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Considering a wide plank engineered birch wood floor for our home. They would be everywhere in the home. No carpet. There will be tile in bathrooms and laundry room. Curious if anyone has any experience with Birch? We have had engineered Hickory (loved it) and sight finished oak currently (hate it). We have a 50# dog. The color we want isn't available (builder) in anything but birch, but I'm a bit nervous about its wear. It does have aluminum oxide which our hickory had and I know helps with wear. We were told it has a good wear rating. I'm needing more info than that ! Anyone with this type of floor?
Google “Janka Scale”, and go from there. You’ll find the hardness rating of just about every wood species known to mankind. For a comparison, red oak is in the 1250 range on the scale.
The hardness (Janka scale) will give you hardness of the wood- think compression.
A factory baked-on finish with aluminum oxide is definitely a better wearing surface than site-finished flooring- once the finish is compromised your wear is only dependent on the hardness of the wood.
As for the dog- doggie pedicures will greatly reduce scratches on the finish. It weight has no bearing (pun intended).
K', wouldn't the hardness factor also help though for dents and items of that nature? Like someone dropping a fork or a kid deciding to see if the bat-mobile really can fly off the second floor balcony?
Certainly agree on the finish aspect! To give a little context for expectations (one example), our floor is 17 years old, site-finished and nothing has been done since. The high traffic areas (mainly the kitchen by the back door) is worn out, but nearly all of the other areas are in decent to great shape. Previous owner (original owner) raised two kids in the home, and always had two dogs of medium size. And, they didn't exactly win any gold stars for maintenance....
K', wouldn't the hardness factor also help though for dents and items of that nature? Like someone dropping a fork or a kid deciding to see if the bat-mobile really can fly off the second floor balcony?
Yes. But a fork; really?
The Batmobile? I will leave that to parenting.
As for the dog- doggie pedicures will greatly reduce scratches on the finish.
Also, be sure to keep the fur between their foot pads trimmed short. When there's too much fur between their pads, it causes them to slip, so they instinctively use their claws to steady themselves, causing scrathes on the floor.
PS - Glossy, slick finishes are not good for a dog's hips.
The issue I had when looking up the Janka rating is I found there are 2-3 different types of Birch. The flooring just specifies birch and not the type of birch. Each type seems to vary a lot on the Janka Scale.
Hardness of the veneer is not important for engineered floor.
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