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Flooring GradesUnderstanding NOFMA Graded Solid & Engineered FlooringBuyers Beware! If the flooring that you are thinking about purchasing is not graded according to NOFMA standards, then the claimed "grades" are meaningless unless otherwise spelled out in exact terms. NOFMA is the acronym for National Oak Flooring Manufacturers Association (along with the MMA, Maple Manufacturers Association and the NWFA, National Wood Flooring Association). These people have defined a set of appearance grades for wood flooring which most US manufacturers adhere to. NOFMA graded flooring is basically a commodity. If you are careful, and compare "apples to apples", you could purchase your NOFMA graded flooring from the lowest cost supplier. There is a catch, if the flooring you are buying has been sitting in inventory in a warehouse of unknown or uncontrolled humidity, the individual boards may have changed dimension since they were originally produced to NOFMA's standards. Here are a few common problems associated with "stored" flooring. Width change, tongue into groove change and acclimation to the wrong moisture content. I'll explain these and more problems below. Our NOFMA graded flooring comes to you direct from the manufacturing mill and has not been stored under any conditions for more than 3 weeks (at the mill and under climate controls to maintain the NOFMA graded moisture content). This is why you should not purchase your flooring from any distributor whose warehouse is not air conditioned and humidity controlled. I know of no box stores/builders marts whose warehouses are climate controlled. When purchasing Standard (NOFMA) Graded Flooring (either solid or engineered), there are many factors that influence the final price/quality of your floor. You need to understand the following terms and grades in order to be sure of what it is that you are paying for. These terms are: Grades (best to worst):
Grain Angle: Remember, the grain angle is directly associated with expansion across the width of a board, thus effecting the stability of your entire floor. Also, the grain angle defines the visual pattern that the lines of the grain have as they move across the width and length of a board. These grain angles are:
Board Lengths: NOFMA specifies the minimum length and the average length of these Standard Grades of flooring. Beware! Standard Lengths typically have minimum lengths as short as 12" long with the average board length of your order being only 3.25' (Imagine how bad a 6" wide plank floor would look if your contract specified "standard lengths" and your living room floor was filled with a bunch of 12" long boards, "let the buyer beware"). We offer the following Length Selections:
Widths of Flooring: This critical issue is where most people go wrong. The best way to explain this issue is that a room of wood flooring, say 20' wide, will expand a certain amount across the width of the floor during the damp season of the year. Let's pretend that this expansion (from winter dry to fall dampness) totals 2". Now let's further this example by comparing the use of 2", 4" and 6" wide flooring.
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For answers to your questions, or for prices, please contact Kent at
Our propriatary products, Veneer Grade & Vertical Grain engineered flooring, exceed the highest NOFMA clear grade due to the extremely high quality veneer grade logs used in our production. Also, our products are "custom built" for your job. We have no inventory of finished product, sitting around changing dimensions. |
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