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Recently I was watching Property Brothers and saw two episodes where both houses had Brazilian Hardwood flooring. The funny thing is that I live in Brazil and i
by frozenlettuce 3y ago
Recently I was watching Property Brothers and saw two episodes where both houses had Brazilian Hardwood flooring. The funny thing is that I live in Brazil and it is quite rare to find houses with that type of flooring - the bureaucracy and costs associated make it very expensive - but that might not be the case if the customer is Canadian
- bastardoperator 3y agoI would argue there is zero point in using real hardwood on floors these days given vinyl planks are way cheaper, way more durable, and look nearly indistinguishable from real thing.
- harimau777 3y agoPersonally I don't trust vinyl flooring not to outgas toxic chemicals or produce toxic dust as it wears down.
- abakker 3y agoHardwood floors can be re-sanded and refinished many times over, generating no waste. Vinyl floors get scratched and then thrown away. Wood is renewable, vinyl comes from oil wells. I'm not certain this is actually logical.
- trgn 3y agoAnd you feel it, barefoot, touching it, it feels more natural. Hardwood floors cleans better too, more hygienic. Hard to put into words.
- bluGill 3y agoHardwood is always covered in a plastic finish. Yes it feels different, but it is still plastic.
- cinntaile 3y agoI don't know where you got this from, but I can assure you that's not correct.
- trgn 3y agoIs it? Are your referring to the varnish that's applied after?
- thunfischbrot 3y agoThat's not correct. While many people choose polyurethane finished wood since it is less likely to stain from liquids, oils and varnishes are popular as well. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_flooring#Finishing,_buffing,_sanding_and_drying https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_flooring#Finishing,_buffi...
- bhandziuk 3y agoPolyurethane is one type of varnish so if you're going to contrast it you'll have to be more specific (phenolic resin or alkyd resin) Usually oils would be combined with some other varnish, especially on a floor, because they offer nearly zero abrasion or water resistance. You'd think oil finishes like boiled linseed oil or tung oil would offer some water protection because of the oil but they don't. Better than wax or nothing but much worse than varnishes. This is a table from a book on my shelf by Bob Flexner on the subject, Understanding Wood Finishes. It's a good reference https://imgur.com/a/TzacsLs https://imgur.com/a/TzacsLs
- balls187 3y agoDon’t wear outdoor shoes inside. We asians figured this out generations ago.
- Jerrrry 3y agobased and culture-vs.-race-pilled.
- SpaghettiCthulu 3y agoAre there cultures where people actually wear shoes throughout their homes? Taking your shoes off is absolutely not a uniquely asian thing.
- balls187 3y agoBack home, not only do we not wear shoes in the house, we wash our feet anytime we enter after leaving the house.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago> Are there cultures where people actually wear shoes throughout their homes? American culture? Way too many movies I've watched feature americans wearing shoes while lying down on their beds. Always weirded me out.
- SpaghettiCthulu 3y agoI always assumed that was just a television thing.
- Nursie 3y agoDepends really, some people are fussy about the removal of shoes in the home in the UK and some aren't. I'm sure you can guess by the way I say it which end I'm at. I wear shoes around my house because if I don't, as a home-worker, I don't wear shoes very often, and then my feet and ankles start to get painful. I try to segregate indoor and outdoor shoes, but am not very successful at this, and have yet to find slippers which are supportive enough.
- hcurtiss 3y agoWe may be an anomaly, but we have 13.5mm laminates[1] which I'd say were relatively high grade when we put them in. The product we used didn't come with stair kits so we had to do the staircase with oak stained to match. We have two full-size golden retrievers. Eight years later, the laminates look like the day we installed them -- literally. The oak is all scratched up and will take a lot of work to refinish. [2] I was apprehensive about the laminates, and I'm definitely no Captain Planet, but I'll never have anything else. *edited to add imgur link. 1. https://www.pacmatpure.com/product/calypso-collection/ https://www.pacmatpure.com/product/calypso-collection/ 2. https://imgur.com/a/9QI5bC2 https://imgur.com/a/9QI5bC2
- LoganDark 3y agoDoes this page ever actually load?
- xyzzyz 3y agoLaminates are closer to hardwood flooring than to vinyl. Put it in simplest terms, they are basically the same as hardwood flooring, but you can only sand and refinish them maybe once or twice. This limits their lifespan, from 100+ years of full hardwood flooring to “only” a 30-40 years for laminate. Vinyl, on the other hand, is completely different, and is unlikely to survive daily use in serviceable state for more than 20 years, typically even less than that.
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- duxup 3y ago> Vinyl floors get scratched That's pretty hard to do on modern vinyl floors. Vinyl gets a bad rap because there were a lot of low end bad products, now there are some amazingly durable options.
- obscurette 3y agoMy house has original oak floors installed 85 years ago and there is still enough material left for 2-3 sandings.
- holoduke 3y agoBuy you have ceramic alternatives. Wood looking ad well.Good in combination with floor heating and probably last for a 1000 years.
- dylan604 3y agoCeramic flooring is so much colder than a real wood floor to me. I have no numerical data to offer as evidence to how it feels to me. However, walking into a house that has solid tile flooring vs a house with real wood flooring has a night/day difference in feel. I'm not necessarily just talking about F°/C° "colder". It's just a lot less "feels like home" with tile flooring.
- holoduke 3y agoYes you need to have floor heating. Here in the netherlands pretty standard in new houses. The tiles can look really like wood. Its expensive though and not easy to replace. No floor heating would be too cold indeed.
- dylan604 3y agoLike I mentioned, I was using the term "colder" much less in the sense of temperature/heat, but more in the sense of less inviting. Tile floors do not feel cozy. There's a sense of harshness. They are also much more active acoustically as well. Yes, I know furniture and rugs will mitigate some of that, but it's just not something that feels inviting. It's great for a bathroom or kitchen, but for living spaces and bedrooms, it's just not the right feel, to me.
- JAlexoid 3y ago> generating no waste Have you ever redone flooring? Because there's definitely waste when hardwood floors are refinished. Arguably equal to replacing a segment of PVC flooring. But... The amount reflooring we do, it's not even a concern. Even if PVC comes from oil - flooring has years of service and isn't burned for fuel. It's what we call "durable goods". Quality PVC flooring doesn't scratch easily and doesn't require polyurethane refinishing. Reducing animal sourced food consumption would have a bigger impact, than abstaining from PVC floor planks.
- gopher_space 3y agoHaving worked on and lived with both, I'd rather cut out a section of parquet and replace it than refinish a hardwood floor. IMHO the problem with hardwood is that it takes regular maintenance that nobody really wants to do. The luminous floors in old buildings look that way because they've been oiled and buffed by people on their hands and knees for a hundred years.
- JAlexoid 3y agoI'm not saying that hardwood floors are bad. I'm saying that PVC or laminate flooring(much more common) is absolutely not a concern for climate change. "They come from oil" is an illogical argument for durable goods. In addition - when you cut a part of the hardwood flooring, your new piece will not look the same without a lot of work. Specially for hardwood flooring that is more than a few decades old.
- balls187 3y agoThey can be, but how often are they in the time a home is owned by a single person? I mean if you care about waste single family homes are very inefficient.
- bastardoperator 3y agoYou're right if we're not accounting for time, energy, work, money, and being displaced while they're refinishing said floor in your waste assessment. My last house had real wood floors, you can't be there when it's happening, even water based lacquers have toxic fumes and particulates. Vinyl is cheaper, stronger, less prone to scratches than wood, more water resistant, and requires minimum maintenance and upkeep cost. Vinyl is also recyclable...
- alistairSH 3y agoWe went with a mid-grade LVP in the basement (ease of install, cost, and water-resistance). It's fine in that use case, but it has some drawbacks over wood. The primary one I've noticed is the damage pattern (from moving furniture, etc) isn't good - wood patinas better, where LVP just gets gouges. Maybe there are more expensive LVP options that don't do this.
- doctorhandshake 3y agoI prefer to use patina to refer to acceptable or even desirable wear, and in that sense, LVP doesn't patina at all, but rather gouges, as you say.
- simonsarris 3y ago> look nearly indistinguishable maybe I'm top 1% neurotic about these things but I can tell from Zillow images alone. And definitely by feel of walking on them and the distinct noise they make. There's no comparison. I seriously doubt they are indistinguishable for most people, but I could be very wrong, especially since so many people go for them.
- thunfischbrot 3y agoMost people just don't care or never knew the difference. Like keming, once you notice it, you will likely notice for the rest of your life.
- lovich 3y agoThat was physically painful to read, good example
- lotsofpulp 3y agoYes. There is no way the extra costs of real hardwood are worth the supposed benefits, to me. LVP or LVT or whatever vinyl name is just so much cheaper and easier to work with, and as long as the floor is clean and presentable, the only difference I see is wood flooring being more expensive.
- jeremyjh 3y agoHave you ever lived in a house with real wood floors? The difference you feel barefoot is quite noticeable. It may not be worth the cost to you, but it is definitely different.
- chmod600 3y agoSometimes life is better when you just accept that something is different but not necessarily worse. Natural gas fireplaces aren't real wood-burning, and I can tell, but I just appreciate that they are way cleaner. Now, furniture is a different story. Wood is much better than the engineered crap. Try lifting a modern piece that looks like wood and maybe has a thin layer of wood (very heavy and easy to damage) and then try lifting something made of real wood (light and strong).
- maccard 3y ago> look nearly indistinguishable from real thing. Have to disagree here. Even at a glance they're totally different.
- chmod600 3y agoThe worst are floors with a thin layer of hardwood surface (a few mm) over some "engineered" material below making up the rest of the plank. I'm not sure vinyl is indistinguishable from real hardwood, but I'd take it over a worst-of-both-worlds compromise.
- some-guy 3y agoGood engineered hardwood has enough of a top wear layer that allows the same number of refinishes as solid hardwood (due to hitting the tongue and groove), plus you get better humidity performance.
- bickfordb 3y agoThe engineered flooring is generally superior technology: 1. It requires less hardwood (rare) for the veneer, and uses softwood (plentiful) for the plywood base. 2. It can be milled exactly to one thickness. Generally with solid hardwood floors you need to sand after installing to get everything into one plane due to moisture movement in the hardwood warping and twisting it. 3. It can be applied in wider planks. Wide solid hardwood floors tend to cup and contract and leave gaps after installation. The plywood base in engineered planks is cross laminated so that it is more stable and resist moisture changes
- munk-a 3y agoThere are very reasonable hardwood materials available - it's just better to prefer sourcing them from countries without illegal exploitation issues. Canadian hardwood is pretty affordable and quite durable for flooring - as an alternative.
- dylan604 3y ago> The funny thing is that I live in Brazil and it is quite rare to find houses with that type of flooring Does Brazilian Hardwood flooring actually mean the type of flooring Brazilians have or just simply that the hardwood being used as flooring is from Brazil?
- frozenlettuce 3y agoIt refers to it being from Brazil. Wood is not a popular building material here.