Millions of pet owners have hardwood floors that continue to look beautiful. People with pets buy hardwood flooring every day; hardwood flooring and Pets – very common. The Best Hardwood Flooring For Pet Owners – what are your choices? No hardwood floor is invincible, so you may want to take the following information into consideration when it comes to choosing hardwood flooring for your pet-friendly home.
Surface texture
Surface texture can help to hide scratches caused by pets in your home. Handscraped flooring adds warmth and is a popular option. The surface is already textured, so the appearance of scratches and dents is minimized. Reclaimed hardwood flooring also offers the same benefit.
Hardwood color
Lighter stained hardwood flooring tends to camouflage scratches, so they are a lot less noticeable than on a dark stained hardwood floor.
Pre-finished hardwood flooring
When you opt for a prefinished hardwood floor, you’re getting a harder, more durable finish. Most of the major manufacturers of hardwood flooring use an Aluminum Oxide finish. Minuscule flecks of aluminum are inserted into the finish, creating a stronger surface coating. Also, prefinished hardwood is finished under UV lights, hardening the coats of finish even more. This process gives prefinished hardwood flooring an edge in the pet nail scratch department. This may be the best hardwood flooring for pet owners.
Engineered hardwood flooring injected with Acrylic
Some hardwood flooring offers a finish that is injected with Acrylic. This basically means that all those pores you’d find in a standard wear layer of just wood are injected with an acrylic finish. When something heavy (think big dog bones) is dropped on the hardwood floor, a dent occurs because these natural pores of the wood are simply filled with air. When the pores are filled, as with the Acrylic injected engineered hardwood flooring, there’s no room in the pores for movement, so dents from your lovely pets’ toys/bones are greatly minimized. Due to its Acrylic finish, this may be The Best Hardwood Flooring For Pet Owners.
Hardwood species
Different wood species used in the production of hardwood flooring offer different hardnesses. There are soft wood species, like American Cherry. At the other end of the spectrum, there are incredibly hard wood species, like Brazilian Walnut. The hard wood species may be the best hardwood flooring for pet owners.
The hardness of a wood species will determine how drastic a dent will be if something hits the surface of the wood, and how much scratching (pet toenails) will affect the surface. The Janka Hardness Rating ranks the hardness of wood species. Natural Maple offers both a beneficial light color (as mentioned previously) and the hardness needed (1450 Janka Rating) to stand up to your pets’ wear and tear. Another light colored hardwood species you may want to consider is Hickory.
Take a look at the large selection of pet-friendly hardwood flooring at Just Around The Corner. The flooring professionals can guide you through their large selection of pet-friendly hardwood flooring options.
