I am shopping for wood flooring, the regular old strip kind you lay, sand, and finish. Along comes a guy, a flooring contractor I have asked to bid my job, who tells me about a place that makes a newer, better kind, that is 1/2″ thick, not the “traditional” 3/4″.
So I look into it. Find a couple of mills making and selling it. They are both claiming the same thing, that their product is superior to the thicker stuff because it is more precisely milled, and therefore requires less sanding to level it all before finishing.
I look at the specs and obtain some samples, and it is plain that the thickness down to the tongue tops are within thousandths of each other, when the competitive products are compared. Both have about a full 1/16″ less, of “sandable” thickness down to the fastener tops, when compared to a 3/4″ strip.
Of course, I say, that is why the sales pitch is that this stuff is “precision machined,” and “requires less sanding.” It had better, since there is less to sand.
But why does the 1/2″ stuff cost so much more? In the species and grade I am specifying, the thin wood is being quoted at a 30% premium when compared to 3/4″ strip.
Is this new math? Am I missing something? Is this stuff worth it?
Replies
I thought you were talking about bikinis.
Let me see if I can do the math right. Assume the tongue sits right in the middle third in both cases. The sandable thicknesses would be 1/4 and 1/6 respectively. So you would probably get three sandings out of the 1/4 and two sandings out of the 1/6 including the initial sanding. But if the initial sanding on the 1/2 is negligible as they claim, you may be able to get two more sandings after.
I think the premium is the result of better wood selection and the new precision milling machines. Now what if they start doing that with the 3/4? Will there be another premuim on top of that?
Tom
I like the trend to more efficient machinery and less waste in wood products. Thin kerf blades, laser selection and processing, precision equipment. That results in less sawdust and more product from the same tree harvest.
And someone haas to pay for that new capital investment in machinery and training.
but It seems to me that the mill is getting that payback in the greater amount of product to sell. The added markup is not justified in my mind except from a marketing standpoint.
Excellence is its own reward!
I am also shopping for a hardwood flooring to be instaqlled over engineered wood I-beam framing with Advantech sublflooring above a crawl space. Along come sales persons claiming prefinished product and engineered wood flooring is the best way to go. It looks to me like the engineeried flooring is for slab on grade and perhaps not really best for my situation. Prefinished apparently means some king of beveled edge in stead of the more monolihic square edged.
What do you think?