I’m looking for a little feedback on the choice of hardwood for a 1,200-foot job in a house my wife and I are buying. I’ll be doing the installation, and I don’t expect any major issues. (I’m an experienced woodworker, it’s a very straightforward job, I’ve already researched hardwood installation tools and techniques to death, I helped a neighbor do his hardwood installation a couple of years ago, etc.)
My wife and I can make the bang-per-buck value decision; we’re hoping for some input on the product quality of our options.
We plan to install either 3- or 4-inch-wide, 3/4-inch solid maple, and have narrowed the sourcing down to two local (Rochester, NY) hardwood dealers and Lowe’s.
Choice 1 is Chelsea Plank Flooring (http://www.plankflooring.com/), and we’ve been quoted a price by a local dealer for 4-inch-wide material of $5.75/sq foot.
Choice 2 is Signature BSL (http://www.signaturebsl.com/en/accueil.html), with a quote for 3-inch-wide material from a different local dealer than Choice 1 of about $5.50/sq. foot.
Choice 3 is Bruce 4-inch-wide maple from Lowe’s, their item #335783 (http://www.lowes.com/pd_335783-972-ABC4410_0__?Ntt=335783), which we can get for roughly $4.50/sq. ft with one of the infamous 10% moving coupons. It’s $4.98 without the coupon. I should note that the photo of the wood on their site at the above link is very different from the samples we’ve seen in various Lowe’s stores. The photo shows a lot of character wood, while the in-store samples are all virtually 100% clear wood. I don’t know which representation of the product is accurate, although I suspect the in-store samples are better than what would come out of the cartons; we definitely want as much clear wood as possible.
The Lowe’s/Bruce option is appealing — saving over $1/sq. ft for that size job would be welcome — but I’ve found numerous comments on this forum and other places online that made this sound like a very bad idea, for quality purposes. I want to avoid dealing with incorrectly milled or warped boards as much as possible, obviously.
Is it worth considering the Lowe’s/Bruce option at all? Or should I ignore it in the interest of getting clear wood of higher quality and (hopefully) preserving (what’s left of) my sanity?
If Lowe’s/Bruce is off the table, then what do people here think of Chelsea Plank and Signature BSL? I couldn’t find any reviews of them online. Both dealers seemed very reputable, and the large samples we saw of the flooring were beautiful, for whatever that’s worth.
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Flooring option
I have experience with Lowe's/Bruce and Chelsea. The Lowe's Bruce, I used the Bruce 4" prestige plank, initally was garbage. The boards were warped, split, uneven in width. They have gotten better, but they still lack quality. Also, I have severe fading in one room that's exposed to the sun. They're supposed to have UV protection. A couple more things about Lowe's, they don't carry splines, and they recommend using flooring staples. I was lucky to have a local flooring company not far from home that carried splines. Don't use staples to install. The one thing I liked about Lowe's was the no payments/no interest option. That was nice.
Chelsea plank flooring is a solid product. They offer "plank" widths only, however you can buy just "shorts". Meaning the board length will be at most 4 feet. No really long boards. The flooring finish is matte, not high gloss like Bruce and the bevel is cut much nicer. The all around quality of the boards are much nicer. However, you will pay a premium. I was lucky because they are only 40 minutes from my home. If you have a chance visit the store in Chelsea. They also don't have the payment options that Lowe's offers.
David
David
Why do you recommend NOT using staples?
Is it the maple product or do you dislike them all together?
thanks.
I should correct something in my original post. I quoted those prices from my notes, but when I called the local dealers (Chelsea and Signature BSL), I found out I had mangled the pricing, so let me set the record straight.
The Chelsea maple is $5.75/sq ft, but that's for the 3-inch-wide material. The 4-inch is $6.20, which adds another $540 to the cost of materials. (Not correcting for the smaller number of cleats needed.
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The Signature BSL is $6.09 for 3.25-inch-wide material, but the gentleman I spoke with said that the price would likely go up about 20 cents/sq. foot once the Canadian mills all came back from vacation(!?). I think I got confused with the pricing on this item because the dealer was running a sale when I visited them a few weeks ago.