What's The Best Carpet for a Rental?

So what is the best carpet for a rental?

Well, cheap of course!!!!!  I guess that goes without being said but there are differing reasons for certain types of carpet. This will be based mainly on what type of perspective renters you will have living in your house, condo or apartment.

There are mainly 4 types of renters.

1. Low risk people that will be staying for years (long term renters)
2. Low risk people that will be staying for a short time (short time renters)
3. High risk people that will be staying for a long time (long term renters)
4. High risk people that normally don't stay long at all (short time renters)

Most styles of carpet will not wear out. They will ugly out (mat down, untwisting of the yarns, tip blossom etc) long before they will wear out. And in the case of rentals, most carpet will get stained, ripped or torn long before they wear out. These are general statements that will vary depending on the quality of carpet you have installed and the type of renter you have.

Okay, let's take each scenario one at a time shall we?

1. Low risk long term renter: You can usually spend a little more in this instance because most low risk, long term renters will treat your rental unit like their very own. They know that they are going to stay for a long time and want to live in a nice place so they will normally take very good care of your carpet. In this case what you want is a carpet that has stain protection (accidents still happen!) and can withstand years of wear. So a medium grade/medium priced carpet that is a great value with built in stain protection is the best in this case.

2. Low risk short term renter: These people, even though they won't be staying long, still will take very good care of your carpet. They are inherently clean people that want to live in a nice place! With these folks you will hopefully be able to reuse the carpet after they move out. So you will get more than one use out of your carpet. So again, a medium grade/ medium priced carpet should do the trick. You will get years of use out of your carpet and shouldn't have to change it for a long time.

Rental Unit Carpet Abuse

3. High risk long term renter: Putting in a medium grade/ medium priced carpet in this instance may or may not pan out for you. They make stain, mutilate and otherwise destroy this carpet in a relatively short time and since they are staying for a long time they will want the carpet replaced as a condition for them to stay. You know as well as I do that sometimes renters can be hard to find. A rental sitting empty is just money lost. So you may find yourself replacing carpet long before you should have to. So in this case a low quality/ low priced carpet with great stain resistance is a must (probably a polyester carpet in varying degrees of quality). That way the carpet may ugly out fast but at least it won't be stained. In these instances you can usually avoid having to replace the carpet early.

4. High risk short term renter: This type of renter knows they aren't staying long and don't really care if they mess up the existing carpet. These instances usually call for constant carpet replacements. The carpet doesn't wear out, mat down, ugly out or anything like that but it will usually be abused badly. Stains, rips, tears etc. Since you will never get the wear out of the carpet in this situation, the quality of carpet is irrelevant. Stain protection is still a must but if you buy a polyester carpet or olefin carpet, you can get high stain resistance at a low cost.

So not all rental situations are created equal and each specific instance has different solutions. Carpet is not rocket science but there are sound reasons behind every different scenario. With rentals you want to make money and keeping your floor replacement costs low will help insure this. Going cheap is not always the best way. Matching up the flooring to each different rental scenario will help insure that you make the right choice.

Jeff Dean
Dover Floor Covering
http://www.doverfloorcovering.com

Solid Wood Treads or Wood Flooring on Stairs?

Solid Wood Treads or Wood Flooring on Stairs?

We are currently working on a large solid hardwood job and we will be replacing the carpet on the steps with hardwood. There are a few ways to do this but the main two ways of turning your stairs into a hardwood staircase is to install solid wood treads or install hardwood flooring on the steps.

What's the best way? It depends on what type of steps you currently have, the overall look desired and the construction of the stair itself.

Oak Treads

The staircase in question is an open ended stairwell where both of the step ends are open and do not have a stringer (the stringer is the side of the stairwell that each individual step ends at. Only enclosed stairwells will have stringers). These steps currently have a railing with spindles that are attached at the edges of the step. In this case, 7 steps have both sides open ended and 7 more steps that butt up to a stringer on one side and are open ended on the other side.

Now normally the best way to turn these carpeted steps into a wood stairway would be to disassemble the hand railing, remove the carpet and install solid wood treads (removing and replacing the current tread is a job for a finish carpenter). Then you would need to sand down, stain and finish the treads with an oil base or water based finish. You can also install a wood riser to be stained or painted depending on your preference.

The second option is used when you are installing a new hardwood floor in other rooms of the house that lead up to the stairs. If you are purchasing a pre-finished hardwood floor and you want the stairs to match, then 1 good option would be to install the pre-finished hardwood flooring on the stairs also.
With enclosed steps this is no big deal. We do it all the time. On an opened ended staircase then the best method becomes more murky.

Hardwood Flooring Installed on Steps

To install pre-finished hardwood flooring on an open ended stair case, you will have to frame each step with a stair nose. Then install the pre-finished hard wood flooring within that frame. You will cut off the overhang on the current tread. Your new stair noses will become the new overhang. Your riser can be covered with the hardwood flooring also or you can install birch plywood to be painted.

This method will insure that your flooring is an exact match with your stairs. Also, not to be overlooked is the importance of the finish itself also matching. With the job we are working on right now, the hardwood flooring finish is Mohawk's Armor Max which is an extremely hard finish with a 50 year finish warranty. Nothing compares to the wearability of this finish. So if we were to put solid hardwood treads on the stairs and sand, stain and finish them with the best on site finishing products available there would be a huge performance difference between the two floorings.

To sum up; the best method for creating a hardwood staircase is probably using solid wood stair treads but in certain circumstances that will not be the case. Color match and finish match are two very important considerations. So in our example, installing a pre-finished hardwood flooring product onto the existing stairs is the better choice.








Jeff Dean
Dover Floor Covering
http://www.doverfloorcovering.com

Do You Need To Acclimate Your Hardwood Before Installation?

Do You Need To Acclimate Your Hardwood Before Installation? No!

The hardwood manufacturers would have you believe that you MUST acclimate your wood before the installation. There are good reasons for that but it really isn't a necessity.

Installing hardwood in your home adds beauty, durability and value. So you want to install it the right way. Hardwood, being a natural product, used to be a living thing. But now that the tree has been cut down and milled into a flooring product, it still breathes. Hardwood will adsorb the moisture from the air and expand. Or in cold weather climates, hardwood will dry out when the air in the home is dry. With a forced air furnace running during the colder months, the air in the home can become very dry. Without adequate moisture in the air the wood will contract (shrink). With prolonged bouts of dryness (dry air) the wood can actually start to crack (this will be a discussion for another day: the importance of keeping the relative humidity in your home at a somewhat constant rate and the benefits of it).

But our blog today is on acclimating the wood. Acclimating the wood means having the wood delivered a few days before the actual installation so that it can sit in the home and "acclimate" to the humidity levels in the home.

Why is this important? Well, if you bring out the wood to the job site and the moisture content of the wood is over 2% higher than the base floor then this can cause issues. Issues that the hardwood flooring manufacturer know can and will happen. The most common problem associated with non acclimation is this: let's say that the new hardwood flooring that is to be installed in your home has a moisture content of 6.7%. The plywood subfloor that the hardwood is to be installed over has a moisture content of 9.2% (it's been a humid summer). Now when we install the wood flooring, the higher moisture content will wick up into the new flooring. The new hardwood will start to absorb the moisture out of the subfloor. The new hardwood remember has a moisture content of 6.7% and we are installing it tight together on your substrate.

In a fairly short time frame the moisture levels of the two floorings (the new hardwood and existing plywood subfloor) will become somewhat equal. The subfloor will lose moisture and the new hardwood will gain moisture. So the new hardwood will now expand. Remember earlier in this blog we explained how wood will expand and contract with differing humidity levels.

So now the wood is installed and expanding. There is really no room for the wood to expand. Because we've installed it with a 6.7% moisture level and now it's closer to 8% after installation, you can get buckling of the floor. Remember, the wood is expanding with no place for it to go. This can and will cause flooring failure and the hardwood flooring manufacturers will not honor ANY warranty claims if the wood was not acclimated properly!

So why do I say that acclimation is not always necessary? Well basically, if the moisture content of the new hardwood and the existing substrate is within 2% then no acclimation is necessary. For example: the hardwood has a moisture content of 7% and the plywood subfloor has a moisture content of 7.5%. This would be okay. The new hardwood floor can tolerate a 2% variance without any installation issues in most cases.

I've always wondered why the hardwood flooring manufacturers would insist on acclimation. My thoughts behind this were based on installing hardwood in the humid summer months here in Michigan. If I brought out the new hardwood to acclimate and the relative humidity in the home/air was extremely high (like over 90%), then why would I want to acclimate the wood. The wood sitting in the home would start to absorb all this moisture and start expanding. Now my 5' wide boards are actually 5.1" wide or more upon installation. This is fine during the humid summer months but in the dry air of winter months, the floor will shrink and gaps will start to form in the flooring between planks. This is especially true on wide boards made of hickory or maple!

The secret is to have the new hardwood flooring be within 2% moisture content of the subfloor (thus avoiding any installation issues) AND have the relative humidity in the air to be between 35% and 55%. This is the optimal situation for hardwood flooring installation. I would rather not bring out and acclimate the new hardwood flooring in a home where the humidity is sky high. Rather, we need to bring down the humidity level in the home become acclimation. Running your air conditioner for about a week before installation of your new hardwood will sufficiently dehumidify your home for optimal installation conditions.

Now, I'm not saying don't acclimate your hardwood flooring because the fact is the flooring manufacturers will not warranty your flooring if it isn't acclimated. They have found it safer to just say acclimate everything. Whether it's needed or not is irrelevant. Most hardwood flooring retailers won't educate the consumers about the requirements of whole house humidity levels and take the easy way out. Acclimate everything....(if you have shrinking during dry months and gaps between planks, the hardwood flooring manufacturers will just say it's normal but is that what you, the consumer, want?).

Acclimate everything. But is it needed everytime? No. If the moisture content in the new hardwood is within 2% of the basefloor then no acclimation is really needed.

What about engineered flooring? Does it need to be acclimated since it is much more dimensionally stable compared to solid hardwood? Now that's a blog for another day.......




Jeff Dean
Dover Floor Covering
http://www.doverfloorcovering.com

Solid Wood VS Engineered Wood

Wood flooring.

Most people in the Midwest seem to think that solid hardwood is better than engineered hardwood. Why is that? Engineered wood flooring has been the preferred wood flooring on both coasts. The right coast and the left coast have been buying engineered for a long time now. Throughout my 37 years in the flooring business I've almost exclusively sold solid hardwood. Just about every job is solid. But is it better? Now that's the question......

Of course there are always pros and cons to every product and some products work better in certain situations.

Solid hardwood is of course solid wood. One big chunk of oak or maple or hickory or whatever species of wood you would prefer milled to a certain width and length (almost always 3/4" thick). People think a solid chunk of wood would be better than engineered which is a number of ply of wood glued and compressed together. Well, engineered wood is also an all wood floor, just not one big chunk of wood.

They make engineered wood flooring with anywhere from 3 to 7 ply (sometimes more). Each layer has the grain turned 90 degrees. This gives engineered wood unrivaled stability compared to solid wood. This is probably the biggest asset for engineered wood flooring (stability is the attribute where wood will expand and contract with differing humidity levels. Like during the winter when the furnace is running all the time your solid wood flooring will shrink as it loses moisture. This will cause gaps in your floor between planks especially in the wider planks. In the summer when the humidity returns your wood will expand and close those gaps. Engineered wood because of the way it is constructed will not have this problem). You can install engineered wood flooring below grade on a concrete floor (you can't do this with solid wood unless you first add a plywood base floor over the cement which will greatly increase the expense of the overall job). Plus, the higher humidity levels you will encounter below grade may wreak havoc with a solid wood floor, especially with wider planks.

So below grade and/or on a cement substrate, engineered wood flooring is the way to go. Above grade you can easily use either option.

Also, engineered flooring is considered a "green" product because you are using much less of the featured hardwood (such as maple) in the final product. The top layer will be maple whereas the other ply will feature a softer wood such as spruce. This saves on the number of premium trees that have to be cut down to make a maple floor. Which is good, isn't it?  No problem cutting down them spruce trees......lol. Way to many of them around anyways......JK



Jeff Dean
Dover Floor Covering
http://www.doverfloorcovering.com