wood hard or soft.

Both solid and engineered wood flooring come in soft and hardwood options and which you choose, will depend to a large extent on the budget you have for your project and how hard wearing you need your new flooring to be.  That said, softwood makes up an estimated 80% of the world’s total timber production, so it’s by no stretch of the imagination an unpopular option.

Solid softwood floors are typically pines or firs of various species, and as already mentioned, tend to have a slightly lower price tag than their hardwood equivalents.  Engineered softwood flooring is topped with pine, fir or larch, rather than with one of the hardwoods.  Again, it is reasonable to expect a slightly reduced price tag for a softwood engineered wood floor than a hardwood equivalent.

Hardwoods on the other hand are made from the timber from deciduous trees that lose their leaves in the autumn months and are recognised and accepted as being much slower growing than their evergreen counterparts.  Because these trees take longer to grow, and in many ways are more in demand, they command a higher price.  However, with the higher price tag, you often have a more attractive end product that will typically have a longer life expectancy.

When making your choice between softwood and hardwood, there are several things you need to take into consideration.  They are:

The look you’re trying to create. Although flooring, like any other wood product, can be stained, coloured or treated to take on pretty much any colour you fancy, generally speaking hardwoods will be darker in colour than softwoods.

Your budget. As we’ve mentioned, irrespective of whether you plump for solid or engineered wood flooring, you should expect a quality hardwood option to cost more than a softwood option.  That said the relative quality:price ratio should not be ignored.

Whether your project is destined for the long, short or medium term. As evidenced in numerous castles and stately homes, a hardwood floor will last well over a lifetime, so there’s no getting away from the fact that if your project is geared for the long term, a hardwood option is your best bet.  In fact, such is the quality and longevity of hardwood flooring that recycled and recovered hardwood floors make up a significant and growing part of the flooring market today.