Hardwood Flooring

If there is one reliable fact in this world, it is that the costs of energy will only keep rising. Homeowners certainly know this fact well as prices have risen significantly in the past 20 years and will keep doing so. Which is why it is very important to maintain energy efficient homes. Even when these costs temporarily drop, they inevitably rise again in summer months for cooling and wintertime for heating. With hardwood flooring being one of the top features home buyers look for in their next residence, many wonder, “Are hardwood floors energy efficient?”

While no type of flooring will substantially cut your energy costs, there are ways to improve home comfort and enhance energy efficiency with these surfaces. Below are some tips for that as well as to answer that question of, “Are hardwood floors energy efficient?”

Enhance Energy Savings through Draft-Proofing

Draft-proofing is one of the best ways to answer, “Are hardwood floors energy efficient?” You can save between $25 and $40 per year through this tactic. Couple draft-proofing with other methods likes turning off lights, appliances and electronics when you are not using them and your energy bills will decrease slightly.

Draft-proof for energy efficiency by installing door sweeps at the base of each door in your home. These sweeps block drafts, whether from the outdoors or inside draftiness. They can help each room retain its own heat or cooling to cut down on lost energy and your ultimate heating or air conditioning costs.

Another draft-proof method is use of area rugs to keep your rooms warmer. Area rugs also help with acoustics, keeping sounds from bouncing from the hard surfaces.

Fill Gaps In Your Hardwood Flooring to Make it More Energy Efficient

Filling gaps in your hardwood floors is another great tip to answer, “Are hardwood floors energy efficient?” You can save between $75 and $90 each year on your energy bills if your wood floors and skirting have good insulation. Of course, old hardwood floors typically have gaps. Suspended wood floors typically have no insulation, as well.

Hardwood flooring needs space to expand and contract according to environmental conditions. This is why you should never fill every gap. But after ensuring your flooring has a good expansion gap around the perimeter, you can fill drafty gaps. This is true for even historic hardwood floors.

To fill gaps in your hardwood flooring, use a natural resin filler mixed with sawdust from stained wood of the same species. This color matching will prevent visible flaws. Of course, you can also call upon your hardwood flooring pros at Tri Point Flooring in the Raleigh area to do this work for you. After filling your floor gaps, your floor feels less drafty and offers better energy efficiency.

Ensure Your Hardwood Floors Are Insulated

Insulation’s primary purpose is to provide energy efficiency, sound absorption or both. In the case of hardwood flooring, insulation fulfills both objectives. When you want to install new hardwood floors, it is important to ensure you first install an insulating underlay over the concrete foundation or other subfloor.

It is important to note one issue related to insulating your hardwood floors, however. If the room is above a heated room, not insulating the floor enables heat to rise from the lower room into the upper one. This can actually reduce your energy costs. For a second-floor room with hardwood flooring over an unheated space like a garage, insulation is the right choice.

In this answer to “are hardwood floors energy efficient,” floor insulation can save you about $45 to $90 per year, depending on the structure and size of your home.

Heat Your Hardwood Floors

Part of the answer to “are hardwood floors energy efficient” comes from custom features, such as whether you have under-floor heating. An under-floor heating system lies beneath the hardwood flooring to keep the surfaces toasty underfoot. Because heat rises, these systems also help heat the entire space in which you have wood floors. Obviously, this is a choice you have to make when installing your new floors. It also requires an upfront investment for a long-term savings on your energy bills.

Additionally, under-floor heating works best under engineered hardwood floors, not natural hardwoods. This is because the heat and cool-down effects cause natural hardwoods to expand and contract. Engineered hardwoods will not buckle, warp or cup under these conditions.

Make Your Hardwood Floors the Most Energy Efficient They Can Be

If you have questions like “are hardwood floors energy efficient,” talk to your Raleigh area professionals at Tri Point Flooring. We enjoy helping our current and new customers get the most from their hardwood floors. We will also help you select the best flooring for your home’s ideal energy efficiency and aesthetic appeal. Call us today at (919) 771-7542.

If you are thinking about installing hardwood flooring in your home, you have many quality options to choose from including the latest designs, finishes, and colors. Obviously, the type of wood you choose will have the greatest impact on the look and feel of your rooms. Another option to consider is the texture of the wood floor planks. Textured wood is a popular choice that can further enhance the look of your home. Texture can add depth to your floor as well as adding a luxurious feel when you are walking barefoot on it. 

What is Textured Wood Flooring?

You may wonder what it means to have a textured wood floor. All wood starts out with a natural texture, but as it is transformed into flooring it is sanded into smooth wood strips or planks that are the same thickness. This smooth wood can be textured in several different ways, which can add depth and dimension to your floor. Most wooden flooring can be textured, including solid and engineered woods. Luxury vinyl plank, also known as LVP is also available with texture. Textured flooring doesn’t tend to show scratches as easily as a smooth wood floor can. Therefore, many busy families or homes with pets, prefer textured wooden planks.

There are several types of texture that can be added to wood flooring, including: 

• Hand-scraped wood
• Distressed wood
• Wire-brushed wood

Hand-Scraped

One of the most traditional surface textures is hand-scraped. Hand-scraping makes your new wood floors look distressed, aged, and weathered. Originally done by hand using a flat blade, modern hand-scraped boards are achieved using machines to mimic the look with less cost. 

A hand-scraped texture is perfect for a rustic, country or historical design scheme. Despite the slightly worn appearance, these floors are popular and will remain highly stylish for decades to come. They feature knots, exposed wood grain and scrapes to give the appearance of an older floor. Several woods work well with a hand-scraped texture including oak, pine, hickory, pecan, and walnut.

Distressed

Distressed wood is another option when you want the old world character of historic hardwoods. With distressed hardwood floors, your entire home appears warmer and cozier. With this surface texture and finish option, you can expect visitors and guests to ask if you repurposed your planks from an older property, a very popular feature among homebuyers today. 

You can expect distressed floors to remain popular among interior designers and homebuyers for many years to come. Younger buyers, in particular, love this textured design aesthetic and seek it out when looking for their next property. Although it is a popular look, the distressed texture is not as widely saturated on the market as some other textured wood flooring. This means your home will have some instant credibility for “those floors” when compared to other available properties.

Wire-Brushed

As with hand-scraping, a wire-brushed surface texture also provides a weathered appearance and more texture than smooth hardwoods. If you want wood flooring with more character, yet a beautifully finished appearance, wire-brushed hardwoods are a great fit.

This surface texture is typically created by scraping the wood planks with a hard wire brush prior to the application of the top finish coat that seals and helps to protect the wooden floor.

Wire-brushing adds a different dimension and unique character to floors, with a slightly more subdued look. Oak and Hickory lends itself well to wire-brushed  wood flooring and is typically done with a matte finish.  A wire-brushed finish can hide scratches well. 

Textured Wood Flooring Costs

Choosing a texture for your wood flooring is usually more expensive than a simple smooth surface. Overall pricing will depend on the plank width and length, and whether you choose solid hardwood or engineered wood. Engineered wood is usually the least expensive choice, but there are premium texture options that can be more. 

Call Tri Point Flooring for Quality Textured Flooring 

Explore the complete line of textured wood products for your hardwood project. Call Tri Point Flooring serving Raleigh, Cary and Apex, NC at (919) 771-7542 for a free consultation and more information.

Hardwood floors provide an instant upgrade to your home interior. These floors warm each room’s appearance and provide upscale quality that enhance your home’s resale value. But at the same time, having hardwoods where you once had carpeting can make a huge difference in how your home sounds. Yes, a room with hardwood floors can be noisier. That is, unless you know how to decorate to quiet the room with hardwood floors.

In a room with hardwood floors where you once had carpet, some new noises you might notice include:

• Clicking heels
• Dog or cat claws tapping and scratching
• Squeaking floorboards
• Carrying voices
• Louder atmospheric sounds

A Room with Hardwood Floors has Increased Volume Because of the Sound Waves Bouncing Off of the Hard Surfaces…

… such as the floors themselves and nearby cabinets, countertops, walls, ceilings and hard furniture. You need to interrupt these sound waves to quiet your room. Because your new floors added hardness, your next task to turn down the volume is to add more soft surfaces.

By adding textiles to your room with hardwood floors, you can break up the sound waves.

In turn, you can enjoy greater quiet and serenity than you might expect. At the same time, you do not diminish your ability to hear conversations or your favorite television show. Instead, you enhance the sounds you want to hear while quieting the ones you need to filter out.

Below, we look at some specific ways to quiet a room with hardwood floors.

Windows and Walls

You can easily create an environment that absorbs unnecessary sounds in a room with hardwood floors. Start by adding pillows and chair cushions to seating. Place one or more woven area rugs on your new hardwood floors.

Hang cloth draperies or curtains at each window to disrupt the sound waves. Using thick materials like tapestry, suede and velvet will work better for sound absorption than thin materials like linen, cotton or lace. It is also better to line your drapes with fabric for greater sound absorption.

If you still have too much noise in a room with hardwood floors after the above enhancements, try adding fabric wall hangings. You can suspend a woven rug, quilt or tapestry to reduce the sound bouncing from the floors to the walls.

Furniture

It is best to use upholstered furniture in a room with hardwood floors. These types of pieces immediately reduce sound levels. Consider adding a comfy chair, ottoman, sofa or upholstered headboard. The best pieces for sound absorption are those wrapped in heavy fabrics like microfiber, velvet, corduroy or chenille.

To the upholstered furniture, add throw pillows and blankets. If you have a metal, glass or wooden table in the room with hardwood floors, consider adding a tablecloth.

Floor Treatments

If you are about to have your wooden floors installed, ensure your flooring has a quality underlayment. This material provides cushioning to make standing and walking on the floors more comfortable. At the same time, the underlayment can reduce atmospheric noise in a room with hardwood floors.

If the wood floor you select is LVP flooring, then the underlayment is built into the flooring planks.

Once you have had your hardwoods for awhile, you might notice a squeaky floorboard here and there. These squeaks typically occur after the boards have had time to settle and one rubs against an adjacent board. Have your flooring professional fix these squeaks as desired to keep the room quiet and peaceful.

Other Tips for Quieting a Room with Hardwood Floors

Having a room with hardwood floors where you once had carpeting can mean making some slight lifestyle changes for noise reduction. For example, you may wish to invest in some soft-soled slippers to reduce the sound of shoes on your floors. Or, simply embrace how great hardwood feels on bare feet by kicking off your shoes when indoors.
Also keep your pets’ toenails clipped to reduce their traffic noise.

Benefits of Having a Room with Hardwood Floors

Despite the potential noise associated with having a room with hardwood floors, this flooring provides so many benefits.

Benefits of having hardwood flooring include:

• Visual appeal
• Low maintenance and easy cleaning
• Strength and durability
• Home resale value
• Improved air quality
• Timelessness and versatility
• Long-lasting and cost effective
• Can be refinished
• Improved acoustics

Yes, improved acoustics are one of the major benefits of having a room with hardwood floors. While you can also hear some atmospheric sounds you would rather avoid, you will enjoy hearing clearer conversations. With all of the other benefits hardwoods offer over other types of flooring, accepting some noise is a no-brainer.

If you are considering having hardwood floors installed in your Raleigh, Cary or Apex, NC home, schedule a free consultation with one of Tri Point Flooring’s hardwood experts. Call us today at (919)771-7542.

In the Raleigh area of North Carolina, homeowners have always embraced hardwood floors. In fact, this type of flooring remains a top choice for new home construction and renovations. This is true even centuries after the first residents of this area made the same choices. In 2021, builders and residents will keep embracing hardwoods. But some wood floor finishes will prove more popular than ever before.

Below, we explore some of the hottest floor finishes for 2021. These include fumed wood and smoked wood, satin finished, matte finished, site finished and oiled finishes. Shiny wood floor finishes are less popular for 2021. More people want a flat or matte appearance for their hardwoods.

Fumed Wood and Smoked Wood

Fumed wood floor finishes, also called smoked wood, come from the wood’s exposure to ammonia gas. This gas reacts with the wood’s natural tannins to create a dark finish with a gray tinge.

Around Raleigh, Cary, and Apex, North Carolina, fumed wood and smoked wood floor finishes are most popular for light shades of flooring, such as white oak. Using white oak allows the ammonia to emphasize the grain color in the wood. Smoked wood creates an even finish for your flooring with each plank consistently colored through this method.

If you want a modern, yet vintage look for your flooring, fumed wood or smoked wood makes an excellent choice. This look will remain popular for years.

Satin Finished

Satin finished wood flooring provides an alternative to a super-shiny finish and a matte look. As the middle ground between these two other options, you can still have some shine while more easily keeping your floors looking clean. As most homeowners with glossy-finished floors quickly learn, this older-style finish shines a spotlight on dirt, scratches and dings.

Satin wood floor finishes rate at about 40 percent shine when compared to a glossy finished floor at about 80 to 100 percent. With satin finish, your floor still has some shine, albeit more subtle than with gloss.

This is a look you can expect to remain popular for years. In fact, it will likely never become unfashionable. This makes satin wood floor finishes a great choice for your long-term flooring selection.

Matte Finished

Matte wood floor finishes have not yet gotten the full credit they deserve. Satin has lingered as the most frequent choice in the past several years and glossy has remained top-of-the-list for many homeowners, too. But matte finished wood floors should take over in popularity in 2021 and through at least 2028. You can expect them to remain in style for the lifetime of your newly installed hardwood floors.

To envision how matte wood floors will look in your home, you must understand that this finish is neither flat, nor dull. The term “matte” typically makes people think that is the case. Instead, the matte finish provides a contemporary appearance that easily catches the eye. But for your floors to look their best with a matte wood finish, you need to have good quality flooring, to start. It will not provide the best results if your floors are not already in good shape.

Site Finished Wood Floors

Among 2021 top floor finishes, site finished wood flooring provides the most control over style and appearance. For this option, your contractor installs raw hardwood flooring or works with existing hardwood floors. They sand and refinish the floors after installation. Through the site finished process, you can ensure the greatest color consistency across your flooring. You will not see any color changes at the edges of the planks.

This type of wood floor finishes also enables you to see how the flooring looks in your own home and your actual lighting. Site finished wood floors remain one of the top finishes for 2021, just as they have for generations. This option will continue to be a top choice. However, you should seek the help of professionals. Trying to DIY your own hardwoods takes a ton of work, requires professional care and necessitates some quality controls.

Oiled Wood Floors

As far as top floor finishes for 2021 go, oiled floors are among the most interesting. Oiled finishes differ from traditional polyurethane top coats. The oil finish seeps into the wood and coats it, layer by layer. Polyurethane only coats the top of your flooring. Through oiled coating, your wood is made stronger and more durable.

An oiled wood finish also provides a matte finished look, like the one discussed earlier in this article. It also looks organic, suiting your natural or environmentally in-tune aesthetic quite well.

When refinishing oiled wood floors, you do not have to sand. This differs from the laborious process of refinishing most wood flooring. Instead, you only need to add more oil to the wood for a refreshed appearance.

Although there are many benefits to oiled wood floors, there are drawbacks, too. One such drawback is that the flooring is more prone to scratching and water damage. This means you must refinish more often than with traditional floor finishes.

Raleigh Area Hardwood Flooring Experts

If you want to install hardwoods or prefinished wood flooring in your home or commercial property, you only need to call the local experts at Tri Point Flooring. We provide the highest quality of wood floor installation, refinishing and floor finishes. Call us today at (919) 771-7542.

When is it time to replace hardwood floors? Hardwood floors increase the value of your home by providing beauty, durability, easy maintenance, and livability. These floors hold up very well to high traffic. But eventually, as for all things, your wood floors will see their end. When they do, it is time to look for a replacement.

How do you know when to refinish and when it is time to replace hardwood floors? Below, Tri Point Flooring of Cary, North Carolina provides some tips for knowing when you need to replace hardwood floors in your home.

When you decide to replace your floors, popular options include:

• Solid hardwood floors
• Engineered hardwood floors
• Prefinished hardwood floors
• Luxury vinyl plank floors
• Lifecore Flooring
• Mullican Flooring
• Triangulo Flooring
• Bruce Harwood Flooring

Your Floors Squeak and Creak

When you have hardwood floors, you can refinish them by buffing out scratches, nicks and dents. But you cannot make your hardwood floors quiet again through sanding and resealing after they develop squeaks and creaks. These noises are typically indicative of warped or contracted planks that rub against each other. The nails play a role in the noisemaking, too.

You will need to replace hardwood floors in your home if they are irritatingly noisy. That is, if you want to silence them. At the same time, you will probably need to replace the subfloor too. Subflooring can contribute to the orchestration in your boards.

You Have Refinished Your Floors in the Past

You can only refinish solid or engineered hardwood floors so many times before you need to replace them. If you have had your floors sanded and resealed once or more in the past, you may not have enough wood to do this again. In these circumstances, you should replace hardwood floors in your home unless your local expert tells you they can endure another refinishing.

The Floors Play Host to Tiny Creatures

You should replace hardwood floors if they host an infestation of bugs, particularly termites. Otherwise, you risk dangerous problems because of how these creatures compromise wood’s integrity. Keeping your infested hardwoods can also cause the termites to move to walls, ceilings and even your wood furnishings. Ants can also indicate you need to replace hardwood floors.

Your Floors Are Not Sound

Obviously, if your floors are not sound for holding weight, they have to go. You cannot risk anyone falling through your floors. This is a sure way to break bones and experience other injuries.

If you feel your floor planks individually moving beneath your feet, call your local hardwood flooring expert for help. They will assess the issue and determine whether your floor is still sound. If not, you probably need the subflooring replaced, too.

You must replace hardwood floors like this as moving boards prohibit sanding and refinishing. Without replacement, you will be on edge in walking across this area of your flooring. Also, where some boards and the subfloor is compromised, the rest of the floor is likely damaged, too.

How to Replace Hardwood Floors

Your floors are the largest surface in your home. You need these surfaces to be stable, sound and safe, as much as they are beautiful. Really, if your floors have the above types of damage, it is only a matter of time until you will need to replace them.

Learning whether you need to replace hardwood floors in your Wake County or Chatham County home is simple. Just call Tri Point Flooring for an in-home review and estimate. In some cases, hardwoods do well with refinishing. If that is what your floors need, Tri Point Flooring can provide beautiful results. If it is time to replace your hardwoods, we offer a broad range of solid hardwoods, engineered hardwoods, luxury vinyl plank flooring, and prefinished hardwoods to suit your décor and budget. Call us today at (919)771-7542.

Even where your home experiences the most traffic, hardwood floors keep looking great for years. Hardwoods hide scrapes and dents very well. They are also resistant to spills and stains. When bigger dings occur, you only have to call your prefinished hardwood flooring experts for help. More often than not, restoration is possible for most prefinished solid and prefinished engineered hardwood.

As you can see, these are some great benefits of prefinished hardwood floors, particularly when compared to carpeting. This is also why so many homebuyers seek hardwood floors as a top consideration in where they live. Homeowners love prefinished hardwoods as they make adding value to their home and creating a healthier and more attractive living space easier. Below, we look more deeply at some major benefits of prefinished hardwood floors.

Prefinished Hardwood Floors Quick Installation

These floors are made outside of the home by a manufacturer. Which means that as soon as they are cut to proper length and put into place, the wood floor is finished. This is very much like how homeowners purchase their tile, precut, and finished for installation.

Through this pre-finishing and quick installation, you avoid higher costs associated with the installation of new unfinished solid hardwoods. You also enjoy having your flooring quickly installed and your wooden flooring complete and ready to immediately use in a matter of just a couple days!

Higher Quality Finish

When compared to in-home finished hardwoods, your prefinished hardwood floors have a higher quality finish. This is true because the manufacturer precisely applies the finish in a controlled environment. The lasting finish is strong. It prevents the elements, spills, and stains from causing damage to your floors like traditional hardwoods.

Lasting Beauty

Prefinished hardwood floors are incredibly beautiful, besides being resilient. The factory-applied finish has a more consistent and balanced appearance than hardwoods stained in place. That said, the wood grade used for your prefinished hardwoods still determines the final appearance of grain patterns and color depth. Overall, in comparison to finishing hardwoods on-site, prefinished flooring provides greater aesthetic appeal.

Wait-Free Use of Your Flooring

After the installation of your prefinished hardwoods, you do not need to stay off of your floors. Because they are factory-finished, there is no sanding or finishing that takes place in your home. This means you can immediately enjoy the use of your floors and do not have to wait for the finish to dry. There is also no strong odor of stains or finishes to breathe for weeks!

Warranty-Backed Beauty

Your prefinished hardwoods are made to exacting standards. Because of this effort by the manufacturer to provide the best product, you can expect your floors to last decades. Even with heavy foot traffic in your home, you can enjoy your prefinished hardwood flooring for years. You only have to keep the floor clean and protected against spills and the elements. Leading manufacturers back their prefinished flooring with extended warranties, for these reasons.

Prefinished Hardwood Floors in Raleigh, NC

Tri Point Flooring is your top resource for prefinished hardwood flooring in the Raleigh area of North Carolina. For many years, we have installed prefinished hardwoods for customers through the Triangle Area, including Raleigh, Apex, and Cary. Our high attention to detail and customer satisfaction shows in our wonderful online reviews. Check these out and talk to us about options for your home’s most beautiful flooring. Call us today at (919) 771-7542 for a free in-home consultation and price quote.

If you recently refinished your hardwood floors using a dark color, you may feel unsure about how to decorate your house for the most beautiful effect. Dark wood floors are actually quite sophisticated, providing a rich appeal to any space. But if you use too many dark colors in your furnishings and other décor, you risk making your rooms appear heavy.

Below, we explore some tips for decorating your home or commercial space to suit your new dark wood floors.

What Décor Works Well with Dark Wood Floors?

Whether you chose natural hardwoods for your space or had luxury vinyl plank floors installed, you have many years ahead to enjoy their durability, beauty, and low maintenance appeal. But with dark wood floors, it is important to not darken your space too much with poorly chosen upholstery or wallcoverings. Instead, you should decorate to brighten the space and make the flooring a warm foundation.

Consider decorating by following these tips:

• White walls with light wood furnishings
• Furniture legs stained to match the flooring
• A mix of wood colors with white
• Rich wall colors with a patterned kilim rug
• Dark floor coverings with light walls
• White marble, white surfaces, bronze and wood
• Bright colors with white
• Urban layered textures and muddy hues

White Walls with Light Wood Furnishings

Select wood furnishings several shades lighter than your dark wood floors, but similar in warmth. Add sumptuous white rugs, such as a fluffy faux fur selection. Paint walls a sharp white to contrast against the hardwoods or luxury vinyl plank floors. The result is a chic look of harmony very in-step with the times.

Furniture Legs Stained to Match Flooring

For an elegant and well pulled-together look, ensure your sofa and chair legs match the color of your dark wood floors. This removes the distraction of oddly colored legs seeming to peer out from beneath upholstered furnishings. To suit this cohesive approach at the foundation of the room, use a significantly lighter color on your walls. This directs the “weight” of the room downward and creates a breezier feeling for the rest of the space.

A Mix of Wood Colors with White

Instead of matching your furnishings with your dark wood floors or luxury vinyl plank floors, consider creating a more curated look. This look can take on a similar feel as the tree variety you find in a forest. Thinking along this woodsy theme, consider how many different trees of multiple colors and tones exist alongside each other in their natural habitat. You can recreate this palette through your own wood furnishings using light wood seating, for example. Add white walls and lots of green foliage as part of your forested theme.

Rich Wall Colors with a Patterned Low-Pile Rug

If bright colors are your favorite style, go with a richly pigmented hue on your walls. Select a patterned flat-weave rug, such as a stylish kilim, to marry the dark wood floors to your brighter walls. Through this type of combination, you can create an upbeat yet relaxing space.

Dark Floor Coverings with Light Walls

Light walls, white ceiling and dark wood floors can form a foundation for more creative use of color in patterned rugs. If this is your style choice, consider narrowing your wall color choices from almost-white pastels to stark white.

White Marble, White Surfaces, Bronze and Wood

Many homeowners today are choosing dark wood floors or luxury vinyl plank floors for their kitchen. If you make this choice, consider infusing some light by painting walls white and installing white cabinets with white marble or stone counter surfaces. Integrate bronze drawer pulls and hardware. Throughout the space, add subtle wood accents only a couple of tones lighter than your flooring.

Bright Colors with White

If you want a fresh, crisp look, use a bright hue on your accent walls. A modern choice is celery green, but any color can work. To balance the strength of the floor and wall tones, refrain from using other colors in the space. Instead, break up the color with lots of white for rugs, furnishings, accent pieces and surfaces.

Urban Layered Textures and Muddy Hues

The urban look is very chic and modern, particularly for city dwellings. For your urban space, integrate multiple textures as layers. Good options include leather, velvet, metal and hide for pillows, accessories, throws and decorative accents. Work with a color palette of sage, taupe or gray for these pieces and your walls. Choose dark wood and steel furnishings to complete the city-chic theme.

Install or Refinish Your Own Dark Wood Floors

Are you ready for a change in your Raleigh, North Carolina area living space or commercial property? Perhaps installing hardwood flooring or luxury vinyl plank floors will add the modern sophistication you seek.

Tri Point Flooring has provided customers with hardwood flooring installation and refinishing services for years. We would love to add you to our customer family! Our service areas include Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Cary and Apex. Call us today for a free in-home estimate at (919) 771-7542.

As energy prices keep rising throughout the Cary, NC area, we all need to find ways to improve our home’s energy efficiency. Having wood floors certainly helps your home stay clean and allergen-free. But did you know that you can also increase your home’s energy efficiency with wood flooring?

Below are some ways to ensure you get the most out of your home’s energy use with hardwood floors. Minding these points, you can keep your bills low and your energy footprint as small as possible.

Draft-Proof Your Wood Floors to Increase Your Home’s Energy Efficiency

Through draft-proofing alone, you can save a bundle in energy costs. In and around your home, you need to draft proof your doors, windows and chimneys. But to increase your home’s energy efficiency with wood flooring, also check your skirting boards.

Start in one room of your house and follow the skirting boards around the perimeter, before moving onto another room. In these boards, look for gaps and fill those. Replace old skirting with new where needed. By doing so, you reduce heat loss and keep your feet warmer during a damp North Carolina winter.

Replacing all of the skirting boards in one average-sized home can cost several hundred dollars. But this simple fix saves you up to $40 in annual energy costs.

Fill Gaps in Your Wood Floors

If you have original hardwood floors, as many Triangle Area homes do, you probably have some gaps in them, too. Good wood flooring starts at the subfloor, where you need adequate insulation. Then on top of that subfloor, you need solid hardwoods free of gaps between planks or other holes. But many homes of yesteryear have no subflooring. Even worse, their hardwoods feature many gaps and holes.

If you have old hardwoods, call in hardwood refinishing experts to inspect these surfaces and assess their quality. Your best bet for old floors is either refinishing or placement of new hardwood flooring using modern products and techniques. If your newer flooring expanded or contracted and formed gaps or buckles, have the installers return to fix these issues. One way or the other, this attention to filling gaps in your hardwoods certainly helps in home energy efficiency.

After fixing these gaps and holes, you can increase your home’s energy efficiency with wood flooring by another $40 to $60 in savings per year. You also greatly reduce the drafts that send a chill that starts at your toes and runs up your spine.

Increase Your Home’s Energy Efficiency with Wood Flooring…….Insulate, Insulate, Insulate!

By insulating beneath these surfaces, you significantly increase your home’s energy efficiency with wood flooring. For a suspended wooden floor, this means lifting the floor and placing netting between joists to hold mineral wool insulation. But when laying a new floor, you simply ensure the installer places a layer of insulation over the subfloor.

There is an exception to insulation, when wanting to increase your home’s energy efficiency with wood flooring. That is, when installing flooring at a second level above a heated room. In multi-story dwellings, take advantage of rising heat and let that warm air penetrate through the wood. When flooring a level above unheated spaces like garages, you need insulation to keep the cold from penetrating your higher levels.

Insulating can increase your home’s energy efficiency with wood flooring by between $40 and $105 per year.

An Under-Floor Heating System Keeps You Cozy

A great way to keep your home cozy in the coldest of North Carolina winters is through installation of an under-floor heating system. This system helps reduce your heating bills by stopping the chill that starts at your toes.

Under-floor heating requires installation of the right type of wood flooring above it. So, you should turn to the experts for this installation. Your best option is engineered wood flooring that can handle extreme moisture and temperature changes. Using natural hardwoods over this heat leads to buckling, warping and cupping.

You cannot place a dollar value on the comfort you gain with under-floor heating. But you can expect to save another $50 to $90 per year through lower heating bills.

Your Cary, NC Experts in Hardwood Flooring

When you want to increase your home’s energy efficiency with wood flooring, turn to the experts of the Triangle Area, at Tri Point Flooring in Cary, NC. We provide an onsite inspection of your existing floors and a consultation for the best means of increasing your home’s value while nudging your energy costs down.

Get your questions answered and obtain a free quote today by calling Tri Point Flooring at (919)771-7542

Have you ever looked at your floor and wondered if it is time to replace your hardwood? Sure, it has been a while, but what signs should you look for to give you clarity on whether or not you need a new hardwood floor?

Here the signs we recommend you keep an eye out for in your home:

Lots of scratches

If your floor is suffering from nicks and dings from years of wear, then it could be time to refinish or replace the floor. Hardwood tends to be easier to scratch, so a couple of small scratches are likely to happen, but anything more than that should be a major indicator that it is time to consider a new or refinished floor.

Some boards are turning grey

If any of your hardwood floor boards have started to turn grey, (unless the floor was originally grey!) you may want to consider replacing your existing wood floor with a new one. The boards turning grey or discoloring in that fashion means that they have been worn down enough to start to lose their color, and that hardwood is at the end of its lifespan.

Some boards have already turned black

Like the last item on this list, a board turning black means it is absolutely, 100 percent, without a doubt time to replace your hardwood floor. The board turning black is like a worse version of it turning grey, meaning it was time to replace the floor some time ago, but it was not done. Time to rectify that and replace the hardwood floor!

Water (or moisture) damage

If you have any kind of water damage to your hardwood floor, it may be time to refinish or outright place it. Water damage is horrible for the hardwood, causing it to peel and sometimes even crack, but it is much worse for the people in the house. Also, the water damage can allow mold to grow and release spores into the air, making anyone living in the house sick. If this is you, be sure to replace the boards right away!

If you do see any of these signs, or just decide you need a new, fresh look, call Tri Point Flooring today! We are the industry leader in low prices, and we offer a 1 year warranty and satisfaction guarantee on our work! Call us today for a free consultation.

Call Us Today at (919) 771-7542 to Schedule Your FREE In-Home Estimate.

Serving The Greater Areas of the triangle like Raleigh, Cary & Apex.