I received an email the other day from a gal in Long Beach. She wondered why her new red oak floor looked so different than her daughters' up the road in Pasadena. Naturally it took a few exchanges of mail to get to the bottom of it, but I had a pretty good idea what the answer was ahead of time.Her daughters home was built in the 20's where older growth hardwood flooring was plentiful. Older growth which is very hard to obtain (reclaimed) these days offers a tighter grain appearance than toady's hardwood flooring. There are also differences in hardwood flooring grades. In other words, Red Oak and other hardwoods have appearances that will not look the same. Much of it has to do with color and character contained within; a result of how the flooring was milled, separated, and sorted before the sale.
Another factor in the equation became that she had chosen an engineered hardwood floor. This made matters even more challenging for her to understand. Why? Let's look at what her daughter has in her home; the old growth Red Oak hardwood shown above we found on the website of Antique Vintage Woods Of America. Looking closely at that image compared to the one further below on the page the difference is quite noticeable.
The Long Beach woman had chosen the Bruce Northshore Strip engineered hardwood whose appearance is night and day.It's obvious the color or character is different, but we're just comparing the grain pattern. The second photo shows a more radial look to it due to the newer growth hardwood and the method in which engineered floors are manufactured.
The question was also asked how long her new floor should last but she didn't expect to be around more than another 20 years. With a product like the Northshore Strip, taken care of well should perform well during that time span, but there's no comparison to a solid hardwood floor like her daughters'.
