Recycling Can Give Your Floor Unique Visual Patterns

The increase in consumer demand for environmentally friendly building materials has in turn caused a spike in manufacturers offering recycled hardwood floors. There are even a select few manufacturers that reclaim hardwood from the bottoms of lakes and rivers, which will certainly bring unique designs. While reclaimed hardwood offers a nearly infinite array of visuals, it has the unfortunate potential to offer a nearly infinite array of undesirable pests and safety hazards, as some recycled wood used for flooring has remained undisturbed for several decades and in some cases centuries. Termites, nails, buckshot, and lead paint are all potential problems with reused wood flooring, so it is important to shop around and do your research before you decide on any specific product.

Recycled Hardwood Floors Come From Many Different Sources.

Many hardwood flooring manufacturers use wood planks from old barns, churches, other demolished buildings, dilapidated docks, wine barrels, and even shipwrecks. If the manufacturer is reputable, the planks will be inspected, processed, and kiln-dried to make the finished product safe, pest-free, and suitable for consumer use. No one wants to install a beautifully reclaimed wood floor only to end up having to get a tetanus booster due to an undetected rusty nail, so don’t automatically go with the lowest price. As we’ve said many times before, if something appears too good to be true, then it probably is.

Sometimes determining where to buy reclaimed wood can be tricky; not all retailers carry these products, and many manufacturers of reused wood flooring only sell directly to the consumer. The reason for this difficulty is that while reclaimed wood is rising in popularity, it is still a niche market. This seems to be changing, however, as eco-friendly wood flooring materials are more widely available than they were in the past. While hardwood is not normally seen as a Green product, the emergence of recycled wood flooring is changing preconceived notions about floors made from timber and the perceived notorious deforestation that goes along with it. Deforestation remains an endemic problem, but the rate of disappearing forests has been reduced significantly thanks to vertically integrated production, harvesting from managed forests, and replanting.

What Are The Benefits Of Having Recycled Hardwood Floors?

The benefit to recycled hardwood floors is their inherent durability, as these woods were originally harvested from massive old-growth forests; this is evident by their performance on the Janka hardness test, in many cases surpassing hardness of modern-day virgin woods. West Branch Heritage Timber offers some of the most unique reclaimed hardwood flooring on the market. As the Penobscot River used to be a major route for hauling timber in New England, much of that wood never made it to its final destination, instead sinking to the bottom of the riverbed. The company has decided to extract this timber and turn it into a usable flooring product with stunning visuals and grains that are impossible to get anywhere else.

Recycled Hardwood Floors Are Trending In 2022

The look of recycled hardwood floors has increased in popularity so much that even other products such as laminate, vinyl, and traditional hardwood are beginning to imitate these aesthetics. The Quiet Cover line offered by Shaw Commercial Luxury Vinyl has a reclaimed style option with a unique weatherworn look. Pergo laminate also has three reclaimed wood-look styles in its popular Elegant Expressions Designer Series. The laminate manufacturer Quick-Step has even gone so far as to name one of its collections Reclaime, a testament to the popularity of reclaimed oak hardwood.

Hand-scraped appearances and timeworn aesthetics have gained popularity within the realm of shabby-chic design, and reclaimed hardwood is catching on to bring even more design ideas to homeowners. With so much wood available for reuse as a natural resource, it will be interesting to see a steady increase in manufacturers that offer reclaimed wood as a high-end product. Hopefully, this trend will dispel common myths that hardwood flooring is anything but eco-friendly.