When I was given this assignment, I cringed. Frequently we see someone asking on social media, “what is the best (whatever) in (wherever)? Then we see lots of people telling where the “best” can be found. Unless we have been to all of the establishments that offer that service, how can we know what is the best? Instead, what we are reading is about a good experience they had.
Prefinished Solid Wood Flooring
In the prefinished hardwood flooring game there is no one company that is the best at everything, just like there is no best restaurant. Why do my analogies always run to food? No idea. Today we will talk about several different segments of the wood flooring market, and which company excels in that area, including both solid wood and engineered wood flooring.
The prefinished hardwood flooring market is quite a diverse group of products. While we can quickly divide them all into two major groups, solid and engineered, we can further break them down into species, widths, even types of construction. Because hardwood lumber is a commodity, almost all of the different flooring manufacturers start with the same raw material. It is what they do with that lumber that decides what they will be great at.
Imagine this…. Manufacturer A saws his raw wood slabs of Red Oak flooring planks, then has it milled into the highest grade of flooring possible. The result will be a large percentage in 2 ¼ and 3 ¼ inch wide strip oak flooring. This is because the wider that you mill a board, the more likely it is that the face of the board will include a natural defect that will cause the grading to go down.
Another Brand Is Chasing A Different Hardwood Market
Next, Manufacturer B wants all of the 5” that they can get. Because of that targeted yield they will have a huge amount of #1 Common flooring instead of the Select and Better that Manufacturer A received from their logs. Why do the flooring manufacturers have such different targets?
It is all about the market for that manufacturer at that particular time. If B has a big account that wants 5” wide stained hand scraped Oak hardwood flooring then that lower grade will not matter, because the staining and scraping process will minimize any natural defects that caused the board to be downgraded to begin with. Because more open grading rules allow longer boards, this wide plank flooring product is going to be perfect for a more rustic floor installation. Thus, Manufacturer B is going to be the best place to buy wide plank stained flooring.
What about Manufacturer A? What are they best at? A is going after the higher end Oak market. Their inventory will be sold mostly through distributors and specialty flooring stores. These stores will be more service-oriented, offering estimates, installation, and even help with interior design. With the different stains and widths, that Oak will become maybe 30 different products. In this scenario the higher grade of flooring, as well as a range of available colors and finishes, will be represented in a large display in the retailer’s showroom.
As you can see, these are 2 very different scenarios. But just 2. There are many more opportunities for a company to be the best at one segment of the market.
Partnering With Different Floor Brands
Recently our partners at AHF called me. While you might not have heard of AHF, they own Bruce, Armstrong, Hartco, Robbins, and many more floor brands that are sold around the world every day, and have to be considered the top brand of wood floors right now.
AHF called because they needed some help. They had made a deal with a large box store to sell them huge amounts of a 5” solid Hickory hardwood floor in several different stain colors. So now AHF is trying to make all of the #1 Common and Better 5” solid Hickory that they can produce. But good intentions can only go so far, and they have to accept that the production will include some 2 ¼ and 3 ¼ stock, as well as some #2 Common 5 inch width. No matter how good of a deal you made on the 5” plank that the box store is buying, they still have to move the other lumber. So they brought that to us here at ReallyCheapFloors.com, asking if we could do anything with it.
How To Save Money On Prefinished Hardwood
Are you familiar with the definition of Fair Market Value? FMV is an agreed to price between a seller that does not have to sell and a buyer that does not have to buy.
AHF has to sell that flooring, so we did not pay fair market price for it.
And because our deal requires that we move huge amounts of it, we have become a seller that has to sell. That means we are not selling it at a Fair Market Value.
If it sounds like I am talking a lot of hooey, take a moment to search online for a prefinished hickory hardwood floor.
Home Depot offers a Bruce 3 ¼ Hickory for $6.29 sq ft.
Panel Town is at $8.39 for a similar Hartco product.
Hurst Hardwood sells a Character grade (Cabin) for $5.39.
ReallyCheapFloors 3 1/4 American Hickory? $2.99 sq ft. Huge difference! And ours is made by Bruce, and is first quality. How can there be such a big difference? Surely the other stores have a better product? Nope. The grading is the same for the first 2, and better than the Hurst product.
You can see our American Home products below, as well as the new handscraped offerings that we have added. Because AHF has a deal to sell large amounts of 5” solid Hickory to one account, we are able to say with confidence that AHF, and ReallyCheapFloors.com are the best place to buy solid Hickory hardwood floors anywhere in the USA.
That’s just one product, and one manufacturer. Others excel at different product lines.
Engineered Wood Flooring
We haven’t talked about engineered hardwood flooring at all, but engineered floors represent half of the hardwood footage that we sell each month.
The engineered market is different in that grading of the raw material does not make as big of a difference. Instead, construction is the bigger issue.
In years past the vast majority of engineered hardwood flooring was offered in one of two thicknesses: ⅜ inch, or ½. While there were other thicknesses marketed by smaller companies, these two represented almost all of the business.
The ⅜” inventory was made to be cheap, as it was targeting the builder/multi-family market. Because price was so important there were no high-quality ⅜ inch floors offered. Then, with the popularity of LVP (luxury vinyl plank) at a similar price point, the ⅜ market was not very profitable. At this time, as far as I know, there are only 2 domestic players that offer this product, AHF and Mullican.
The ½ inch products, however, were all over the place. Most of the large players in the engineered hardwood flooring business offered a lower-quality ½ for the builder business as well as a higher-end product for their distributors.
By the way, in case you have not noticed, distributors and specialty retailers will almost always have better quality products than the box stores. This is because the boxes are only concerned with price, and will give up any specification to get the lowest price.
Specialty retailers, especially the mom-n-pops that have been around so long, prefer selling products that make their customers happy. That manager from Home Depot doesn’t have to worry about an unhappy customer confronting them during dinner at the Barrett House. We hometown dealers do!
Somerset Hardwood Flooring was the exception in the engineered business, as they dedicated all of their efforts to making the finest hardwood food that they could make. Their 8 ply hardwood core was head and shoulders above most all of their competitors, and we loved selling their Cabin and Builder grade floors for less than our competitors could sell a ⅜ floor.
Sadly,the hostilities in Ukraine and Russia have interrupted Somerset’s supply chain for the high-quality core, and they have had to change suppliers. While the new core is still better than most it is only a 6 ply and will not have the stability of the previous core.
The Largest Selection of Engineered Hardwood
The best manufacturer of engineered flooring right now, based on selection, would be AHF. With their wide-ranging brands offered they are competitive if not dominant in almost every segment of the market. With styles representing practically every species, construction, thickness, and color, AHF will have the engineered product that you are looking for. Like the man said: They are winning.
Best Hardwood Deals
At ReallyCheapFloors.com we primarily offer products from the three largest players in the industry, as they work closely with us to move their promotional goods. With one manufacturer we may handle all of their Cabin grade, while another may send us mostly overstocks or returns. Each supplier has its own strengths, and we are proud to consider each of them as friends.
So which manufacturer is the best at hardwood flooring? It depends on what you are looking to purchase for your home. Why don’t you give us a call and let us help you find the perfect hardwood or LVP floor for your home.
